Small Is Big In Notebooks - But Not Too Small

A lot of road warriors have learned, much to their chagrin, that a notebook computer can indeed be too light or too thin. Shrink one much below 1.8 kilograms (4 pounds) - the class known as ultralight-and it gets maddeningly hard to use for much more than e-mail or Web browsing. That's why manufacturers have recently begun reemphasizing a slightly larger breed-call them not-quite-ultralights. These machines sport displays of at least 13 inches; fuller, if not full-size, keyboards; built-in optical drives; Ethernet and other ports; and more processing power than their rail-thin predecessors.