Best Thin and Light Laptops - TheLaptopAuthority.com

Today's best thin and light laptops strike the perfect balance of performance and portability. Typically measuring no more than 15-inches thick and weighing around 5.5 pounds, these notebooks are easy on the shoulder, and many offer four or more hours of battery life.

The majority of thin-and-light notebooks feature 14-inch screens, and many have widescreen displays, which make watching DVD movies more enjoyable and let you view multiple applications at the same time. These systems don't provide blazing 3D graphics performance, as they generally use an integrated graphics solution, but they handle most of today's gaming titles at lower resolution and detail settings.

Weighing in at 5.4 pounds, the HP dv 1000t packs a lot of muscle into its thin-and-light chassis. Powered by a 2-GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, and a quick 100GB hard drive, it blew through benchmark tests and managed an impressive 4.5 hours on battery life tests with Wi-Fi disabled.

If you spend a lot of time burning CDs and DVDs, HP's LightScribe Double Layer combo optical drive is for you. Not only does it support virtually every media format out there, you can create your own custom labels and laser-etch them right onto specially coated recordable media. A small webcam and microphone are integrated into the top of the display for conducting live video chats over the Internet.

When you're ready to kick back and relax, the dv 1000t is ready to entertain. Enjoy movies on the crisp 14-inch glossy widescreen display and listen to your favorite tunes through the loud Altec Lansing speakers. Even better, HP's Processor choices include Intel's Core Duo and Pentium M chips, as well as AMD's Turion 64 CPU family, and you can usually count on being able to configure the system with up to 2GB of memory. Nearly all thin-and-light notebooks offer DVD burners as an option, and contain both USB and FireWire ports for connecting to devices such as camcorders, digital cameras, and external storage drives. Digital camera and camcorder owners should look for a system with a multi-card flash memory reader and a sizable hard drive for storing photos, as well as videos.

Formerly known as the XPS M140, the Dell E1405 is a 5.3-pound notebook with a fair number of entertainment features, and a 14.1-inch TrueLife widescreen capable of displaying 1280 x 800 pixels. Starting at S749, you can configure the system with dual-core processing power; courtesy of Intel's 1 .66-GHz T2300 processor, 60GB of hard drive storage, and 512MB of speedy DDR2 memory, expandable to 2GB.

Dell's MediaDirect 2.0 provides instant on access to movies, music, and photos without having to boot Windows. When combined with an optional TV tuner and Microsoft's Media Center OS, the E1405 records your favorite TV programs. The system comes with a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, but we recommend upgrading to a DVD burner so you can create your own DVD movies or archive large quantities of data on a single disc. Los Casinos más populares Espana

Toshiba's 5.4-pound Satellite M105-S3004 notebook features a 1.66-GHz Core Duo processor, fast DDR2 memory, and up to 100GB of high-speed hard drive storage in a sleek, 1/5-inch-thick chassis. Every model comes standard with a Toshiba DVD SuperMulti double layer optical drive (supporting up to 11 various media formats), a brilliant 14.1-inch TruBrite widescreen display, a 5-in-1 card reader, and Intel's Pro/Wireless 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking adapter.

The M105-S3004 also features Toshiba's Express Media Player, which lets you play CD music and DVD movies without starting Windows. In addition to the usual headphone, microphone, and Ethernet connections, you get an S-Video port, four USB ports, a FireWire port, and a PC Card slot. Harman Kardon speakers deliver excellent audio quality when playing DVDs or MP3s, and a built-in fingerprint reader keep the system secure.

Sony's VAIO VGN-FJ290 stands out in more ways than one; it comes in a choice of beautiful colors, including raspberry red, jade green, and sky blue. This thin and light's predecessor, the FJ180/PR, turned in impressive scores in tests. The VGN-F J290 weighs a manageable 5.3 pounds and is powered by a 1.86-GHz Intel Pentium M 750 Processor and 1GB of memory, A massive 100GB hard drive provides plenty of room for storing video and audio files, and a built-in recordable DVD drive burns projects using a variety of media formats.

The VAIO's 14.1-inch display is crisp and offers excellent contrast, thanks to Sony's XBRITE-ECO technology, While the system's integrated graphics solution doesn't have the chops to handle today's 3D action games, it's capable of handling most multimedia tasks, A webcam embedded in the screen's upper bezel lets you conduct a videoconference from any location, and the system's 3.5-hour battery life gives you the freedom to work untethered.

To add an extra measure of security, order the CompuTrace LoJack for laptops ($59 for one year), a software-based utility that helps you recover your system if it's stolen.

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