Dynabook Tecra A50-J-11X

A 15in workhorse business laptop that places the emphasis on value rather than finesse

- TIM DANTON

PRICE £695 (£834 inc VAT) from ballicom.co.uk

In the past couple of years we've seen the gap between Dynabook's ultraportable Portégé range and its more functional Tecra series grow narrower, but the A50-J-11X is a return to the old days. Not that it's boxy or heavy - at 19.9mm thick and 1.7kg, it's hardly in Tyson Fury territory - but with a chassis that stretches 358mm across you'll need a larger bag to accommodate it on trips.

This Tecra A50 would still make a fine travelling companion. It lasted almost 11 hours in our battery tests (two hours more than Dynabook quotes), and the chassis feels built to last. It's made of ABS polymer rather than metal, but you'd struggle to notice this, with not a hint of flex on the main chassis, and Dynabook claims that it passes a series of MILSTD-810H tests. Still, we'd extend the single year's C&R warranty to three years of on-site cover, which costs £89 exc VAT via Ballicom.

The anti-spill keyboard protects against that most common of accidents, but I have mixed feelings about its design. On the positive side, it has a crisp action that I enjoyed typing on. The backlight is an effective if basic on/off affair, and the main keys are a good size and easy to hit. The big question is whether you'll use the number pad enough to justify the space it takes; for example, the cursor keys are half-height and a couple of less important keys are trimmed in width, too.