Although robust, the chassis encasing ACI's Matrix 1500 doesn't look anything special with a rather mundane grey and silver livery.

The keyboard has decent-sized and well-spaced keys, but they feel a little spongy during typing.

Stereo speakers sit either side of the keyboard provide adequate audio - headphone and line-in sockets are located at the front of the chassis.

A 1.3-megpixel camera is embedded into the top of the monitor's bezel and is accompanied by a built-in microphone - perfect for impromptu video calls (should you ever make any).

ACI has gone for a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 to power the Matrix 1500. It's one of Intel's fastest notebook processors, although both the T7400 (2.16GHz) and T7600 (2.33GHz) models both surpass it in terms of raw power.

ACI certainly hasn't short-changed the processor when it comes to Ram, with a sizeable 2GB of DDR2 667MHz installed as standard.

The 15.4in widescreen TFT is great for watching movies on thanks to its glossy coating. Clarity is soon lost if the screen isn't tilted to the correct angle, but horizontal viewing angles are better.

Graphics are handled by an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of Ram. Although you'll find the latest games struggle to achieve playable fps (frames per second) counts at the highest detail settings, its 3Dmark05 score of 3,358 at the notebook's native resolution of 1,280x800 indicates it will cope with less demanding games with detail levels turned down.

Battery life is a bit of an issue for this notebook. In our Mobilemark 05 test it managed just one hour 22 minutes in the DVD playback test. In the Productivity test, which simulates typical usage, this increased by just six minutes.

At 3kg it's not really the kind of notebook you'd want to carry around with you all day, so battery life isn't perhaps such an issue, but there are plenty of situations around the home where you might prefer to be totally wireless (browsing the web from your sofa, for example).

A 100GB hard drive provides ample storage space and, unlike most notebook drives, it's a 7,200rpm model as opposed to slower 5,400rpm versions. Other features include Wifi, a PCI Express slot and an SD/MMC card reader, but you won't find Bluetooth connectivity.

Although Windows Vista has now hit the shelves, ACI ships XP Professional with the Matrix 1500. An upgrade voucher for Windows Vista Home Premium is included, but if you're looking to get started with Vista straight away it's not an ideal situation - you're left with the hassle of sending off the voucher and then upgrading to Vista yourself.

We asked ACI whether customers could opt to have Vista pre-installed and were told it's planning to offer this service soon. But, with various driver issues surrounding Vista, you might be glad of the opportunity to stick with XP for a few more months.

There's plenty to like about the ACI Matrix 1500. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor is certainly no slouch, as the PCmark05 score of 4,572 demonstrates, while Vista (should you upgrade) will benefit from the 2GB of Ram. Battery life will disappoint some though and we expected it to be a cheaper than the £1,198.50 asking price - similar specification notebooks are available for a fair bit cheaper if you shop around.

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