Asus U35JC-A1

Much like the UL30A, Asus U35JC-A1 is slim, angular, and decked in lots of brushed metal in many ways, it comes across as a throwback design, like a DeLorean in laptop form. The very thin upper lid is backed in brushed aluminum, the small centered Asus logo looking more EPCOT-era than ever. Inside, a light gray silver, patterned, glossy plastic surrounds the keyboard deck, while glossy, black

Lenovo IdeaPad Y560d

Lenovo continues to create very nice looking laptops with its IdeaPad line. Lenovo IdeaPad Y560d is about as far from the office ready Lenovo mindset as we've seen, with a funky tribal tattoo design on the back of the lid. Other than that, the color scheme is similar to systems such as the IdeaPad Y460, with a copper accent strip around the outer edge of the lid and an interior mix of not too

Asus Eee PC Seashell 1015PED-MU17

Like many of Asus' recent Eee PC Netbooks, Asus Eee PC Seashell 1015PED-MU17 has a sleek, teardrop shaped side profile, thicker at the back and tapering down to a sharp point at the nose. It's largely the same tapered/curved design we've seen on most Asus Eee PC's over the last year or so, particularly the 1005PEB, making it hard to muster excitement for a design that's barely distinguishable

Asus Eee PC 1201PN

Asus Eee PC 1201PN, however, only has a single core Atom N450 CPU to go with its Ion GPU, a combination that results in general performance that's weaker than its same priced predecessor. If the 1201N can be found for sale somewhere, it's probably the better buy for now. While the keyboard feel and general build of Asus Eee PC 1201PN are very similar to what we enjoyed in the 1201N before it, its

Gateway NV59C09u

Gateway NV59C09u is a laptop that's slightly thinner and lighter than the nearly identically configured NV5933u we reviewed recently, but to be honest it won't register to most people who aren't studying laptop lineups with a magnifying glass. A matte silver finish with a wavy lined pattern across the outer lid and inner keyboard deck is a little nicer looking than the older Gateway NV design,

Dell Vostro 3300

Dell Vostro 3300 is meant to glide somewhere between personal and business, and that's exactly what the design of Dell Vostro 3300 suggests : metal and black define the outside, with squared off edges on the front and back, and slightly rounded sides. Dell Vostro 3300 comes standard in Aberdeen Silver (which is what we had) in Core i3 configurations, with the option of adding Lucerne Red or

HP Mini 311

HP Mini 311 is what you would call an oversized netbook. It's about the same size as the ASUS EeePC 1101HA, Acer Aspire One (A0751h), and Gateway LT3103u in that they all have 11.6 inch widescreens. At 3.3 pounds, it's the heaviest among its peers, although the differences are small. HP Mini 311 is the prettiest though, as HP's signature imprints against a white background is delightful to look

HP Envy 13

HP Envy 13 is crafted from aluminum and magnesium bonded materials, while the MacBook Pro does it from a thick slab of aluminum. Its metals are anodized several layers deep, so the Envy 13 is not only sleek, but durable, scratch resistant, and lightweight as well. Apple and HP aren't the only ultraportable manufacturers that use metals, though. The ASUS UL30A-A1 and Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T (

Getac 9213

Getac 9213 measures just 12.5 by 9 by 1 inches, and its 3.6 pound chassis offers plenty of relief to full time travelers. It's about a pound lighter than the Apple MacBook Pro 13 inch (4.5 pounds) and the HP Pavilion dv3z (4.6 pounds), but not nearly as cheap. More impressive, though, is that it weighs as little as the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T and still manages to incorporate an optical drive

Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8930

Instead of just a flat solid color, Toshiba used its Fusion Finish on the P505D with its sonic pattern in black onyx. It's a light pinstripe pattern on a glossy black background on the lid, with palm rests, and speaker surround above the keyboard. The speakers sound great by the way, far above the laptop's budget price tag. The keyboard is large and comfortable with a full number pad on the right

