Sony VGN-NR485

A Windows Vista Home Premium laptop powered by a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T5750 and 2GB of RAM, the VGN-NR485 bagged a respectable WorldBench 6 score of 75. That's pretty solid performance for a laptop that stands among the cheapest machines on our current Top 10 All-Purpose Laptops chart (as of 10/29/08). It sells for $849 ($200 more than Toshiba's bargain-basement Satellite Pro L300D-EZ1001V, which the Sony bested by roughly 20 points in WorldBench 6 tests). It has the speed to handle almost any kind of application. The only performance problem we encountered was in our 3D gaming tests, which the VGN-NR485 couldn't run because of its lousy integrated Intel graphics chip.

The 6.2-pound laptop managed to last long enough in our battery life tests. It fell just short of 4 hours (3 hours, 56 minutes), ranking toward the top of the leaderboard. Surpassing this value unit was Lenovo's ThinkPad SL400, which costs $1223 and has an optional high-powered battery; it lasted 5 hours, 8 minutes in our tests as a result of the add-on.

As for features, the 14.2-by-10.6-by-1.5-inch VGN-NR485 packs a fair amount of punch, including dedicated front-mounted SD and Memory Stick slots, four USB ports, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Typical for a sub-$1000 laptop, the optical drive is a standard (not high-definition) DVD burner. Beneath the stylish navy blue waffle exterior lies an impressively large 200GB hard drive. You can't reach it for upgrades, but barring a failure you shouldn't need to replace it. Though the 15.4-inch screen has a high-gloss finish that tends to reflect overhead lights, it's very bright and has an easy-to-read 1280-by-800-pixel resolution.

The keyboard is a matter of taste. If you can ignore the somewhat short stroke, it's comfortable, featuring keys with spacious flat tops. You also get two reprogrammable shortcut buttons, a mute button, and an A/V-mode button that launches the Windows Media menu.

The stereo speakers don't sound very good, not surprising for a Sony notebook. The volume is serviceable for low-key music and system sounds, but the bass tones are almost nonexistent. Don't leave home without your headphones.

One other small complaint: The on-screen manual, while thorough, doesn't link the laptop's labeled parts. Instead of being able to click on a label, you must type the part's name (for example, the A/V-mode button) into the search box to read a description. Pretty lame, but a minor issue.

If keeping to a budget is your top concern, these are small concessions to make. A solid performer with all the most important connections, loads of storage, and an eye-catching dark-blue finish, the Sony VGN-NR485 is a sweet little deal for the under-$1000 crowd

Lenovo Thinkpad SL400

Usually, ThinkPads don't come cheap. You expect to pay dearly for the classy keyboard, rugged chassis, and whatever top-notch parts lie under the hood. That's not quite the case with Lenovo's SL400 series of laptops.

These affordable, all-purpose machines start in the neighborhood of $650 and yet still offer much of the look and feel you'd expect from a more expensive ThinkPad. The SL400 model we received for evaluation was at on the upper end of the series, selling for about $1223 as of October 23, 2008, and it's a fairly solid deal.

Inside lies a reasonably speedy Intel Core2 Duo 2.26-GHz P8400 CPU backed up by 2GB of RAM and a 256MB nVidia GeForce 9300M GPU. Not too shabby. In our tests, this combination performed well, garnering a score of 84 on our WorldBench 6 benchmark test suite. That's well short of the Micro Express Microflex JFL 9290, which notched a 92, but it makes a strong enough showing to finish near the top.

Lenovo rolled out the SL400 before nVidia unveiled its GeForce 9400M, which debuted in the new Apple MacBooks--and the laptop suffers for its bad timing, as nimbler graphics processors will soon appear in new all-purpose notebooks.

Still, this Lenovo is a good performer for the price. Its six-cell battery kept the SL400 working for a little over 5 hours on a single charge--that's plenty of juice to keep you at the keyboard nonstop during a cross-country flight. The laptop's layout, screen, and beefy-meets-boxy 6.1-pound case indicate that Lenovo was shooting for a "strictly business" approach here.

A matte treatment on the screen does a good job of preventing sunlight from bouncing back in your face. The 14.1-inch, 1440-by-900-pixel-resolution panel is amply bright when cranked up all the way, but it's a tad dim in its native habitat (a standard fluorescent-lit office). As a result, in most settings, you'll be tempted to crank it up to full intensity, which unfortunately muddies the colors a little. On the bright side (pun fully intended), you can adjust the brightness for Video Playback mode (or any of five other default settings--or text size) with one click on a Lenovo application in the taskbar.

