Verdict: A gorgeous laptop, but rubbish for gaming.

Of all the expensive, premium laptops on test, perhaps only the Sony VAIO VGN-AR41S would catch the eye of a Savile Row-attired business executive. The smooth, plain black finish of the VAIO and its clean silver base exude quality, while the bluish backlit Sony logo underneath the screen is a world away from the shout-out gimmicks of the Asus G2S. The modem and LAN ports are also shielded by small plastic covers, lest anyone should take offence at the ghastly holes in the side of your laptop when they're not in use.

At only £1 short of £2,000, the VGN-AR41S is easily the most expensive laptop in this month's Labs test, and sits smugly at the top of Sony's VAIO range. However, unlike the similarly expensive Alienware, you shouldn't expect to be blown away by the VAIO's raw gaming specs.

The VAIO's 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 processor is 330MHz slower than the T7600 found in the much cheaper Rock CTX Pro, while the GeForce 8600M GT GPU in the VAIO leans towards games such as The Sims 2 or Civilization 4, rather than Unreal 3. The Alienware may be equipped with a GPU with an older 7-series name, but the GeForce Go 7950 GTX is still the most powerful GPU available for laptops.

The money isn't just expended on the Sony badge, however. Chief among the VAIO's impressive features is its 1,920 x 1,200 screen, which is stunningly sharp and vibrant. Some people may feel that the glossy X-black finish makes images look overly saturated, but most will appreciate the starkness of blacks and richness of colour it brings to most scenes. Films and games look gorgeous on the VAIO, especially when combined with the graphical glossiness of Vista Home Premium. When turned off, the screen displays a purple tint, which certainly helps to keep obtrusive reflections at bay. Put simply, it's the best screen we've seen in a laptop.

To ensure that the millions of pixels aren't going to waste, the VAIO - not surprisingly for a Sony product - sports a Blu-ray, rather than DVD or HD-DVD, optical drive, which accounts for a sizable chunk of the price tag. This allows for watching a high-resolution, widescreen Eva Green in 'Casino Royale' on the train, which is bound to turn heads and make people jealous, in addition to keeping you entertained till the end of your journey. If you don't want to watch one of the six Blu-ray movies available in the UK then the VAIO also has a combined analogue/digital TV tuner, and there's ample space to store recorded programmes, thanks to the massive 320GB, 5,400rpm hard disk. There's even a Media Center remote control in the box.

Reverse snobbery aside, the polished design of the VAIO alone almost justifies the laptop's expense. The keyboard, crucially, is precise and responsive. Pressing the NumLock key effectively converts a portion of the standard keyboard into a numberpad, thus leaving space for luxuries such as a full-sized Enter key. As well as a near-perfect keyboard, you won't find any fiddly, confusing features, such as the all-in-one media control of the Toshiba; all of the Sony's buttons are easy to use and have clear, no-nonsense labelling. The volume and eject buttons are located to the left of the keyboard, while the rest of the media controls have been placed above the keyboard.

When it comes to plugging in peripherals, the VAIO could use more USB 2 ports. Two USB ports are located on the right with only one extra port around the back, so you could easily run out of sockets if you use a USB mouse and own a phone that spends most of its life hooked up to your laptop. However, it's hard to complain about connectivity when you have both Bluetooth and integrated WiFi.

The VAIO supports both PC Card and ExpressCard formats, although there's little need for a separate sound card, since the VAIO has a 3.5mm mini-jack optical S/PDIF output located next to the microphone and headphone sockets. This is perfect for hooking up home cinema speakers to obtain the most from the sumptuous screen and on-board 8-channel surround sound. There's even an HDMI 2.1 port for hooking up a bigger (probably Sony Bravia) HDTV.

The VAIO is undeniably a desirable laptop, which gets it right in almost every area, bar the most crucial for a gaming laptop: it can't play modern games. If you like the idea of a professional-looking yet powerful laptop, the Rock CTX Pro, which is much better suited to playing games, though less sophisticated, offers a similar package to the VAIO for almost £500 less. Still, it's hard to dismiss the VAIO.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Intel DG45FC - Motherboards
• Intel X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD - Hard disks / storage
• OCZ Core Series 30GB - Hard disks / storage
• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games