For notebooks with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, clock speeds below 2GHz have until now been the order of the day, certainly at the cheaper end of the market. Most of the faster processors are in the bulkier desktop replacements above the £800 mark.

Coming in a full £100 below that is the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Si 2636, which contains a T8100 processor (clocked at 2.1GHz) and 2GB of Ram. It also has 1GB of Intel’s Turbo Memory.

In our benchmarks, it achieved 4,423 in PCmark05 and 541 in 3Dmark06 – neither is groundbreaking, but indicates it’s more than capable of most office tasks.

There’s no graphics card, only the onboard Intel GMA X3100, so graphics and games performance isn’t up to much, while the screen measures 13.3in with a resolution of 1,280x800. The small display helps keep the notebook’s weight down to just 2.6kg, while the red metallic strip around the sides really makes the Amilo Si 2636 stand out.

It has only two dedicated USB ports, which might be a problem for some, but there’s an eSata socket (doubling as a third USB port) along with an HDMI port (there’s no VGA or DVI connector, nor is an adapter supplied). There’s a memory card reader and mini-Firewire port along with headphone and microphone connections on the front. It also features Bluetooth, 802.11n and a slot-loading DVD writer.

The only real flaw we found was the circular trackpad and buttons, which take some getting used to. The keyboard is also a little shallow, but the design is otherwise impressive. Battery life was acceptable, but nothing special at two hours, 12 minutes.

Despite some minor flaws, Fujitsu Siemens’ Amilo Si 2636 is a good workhorse notebook with a stylish design and a reasonable price.