The netbook onslaught of the past 18 months has forced a sea change. No longer is small size alone enough of an excuse for a notebook to carry an exorbitantly high price. With some good performance levels and a great screen, plus light weight and ...

Great screen Solid battery life

Mono speaker, poor sound

This machine isn't for multimedia fiends or gamers. But if you need a small computer than can still handle a lot of office work and open programs at once, and if an optical drive is a necessity, then the A605 will serve you well, with outstanding ...

AMD can't catch a break. First to market with a tweener processor (more powerful than a netbook, but cheaper than the usual fare found in ultraportables), its Athlon Neo CPU is now under fire from Intel's new Ultra Low Voltage chip, and one of the ...

What matters in the end, though, is the value. For those who want a larger screen, maybe to watch a couple movies, and also to get some light typing done, this is a more powerful machine than a conventional netbook and will do you just fine. If you've ...

I'm not sure whether "desktop replacement" accurately describes the heft of the Asus W90VP, but I certainly agree with the included warning not to use it on a lap. Slightly more "monster" than "monstrosity," this luggable goes where it wants with a 16 ...

Good game performance Crisp, sizable, 18.4-inch screen

Weak sound Screen glare due to glossy panel

The Asus W90VP matches the typical specs and performance scores of rivals, especially when powering through high-res games with its dual GPUs. Simple, software overclocking makes it a good fit for gamers. But it lacks the jaw-dropping overall ...

Gateway's return to tech prominence is largely due to a series of incredibly cheap gaming laptops sold directly through Best Buy. In fact, one of the earliest models, the P-6831FX (and later the P-172X FX), offered so much bang for the buck that it ...

Good configuration for the price Excellent keyboard

Low-resolution screen Performance is a bit disappointing

The Gateway P-7808u is a very capable desktop replacement, incorporating some high-end hardware for a very reasonable price. But unless you plan to make heavy use of software that specifically engages the quad-core CPU (3D rendering, for example), ...

Yet another notebook trend is on the rise: Laptops that try to straddle the fine line between portable media player and desktop replacement. They sport comparatively large displays (and footprints) with lower price tags than one would assume for the ...

Full-sized, comfortable keyboard Great software suite

Difficult-to-see, low-resolution screen

The backup software suite gets the job done, with the now-standard recovery utilities allowing you to easily create backup images with a minimum of stress. I won't ding Samsung for it, but seeing a driver-level backup option in a future version would ...

HP is giving its business laptops a facelift. The results: The HP ProBook S-series--a budget-minded little brother to the EliteBooks.

So, is this model right for you? Look for a full review as soon as we get a final unit

Dell's luxury notebook, the Adamo, is spunky--I'll give it that. The up-and-comer packs on ports...and takes some not-so-subtle jabs at Apple's MacBook Air. Neither company really positions its ultraslim ultraportable as a high-performance hot rod. ...

Large, sleek and comfortable keyboard Beautiful-looking screen

Underpowered CPU Extremely pricey

Of course, there's the design itself. As slim as the Adamo is (13 by 9.5 by 0.65 inches and weighing 4 pounds), it's still a bit boxy. Hey, that's not a knock. After all, just about every laptop is a little on the square side (even Macs, until pretty ...

Micro Express has done it again. Following speed demons such as the JFL9226 and the IFL9025, the JHL9050 provides power and performance in spades. If only the company could iron out the lingering design faux pas, there'd be little to stop this ...

Beefy hardware in a quiet package Plenty of Ports

Shortcut keys aren't very useful Frustrating touchpad

Micro Express's JHL9050 is a solid all-purpose laptop. It has a few flaws, but if you're big on portability and power, and you aren't fazed by a lackluster design philosophy, you could do worse

The Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 is a laptop looking for a niche. At first glance it has all the features of a fairly sexy desktop replacement: The 16-inch LCD screen, JBL speakers, and huge hard drive practically scream "media center notebook." On top of all ...

Extremely light, thin 16 inch notebook Some of the best laptop speakers around

Low resolution for such a large display Poor graphics performance for gaming

The Lenovo Y650 is hard to recommend wholeheartedly. While the Y650 performs most day-to-day tasks extremely well and handles virtually any video you can throw at it, the low-display resolution makes this system hard to take seriously as a good media ...

The budget-minded Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv3 laptop gets a lot of things right in its design and delivers just the right amount of style--not to mention supplying all the right ports to get your multimedia mobilized. But it also has enough drawbacks ...

Specially-treated keyboard Great variety of ports

Incredibly twitchy touchpad Microscopic function keys

The dv3 is a bit of an odd bird for me when it comes to an up-or-down recommendation. The performance is lackluster on paper, but I didn't have any major holdups in everyday use. What really got on my nerves was its touchpad, which kept trying to ...