The SL400 has a fairly full-featured layout for an all-purpose machine. Four USB slots-- two on the left, two on the right--adorn the machine. HDMI- and VGA-out ports cover higher- and lower-end video support. In addition, you get a fingerprint reader, a Webcam, a four-pin FireWire port, a WWAN card, and GPS. The hard-drive bay is easy to unscrew, and popping in a replacement is equally effortless. Less pleasingly, this budget-minded business laptop has a boxier, less-rigid (though still sturdy) case than most ThinkPads have.

You won't buy this notebook for hi-definition audio, either. Music sounds slightly tinny (and hollow), though it got loud enough to distract my neighboring cubemates. Video streamed from Hulu sounded fine, but not robust enough for me to forgo headphones.

One corner that remains uncut is the SL400's keyboard, which--in the tradition of superb ThinkPad keyboards--is solid and buttery smooth to the touch. There was no loud clicker-clack as I typed away on the nigh-silent keyboard, and at the same time I could readily discern every key.

Another familiar ThinkPad trend: The SL400 has both a touchpad and a touch-point navigation device; not many laptops provide both these days. A couple of multimedia shortcut keys appear on the left side of the keyboard, but alt-function keyboard combos handle basic volume controls and practically everything else (for example, Fn + down arrow is the combination for Play/Pause multimedia). The one button to rule them all: a helpful blue backlit key that links to the Lenovo Cares utility suite.

The depth and breadth of the ThinkPad's software bundle goes well beyond what you normally get at first powerup. Many laptops content themselves with a 60-day trial of MS Office or some obnoxious antivirus package. Here, you receive a beefy Lenovo Cares application suite, which provides handy shortcuts and user-friendly apps without getting in your way. Everything from the ThinkVantage GPS tool (which tethers to Google Maps by default) to the proprietary Sidebar gadgets points to a well-conceived package.

Overall, the SL400 is a sound business laptop. Though it doesn't pack the firepower of some high-end machines, it gets the job done handily. Its combination of performance and value places it near the top of our charts.

Acer Travelmate 6293

Performance-wise, the TravelMate 6293 rocks. Its battery life is Energizer really amazing. Equipped with a powerful 7200-mAh battery, the laptop lasted 3 minutes shy of 8 hours in our tests. Just stick this baby in a backpack or briefcase and walk out the door declaring Outlet Freedom Day. The results are far better than what we've seen from any other all-purpose portable on the scene. Heck, because of its diminutive size, we were this close to comparing it with a Lenovo ThinkPad X200.
The speed of the TravelMate 6293 is good too. The 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo P8400-equipped unit with 2GB of RAM turned in a pretty impressive WorldBench 6 score of 90, so it should be able to handle any type of work swiftly, limited only by the shared video memory. Lack of a dedicated graphics card is an unfortunate characteristic of small laptops that effectively eliminates gaming; the memory is just too sparse to support 3D shooters with fancy shading.
Of course, small screens don't lend themselves to entertainment, either, but the 12.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel, wide-aspect display is fine for any other job you care to squeeze into those small quarters. It's crisp, reasonably bright, and glossy, but it won't hurt your eyes under office lights.
Topping the TravelMate 6293's keyboard are seven helpful quick-launch buttons. All are preprogrammed for such activities as setting the system password, launching the onboard backup utility, and starting your e-mail program and Web browser. A nice touch is that one button triggers the Launch Manager itself, which saved me worlds of time poking around various utilities and system-tray icons attempting to find the program that would let me reset the buttons to start my own favorite apps. Overall the keyboard is well laid out and easy to type on. The touchpad is small but zippy and easy to use. Only the mouse buttons--particularly short to make room for the fingerprint reader between them, and extremely stiff--are a distraction.
At 4.6 pounds--not including the power brick, which makes the total weight 5.4 pounds--the TravelMate 6293 is a tad heavy for an ultraportable but fairly light for an all-purpose machine. (The extra beef pushes it into the all-purpose category, since it weighs over 4 pounds.) Obviously designed for corporate jetsetters restricted by a budget, it also lacks a FireWire port (which would have been handy for fast digital downloads) and sports the older PC Card slot instead of an ExpressCard slot.
In the plus column, the laptop does have a nice, big, 250GB hard drive, plus conveniences such as dedicated Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi switches and a built-in Webcam. The storage and memory are fully user-upgradeable--great news for rapid IT deployment.
The TravelMate 6293 also includes other features important to bottom-line-conscious corporate buyers, such as a gigabit ethernet connection and a standard DVD recorder (rather than a pricey high-definition optical drive).

If you take a look at the all-purpose category, you'll see that not many machines go for under $1000--and those that do, such as the Toshiba Satellite U405-S2854 or the Sony VGN-NR485, are much bulkier by comparison. The TravelMate 6293 might not have all the cutting-edge features, but no laptop makes better use of a battery for carefree wireless computing. If work keeps you out of the office most of the day, put this $999 plain Jane at the top of your list.