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While I'm on the subject of watching movies, I'll go back to that "P" button I mentioned earlier. Pressing this button while the machine is powered down will boot you into a small Linux partition running CyberLink PowerCinema. From here you can happily watch DVD movies without having to wait for Windows to load, and without the battery overhead that Windows carries with it. Definitely a good inclusion for a notebook designed to travel everywhere with you.

The keyboard is a decent enough example, although there is a note of flex as you type on it. That said, I was able to achieve a decent typing speed, but it wasn't the almost pleasurable experience that I got when using the IBM ThinkPad X40. Also, the Return key is a little small, while the cursor keys could do with being separated from the main keyboard, rather than being flanked by the PgUp and PgDn keys.

When I first looked at the Mobeus I found that the touchpad was a little erratic to say the least, and unfortunately it hasn't got better with time. Moving the pointer around the screen just isn't as smooth or accurate as it should be. However, what I did find was that you just need to take your time with the touchpad - if you try to move the pointer very quickly, you might find it jumping randomly, but if you apply slightly slower movement, it works pretty well. Of course this still isn't perfect, and realistically, you should be able to move your pointer as fast as you like.

Specification wise, the Mobeus has a 1.6GHz Intel Pentium M CPU driving it along, which makes up half of the Centrino package. The other half is an Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG WiFi adapter that supports 802.11a b and g standards. There's 512MB of memory installed, but 14MB of this has been dedicated to the Intel integrated graphics.

The review unit that I have in front of me is equipped with a 40GB hard disk, but MV has told me that the Mobeus now ships with a 60GB drive at no extra cost. If you want to backup any data on your hard disk, you can use the integrated DVD writer, which will write to DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW, as well as DVD+R Dual Layer discs.

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