WHAT'S HOT: The near-perfect notebook of the future arrives in the form of Toshiba's new Portege 4000. Slim and light, it weighs only 4.5 pounds (without the AC adapter). It lasts over 4 hours on one battery charge, the best performance we've seen yet from a sub-5-pound notebook. And it comes with the built-in antennas necessary to two wireless communications standards: 802.11b, for surfing the Internet and getting e-mail, and Bluetooth, for short-range information exchanges with other small-office devices. An on/off switch on the front lets you turn off scanning for a compatible access point. For situations where wireless networking is not an option, the Portege 4000 offers a third method for data exchange, a Secure Digital media card slot. Located just above the notebook's optical drive bay on the right side, the slot lets you use chewing-gum-size SD sticks to pop in music or data from your PDA or other SD-equipped device.

Need extra battery life or more storage? You can swap out the optical drive (an 8X DVD-ROM and 4X/4X/24X CD-RW combination drive in our review unit) for a second battery or a second hard drive (up to 30GB in size). The little Portege delivers big sound from its stereo speakers, small units that jut from the back corners of the keyboard. A handy volume wheel and good DVD image quality complete the 4000's impressive multimedia turn.

WHAT'S NOT: The Portege has no parallel or serial ports, and you'll have to pay extra for an external USB floppy drive.

WHAT ELSE: Dressed in silver with black accents, the Portege 4000 is a handsome little notebook. Aside from the shimmering lettering, we had no problem using the smallish keyboard. The Tab and Caps keys are half size, but Toshiba makes up for this with dedicated Page Up, Page Down, and arrow keys--rare treats on a subsize keyboard. The mouse buttons, stacked crescents made of a comfortable rubbery material, work well in conjunction with the eraserhead pointing device. They're winged by two smaller buttons that you can program to launch applications.

The Portege's sharply sloped case imparts a pleasingly aerodynamic look but hides the status lights on the front from view when you're working. We liked being able to close a port cover over the network, modem, and monitor connections on the back. You also get two USB connections. Upgrading the memory entails removing three screws on the bottom so you reach slots beneath the keyboard. A thick print manual (also provided in electronic form) covers all the features. We haven't evaluated any other laptop with the Portege 4000's configuration, but its PC WorldBench 4 score of 78 is what we would expect from a Pentium III-750/550 with 256MB of RAM running Windows 2000.

UPSHOT: Early adopters will love this new laptop, which comes stuffed to the gills with multiple ways of exchanging information--especially wirelessly. It sets a new standard for a top-of-the-line laptop for travel.

SUMMARY

Toshiba Portege 4000 PC WorldBench 4 score of 78, Pentium III-750/550, 256MB of SDRAM, 256KB of L2 cache, Windows 2000, 12.1-inch active matrix screen, Trident CyberBlade XP graphics with 16MB of SDRAM, 30GB hard drive, 8X DVD-ROM and 4X/4X/24X CD-RW combination drive, built-in V.90 modem and network interface, 802.11b and Bluetooth wireless, eraserhead pointing device, 5.3-pound weight (including AC adapter and phone cord). Three-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited, 24-hour toll-free technical support. $2579 800/467-4422 www.csd.toshiba.com