August 9th - 2005

Big things come in small packages

If you do a lot of your business on the go, you might appreciate some of the new ultra portable notebooks that are making the technology scene lately.

If you do a lot of your business on the go, you might appreciate some of the new ultra portable notebooks that are making the technology scene lately. These much smaller notebooks, often called ultralight laptops or subnotebooks, have screens of 12.1 inches or less and are compact enough to use in cramped places like cars or airplanes. And, weighing in at only two to four pounds, they are also light enough to carry around without straining yourself.

Although they are small, the new ultralights come loaded with features including built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, optical drives with DVD burners, improved battery life, fingerprint readers and new processors. The biggest trade offs with these ultraportable notebooks are the smaller screens and keyboards. However, if you’re already a whiz with a Blackberry or Palm, you probably won’t find the size difference to be much of a sacrifice. Prices for these new models start at around $1,800. Here are a few examples of the ultraportables available so far along with links to each company’s web site to find out more:

Lenovo, (www.lenovo.com/ca/en/) which bought IBM's PC division, offers a new ultraportable ThinkPad, the X41. It has a 12.1-inch screen, a larger keyboard and is powered with a 1.5-gigahertz processor, giving it more speed than its predecessor, the X40. It includes a fingerprint reader for added security, and a useful disaster-recovery tool that runs on a hidden partition.

The Latitude X1 from Dell (www.dell.ca), has a wide screen measuring 12.1 inches diagonally, a magnesium alloy exterior and weighs as little as 2.5 pounds, making the X1 the smallest and lightest Dell notebook ever, according to Dell. It has a good-size keyboard and a 1.1-gigahertz Pentium M processor .

Hewlett-Packard’s Compaq nc4200 (www.hp.ca) offers faster processors, ranging from 1.73 to 2.0 gigahertz, and its layout includes dual pointing devices --a touchpad plus a point-stick in the centre of the keyboard. It has a 12.1-inch screen and a large keyboard with space to rest your palms.

If you want one of the really small notebooks, check out the Libretto U100 from Toshiba (www.toshiba.ca). Libretto in Italian means little book and this model’s screen measures only 7.2 inches diagonally, 8.27 inches wide, 1.31 inches thick and 6.5 inches deep. It may be small, but it’s mighty. It has a 1.2-gigahertz Pentium M processor, a 60-gigabyte hard drive, built-in Bluetooth and a fingerprint reader for additional security. The unit is light, at just over two pounds, and it includes a dock with an optical drive that both records and plays DVDs and CDs.

A new model from Sony is the Vaio T350 (www.sonystyle.ca)

Larger than the Libretto, the new Vaio includes a wide screen that measures 10.6 inches diagonally, and a keyboard slightly below full size. It includes a 1.2-gigahertz Pentium M processor, one with lower voltage and less battery drain, and a built-in optical drive that records and plays DVD's and CD's.

If you are in the market for an ultraportable notebook computer, there’s no shortage of options. And, while most of these manufacturers offer online shopping, be sure to go out and test drive a few before you decide. You’ll especially want to try the keyboards out to make sure you are comfortable with the size and spacing of the keys.

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