A decent desktop replacement with excellent 3D performance for the price

An affordable media laptop, offering a great blend of performance and HD features

A great laptop for the home office, with high-speed Wi-Fi and ample performance

Not the most exciting CULV laptop but offers portability and a great battery life

Style, quality and comfort on offer from this compact laptop

Affordable, sturdy and reliable with great usability, but features are limited

A terrific mix of style, power and portability from this 13.3-inch laptop

Has Toshiba struck a balance between laptop performance and budget?

Toshiba was the first company to release a laptop over 20 years ago and has built its reputation on supplying corporate machines. However, it is increasingly offering consumer-focused laptops, such as the budget-priced Toshiba Satellite Pro L300-12F (£299 inc. VAT).

Toshiba's Satellite Pro A300D may be one of the cheaper laptops among its peers, but it's far from outclassed.

Toshiba’s comprehensive laptop range covers everything from tiny business ultraportables to huge home media centres. The Satellite U400-108 (£699 inc. VAT) is a compact and well-specified system with a stylish new design scheme for consumer use.

Toshiba’s Satellite A300-177 (£499 inc. VAT) is an affordable laptop aimed at the home user, and beneath the glossy styling you’ll find a host of media-centric features, such as touch-sensitive hotkeys that let you control your CDs and DVDs.

At first glance the Satellite A210-1C0 looks much like any other laptop, but play around with it for a while and you begin to spot its advantages. Like the comfortable trackpad and pleasingly clicky keyboard, including a [Caps Lock] key with a built-in status light.

Although not the slimmest laptop, the Toshiba Portégé R500 (£1350 inc. VAT) is very light. Its great battery life and stylish design impress, and its features and warranty are the icing on the cake. The chassis weighs just 1.1kg and is nearly as light as the new breed of mini-PCs. The main body is sturdy enough for regular travel use. The thin screen panel is very flexible. Strangely, this improves resilience, as it's less prone to cracking under pressure.

The Toshiba Satellite P200-1K9 (£899 inc. VAT) is the most capable multimedia laptop in this group test, alongside the PC Nextday. Where the latter combines high-performance with strong mobility, the Toshiba is less portable, but has improved gaming power.

Toshiba provides a wide range of laptops for both consumers and business users, with the Tecra range aimed at business users. The Tecra A9 (£590 inc. VAT) is its entry-level model with a rather standard feature set.

Toshiba is one of the leading manufacturers of Tablet PCs in this country and has always worked with the clamshell design. This adds a keyboard to a digitised screen that can be rotated 180 degrees letting you fold away the keyboard and use the tablet in slate mode.

Toshiba’s Satellite P200-1EE (£649 inc. VAT) uses the same 17-inch case as the more expensive X200 range. As such, it’s one of the bulkier machines in this group test, but it also has the build quality to shame more expensive laptops.

With a compact and comfortable design, Toshiba's Satellite Pro U300 (£739 inc. VAT) represents excellent value for money. The 13.3-inch screen helps to keep weight to a portable 2.1kg. A resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels means you'll have no trouble viewing two documents side by side, despite the compact display.

Toshiba’s extensive laptop range spans from large desktop replacements to the lightest ultraportables. The Satellite U300-13V (£899 inc. VAT) fits in the middle. It’s a small laptop, but provides power and portability without breaking the bank.

Toshiba offers a wide range of machines, and the Toshiba Equium A210-171 (£480 inc. VAT) is a direct market offering for home users on a budget. It has a standard chassis that is available with a range of specifications.

Looking for a desktop replacement PC? Then a good 17-inch widescreen laptop should be top of your list. This screen size in laptops is dominated by the gaming market and the Toshiba Satellite X200 is aimed squarely at that audience.

The Toshiba Satellite U300-113 (£699 inc. VAT) is very lightweight and ideally suited to use on the move. Delivering strong performance and battery life, as well as excellent usability, it suits home use as much as mobile workers on a budget

Toshiba has a wide range of laptops and its Satellite Pro series is aimed at those users who are likely to want to use their machine either to run a small business or for the home. The Toshiba Satellite Pro A200 (£420 inc. VAT) is the entry-level model, but you'll find this chassis used by a number of far more expensive models too.

Toshiba's Qosmio was the first laptop range to provide more than just mobile computing. These multimedia systems offered to replace your TV, stereo, DVD player and computer. The Qosmio G40 is the latest, and promises to meet all your home entertainment needs