Don't be fooled by the name; the NEC Versa Premium is a very affordable notebook; in fact it's the least expensive of the group. The low price isn't reflected in the build quality which, although not topdrawer, doesn't let the machine down right from the outset. The lid is plastic, which means couple care will be necessary to avoid damage to the screen during transport, but apart from that the NEC Versa Premium passes muster.

The design is typical three-spindle, with all drives fixed in place, so you can't just whip out the supplied 8-speed DVD-ROM and slap in a CDRW as the fancy takes you. You can fiddle about with the graphics memory though, since it is borrowed from the 128MB of main system memory. This approach, sometimes called SMA for shared memory architecture, is cheaper to make but graphics performance even in 2D mode is never very impressive.

The NEC Versa Premium comes equipped with the standard-issue XGA resolution 14.1inch screen which is exactly what you'd expect, and we had no complaints about it since it avoided the common pitfall of being too dull.

The keyboard stands comparison with the one on the Sony Vaio, also reviewed here, in that it is reasonably spacious, makes use of large keys where they are an asset, and follows a fairly logical layout.

You get a full set of ports with this machine, so if you need parallel or serial as well as USB you won't be disappointed. There were couple omissions though, namely the lack of a networking adapter and no provision for using a port replicator. Either of the two PC Card slots will cure the absence of a LAN adapter, but the port replicator problem is more intractable if it's something you want.

Given the price, the 1GHz Pentium III and 20GB hard disk seem reasonable choices, but the use of a Flip Chip processor means a noisy cooling fan and soso battery life of about 1 hour 45 minutes. Still, the NEC Versa Premium is not bad value at all for £899.

NEC - Versa Premium price

£899.00 + VAT

NEC: 0870 010 6322