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It should go without saying that it's a lot easier to bag yourself a bargain laptop these days. It's a point that's come up frequently of late, and one company that has done more than most to drive this along has been Samsung. We've looked at a few of its value efforts recently, including the R700 and its latest configuration of the venerable Q45.

Both struck a particularly nice balance between design and features at prices that were exceedingly attractive. Indeed, if you take a look at the notebook section of our shopping channel, you'll see that the R700 is at the top of popularity list - a place it has held for quite some time. Can Samsung achieve the same with its 15.4in offering, the R60+?

At marginally under £450 inc. VAT and delivery the price is certainly right, but competition in the 15.4in arena is if anything a little more fierce than in the 12.1in or 17in segments. Take, for example, the Dell Inspiron 1525, which hovers over everything menacingly, offering excellent design, customisation and a decent set of features at prices that would make anyone raise an eyebrow. Meanwhile, the 15.4in offerings from manufacturers such as Toshiba, HP and many others are really quite strong, so the R60+ will have to go some way to impress.

Aesthetically the R60+ is typically Samsung, with its glossy black exterior and all black internals giving it that familiar 'id' as seen on its TVs, monitors, MP3 players, printers - pretty much everything really. For the most part this looks good without being as revolutionary as it might look on the TVs, while you will always have to contend with the fingerprints and scratches on the lid. Don't expect your R60+ to look pristine after a year.

One thing Samsung has been strong on, however, is making its larger chassis appreciably thin and portable and the R60+ is no different. With a thickness varying from 31.1mm at the front and 35.8mm at the back it's quite slim for its size, while the 2.68kg weight isn't too bad either.