Lenovo 3000 V200 Colorado

If you've dreamed of owning an ultraportable but you blanch at the sight of the typical price tag, the Lenovo 3000 V200 is a happy compromise. It isn't as light or as sleek-looking as some models, but it is very nicely equipped for a reasonable price--so long as you don't need built-in mobile broadband.

Performance was very impressive; in fact, it was more like a full-size laptop's. Our Windows Vista Ultimate review machine, equipped with a top-of-the-line 2.2-GHz T7500 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive, earned a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 79, a result that was 46 percent better than the average score of 54 earned by 14 recently tested ultraportables. Its battery life of 4 hours and 4 minutes was 11 minutes short of average for this class of notebook. Still, 4 hours will let you get a good chunk of work done in transit.

If you've been looking for a nice travel notebook that won't drain your bank account, the light, comfortable, and capable V200 fills the bill.

--Carla Thornton