Toshiba Satellite L305-S5955

Last year's Toshiba Satellite L305-S5875, which cost $675 and was housed in a nearly identical case, came with a 200GB hard drive, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 1.86GHz Pentium Dual-Core T2390. Therein lies the difference : this year's L305 has a 160GB hard drive, only 2GB of RAM, and an inferior Celeron 900 processor for nearly half the cost. In essence, it has the guts of a Netbook in a 15.4 inch

ASUS EeePC 1101HA

It's basically a larger version of the EeePC 1005HA and a lot thinner than the EeePC 1000HE, measuring just 11.3 by 7.7 by 1 inches (HWD). ASUS also did a tremendous job hiding the bulk of the 6 cell battery it's practically flush with the base. The Acer Aspire One (A0751h) and Toshiba mini NB205, on the other hand, have their battery protruding awkwardly from the back. At 3 pounds flat, the

Toshiba Mini NB205-N210

Toshiba Mini NB205-N210's footprint (10.4 by 8.4 0.8 inches, HWD) would have been roughly the size of the Samsung N120 (12GBK) (10.7 by 7.4 by 1.2 inches, HWD) and Asus EeePC 1000HE (10.3 by 7.3 by 1.1 inches) had it not been for the extended battery that sticks out by about an inch (The other two have extended batteries that protrude downward from the base). It's as thin as the Acer D250-1165 (

Gateway NV5807u

Gateway NV5807u is not an eye sore, as the glossy plastics and the subtle patterns within the bluish cover are current with what's out there. Both the HP Pavilion dv6t (1030us) and Toshiba Satellite L505D-S6947 employ similar design techniques in which colorful plastics are infused with artwork a process known as in mold decoration. In my opinion, though, this design is a step backward for the

Falcon Northwest Fragbook DRX

This 12 pound tank is one of only a handful of boutique laptops that have enough cooling fans to run a 3.33 GHz, Intel Core i7 975 processor the top of the line desktop processor, no less. Surround the CPU with an excellent supporting cast nVidia GeForce 280M GTX graphics card, 6GB of memory, and three internal hard drives (one of which is an 80GB SSD), and its competitors can only watch

Dell Studio 1737

Dell Studio 1737 is an easy system to spot since it's fairly large, measuring 15.4 by 11.4 by 1.4 inches (HWD) and weighing 7.5 pounds. It's the type of system you'll want anchored to your desk, though, replacing your old desktop. The HP Pavilion dv7 (2173cl) and dv7-2170us are each only two tenths of a pound lighter (7.3 lbs) and take up just as much space. If the lightest 17 inch laptop is what

Lenovo IdeaPad S12

Unfortunately, there's nothing game changing about Lenovo IdeaPad S12's looks. While the design made up of glossy plastics and embedded circular patterns is tastefully done, it's been done before by the likes of the HP Mini 110 and Mini 1000. Its hues white and black aren't as varied as the colorful offerings of the Dell Mini 12, although it's not as plain looking as the Samsung NC20.Lenovo

Alienware M17x

The 17 inch widescreen, which is usually a sight to behold on a gaming laptop, is one of the M17x's weaker points. While the intense brightness levels (backed by two CCFL lamps) and awe inspiring 1.920 by 1.200 resolution are top notch, the screen itself has the characteristics of a mirror. The glare is magnified because the entire screen including the surrounding black borders is covered in

HP Pavilion dv7

At 10.9 by 16.2 by 1.4 inches (HWD) and weighing 8.4 pounds with and 7.3 pounds without its AC adapter, HP Pavilion dv7 (2173cl) is wide enough for a full sized keyboard with separate numeric keypad, although the former's Insert and Delete keys and cursor arrows are on the small side compared with their counterparts on the keypad. The keyboard has a smooth, firm typing feel and the touch-pad is

MSI X340

MSI X340 is the first laptop we've reviewed with the single core SU3500 processor, and it seems like an excellent test case a superslim 13 inch that reminds us of much more expensive systems such as the Dell Adamo or MacBook Air, albeit with a much more plastic feel. At the same time, MSI X340 ends up in the same murky middle ground as systems with AMD's new Neo processor that are aimed at