For power-hungry desktop computer users, the thought of buying a laptop might seem a bit strange, or even wrong. But when capable and compact machines like this MSI Mega Book M677 come from nowhere and put in a desktoprivalling performance, it makes you think twice about the acres of space that are currently being occupied in your spare by a lumbering PC.

It’s not some elaborate trick either; the M677 hasn’t been sprinkled with magic dust or anything, it’s just got plenty of meat on its bones. There’s a dual-core AMD Turion 1.8GHz processor for starters, 1GB of DDR2 memory and a 256MB GeForce 7600 Go graphics card. The combination of the three gives the M677 a Windows Experience Index of 4.4 in Vista, impressive for a lightweight laptop.

Impressive visuals

The M677 has been labelled as Vistacapable, and looking at these stats we’ve no reason to argue. With the Ultimate version of Vista installed, the M677 performed almost flawlessly. It wasn’t without its problems though. Neither the audio or graphics drivers were up to scratch and needed upgrading. However, given that we’ve now come across the same kind of problem on just about every machine running a pre-release public version of the operating system, we can’t fairly judge it until the public version is released.

Physically, the M677 looks expensive, at least from the outside, but with the screen flicked open, it’s a different story – everything looks a bit clumsy. The trackpad has been offset to the left, which admittedly isn’t the end of the world, especially if you’re not big on symmetry, but because it can’t be turned off, you’ll end up triggering it half way through typing a document. Trust us, you’ll discover a whole new kind of anger once you’ve moved your cursor for the tenth time. But at a shade over £800, you’ve got to expect a few cosmetic mistakes as corners are cut.

The 15.4in WXGA screen thankfully isn’t one of these. With Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and Children of Men in the DVD tray, we were impressed, and things got even better when a trailer for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was played in high definition 720p. The screen did exhibit a small amount of ghosting when put through its paces, and there was some glare from the daylight, but it didn’t put us off, and the integrated 1.3-megapixel camera is a welcome addition if you need it.

With a 3DMark06 score of 3,508, the M677 has admirable gaming prowess too. The GeForce 7600 didn’t cope well with F.E.A.R’s frustratingly high system demands – not many cards do – and it had to be scaled right down in order to run smoothly. Quake 4 was a different matter altogether, though, and even with the visuals turned up, it ran like a champ. Even the recently released Rainbow Six Vegas put on a good show, although the settings needed to be turned down a touch to take into account the gorgeous visuals on offer.

Disappointing audios

One area where the M677 falls down is in its audio, or lack of it. The stereo speakers are completely out of their depth in anything but most the uncomplicated soundtracks, and at higher volume their shrill output does nothing more than punish your ears. This is a real disappointment because they’re allied to a superb Realtek High Definition sound card, so the potential is there. But to get the best out of it, a pair of headphones or some external speakers are a must.

The M677’s 5,400rpm hard drive might not seem particularly impressive on paper, but loading times are reasonably short, and typical computing tasks are dealt with swiftly. 120GB of disk space doesn’t hurt either, and it puts MSI’s notebook on par with other more expensive machines.

Great value for money

If we were to highlight the M677’s one real shortcoming – and for a portable an important one – it would be the machine’s battery life, which at around two and a half hours is distinctly average, especially given that the 7,200mAh battery is a pretty hefty affair. You can bet your bottom dollar that this is in part due to Vista’s demanding architecture; in Windows XP, the M677 allegedly manages around three hours of battery.

MSI has done a great job of getting a machine onto the market with this spec and performance for so little money, and you won’t be disappointed. If you really want to, you can stump up the cash for Rock’s Pegasus 655, which is marginally better, but you would be £175 worse off as a result.