For Road Warriors, Lightening Strikes Again

Ah, the never-ending fascination with miniaturization: Nanotechnology. Quantum physics. The Mini Cooper.

Portable computers keep getting smaller, too, although the terminology used to describe them keeps expanding. First came laptops, then notebooks, soon followed by subnotebooks. These days, ultraportables or ultralights, defined as machines weighing less than three pounds, are all the rage. Can subultraportables be far behind? And then what — computers that will fit comfortably in a shot glass?

It's challenging, of course, to cram a fully featured PC into a case barely bigger than a legal pad. For the most part, manufacturers have accomplished this by skimping on the "fully featured" part. But today, thanks to a slimming of the basic components that make up portable computers, it's easier for manufacturers to steer clear of concessions. Take the four portables we selected as our favorite lightweight machines (the Fujitsu Lifebook P7230, the Lenovo ThinkPad X60, the Panasonic Toughbook CF-W5, and the Sony Vaio TXN15P/B). Each of these pint-size PCs is a remarkably powerful computer, featuring high-capacity hard drives, copious ports, and wireless Internet connectivity. All four also boast crisp displays, usable keyboards, and superior battery life.

Here's the kicker: three of them weigh less than 3 pounds, while the porker of the bunch, the ThinkPad, tips the scale at a whopping 3.7 pounds. Fuzzy socks weigh more. Granted, this reduction in bulk exists in inverse proportion to the price tag, but for weary road warriors a computer that weighs less than 4 pounds is a godsend, no matter the premium. And when you compare the average $2,000 sticker price with the cost of ongoing chiropractic care, these small wonders may seem like bargains indeed.

A Disconnect?
If you want to see the future of portable computing, look no further than the Lifebook P7230. The machine is barely an inch thick, yet contains almost everything a frequent flier requires, including fingerprint sensor, internal DVD player, and capacious hard drive.

If you pride yourself on your reading comprehension, you'll have noted that we said "almost everything" in the previous paragraph. The problem? The Fujitsu portable does not include support for wireless wide-area networking (that is, it doesn't come with a Wi-Fi modem or bundled WAN software). That's a big drawback, considering the three other machines in our roundup feature integrated Wi-Fi (although you have to purchase a service plan with each one). To get onto the Internet using the Lifebook, business travelers must track down a Wi-Fi hotspot; despite the ubiquity of Starbuck's, that seems like a big limitation to us.

We have a few other quibbles as well. The machine gets a little hot underneath, and the fan is so loud you'd think it was manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. More important, the P7230 is relatively slow, a situation not helped by the multitude of applications Fujitsu has programmed to load once the machine is turned on.

Still, all these complaints fade to black once you actually put this laptop in your lap. We used the machine on several trips and never once complained about toting the thing around. The 16:9 ratio display (it's wide, not tall) also proved handy. Once, on the Acela, the passenger in front of us reclined his seat so far back we thought he was preparing for dental work, yet we never had to readjust the screen angle to cope with the suddenly tight quarters.

Rethink the Keyboard
Admittedly, we've never been huge fans of ThinkPads. This has little to do with the machine and a lot to do with the price tag. While we've always felt ThinkPads were fine portables — with the best keyboards going — charging a $500 premium for a marginally better input device seemed a bit cheeky.

Despite our complaints, the brand was an instant hit when IBM first launched the line in 1992 and became the machine of choice for senior executives. Two years ago, however, IBM sold its entire PC division to Legend Computers. The China-based Legend — which has since been redubbed Lenovo — has found it slow going with the new line of computers. Indeed, in a recent interview, Lenovo CFO Mary Ma noted that the company is losing money in the United States.

Fortunately, that has not translated into lower quality standards. The ThinkPad X60 is a proud heir to its IBM roots. It's not exactly stylish — more industrial than sexy — but this price-competitive follow-up to the X41 is eminently practical. The 3.7-pound machine fits perfectly in the lap, has a bright and sharp 12.1-inch screen, and is plenty fast thanks to an Intel Core Duo chipset.

The Lenovo portable also comes with lots of thoughtful touches. A blue button near the display, for example, launches a computer-management system called Thinkvantage. While the folks in Shanghai might want to can the account exec who came up with "Thinkvantage," this handy menu enables a user to (among other things) perform a full system restore or log onto a wireless network. The wireless antenna, encased in the screen, is powerful. From our office in midtown Manhattan, we were able to log on to Wi-Fi networks running in several nearby buildings. We did this purely in the name of research, of course.

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