Compare Thin and Light Laptop Computers

Thin and Light laptops are all about striking a balance between performance and portability, with an extra emphasis on battery life. Processoers range from the budget-friendly Intel Celeron M to the more powerful Pentium M and Turion 64. The keyboards in this class are almost always full-size.

We recommend an 80GB hard drive for this class of system, especially since it's likely you'll be using a thin-and-light for work and play. If you don't care about playing games, going with integrated graphics (shared system RAM) is fine.

If you want to use the same notebook at home, in the office, and on the road--you need a thin-and-light. By our definition, a thin-and-light weighs less than six pounds, offers a comfortable viewing screen and keyboard, an internal optical drive, and enough performance to face any task presented.

You won't get the performance and screen size of a desktop replacement, or the three pound carrying weight of an ultraportable, but you will get a great blend of features, performance, and portability at a reasonable price.

Bigger notebooks mean bigger screens. Most thin-and-lights have 14-inch displays, which is fine for viewing everything from e-mail and web pages to Word and Excel docs. EL MISTERIO DEL A-380: Aventura, misterio y romance con el inspector Germán Cortés (Los Misterios de Channing nº 3)

Almost all thin-and-lights come with a combo DVD/CD-RW optical drive. Expect to pay a couple hundred dollars more for the ability to record your own DVD's. In all of our laptop reviews, we give you complete specs.

While not all thin-and-light systems come with integrated wireless, many do---look for Wi-Fi and even Bluetooth as a way to distinguish similar systems. Centrino systems deliver wireless capabilities without imposing a noticeable penalty on battery life.

You won't find as many ports as in desktop replacements, but you will encounter USB 2.0, parallel, and sometimes even serial ports in thin-and-lights. FireWire, great for connecting a digital or video camera, is also becoming increasingly common in this notebook category.

Video support is predictably better in these systems than in ultraportables---chipsets like the RADEON 9000 let you play games when the workday ends. Intel's Extreme Graphics chip, which you'll often find in this category, delivers smooth movie playback but only decent gameplay.

Here's a selection of models with feature sets and performance that we recommend:

• Averatec 3360
• Dell Latitude D610
• HP Compaq NC6230
• IBM ThinkPad T43
• Sony Vaio S360
• Toshiba