Whenever you’re watching a comedy set in the 1980’s, the first thing you’re going to see when the director wants to get a cheap laugh is have a character pull out a cell phone the size of a shoebox, and speak on it loudly enough for everyone in the room to say “Wow, that guy’s got a CELL PHONE!” Bonus points if the guy has a pastel suit and a carefully groomed five o’clock shadow, to give the impression that he’s much more laid back than he actually is.
Maybe when they start making more comedy movies set in the 1990’s, we’ll see the same joke played out on outdated laptops. Remember when they were the size of a suitcase? Back around 1999, you would be better off just hauling your desktop with you than trying to haul one of those big honkin’ laptops with you everywhere.
Luckily, this is the Twenty First Century, and when they say “laptop”, they actually mean “laptop”, and not “don’t-put-this-on-your-lap-or-it-will-break-your-knees-top”.
So these days, there’s a lot of competition to create the most lightweight, comfortably-portable laptop available. We’ll give you three of the lightest laptops available right here…
Asus Eee PC 900 Mini-Notebook
At just around $550 or so, the PC 900 is a great option for an ultralight laptop at a bargain. The screen is a tad small, with the ultimate dimensions of the machine being 8.9 by 6.5 inches, but it’s hard not to be lured in by the fact that the thing is only 1.4 inches thick.
It’s not the most powerful notebook around, but it is one of the smallest, and one of the cheapest for what it does. Basically, this is a great everyday notebook to carry around with you for general purposes.
Hydra A17
Hydra A17 has been reviewed as a surprisingly potent little gaming rig for its size, which is great, since usually, you’re going to have to choose between power and size. At just under a thousand bucks (though the prices may vary), it’s priced quite nicely for an up-to-date gaming rig, too. It probably won’t run very recent games as well as a full-size Alienware rig, but it will run them better than you’d probably expect.
Lenovo IdeaPad U110
Lenovo is using the IdeaPad U110 to try and break into the personal laptop market. Lenovo has always been more of a business-notebook maker, so while they tend to make some great, powerful little books for the busy professional, their units usually lack a little something in the way of sex appeal. The IdeaPad is intended to be a direct rival of the very sexy MacBook Air
At 2.9 pounds, the unit sits at around 10.8 by 7.7 inches, and only 0.72 inches thick, with a Core 2 Duo Intel CPU and two gigs of RAM, the overall size of the unit might be a bit bigger than the Asus EEE listed above, but this is probably the most powerful rig on this list.
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