Lenovo laptops are great, but they're boring, right? Plain black slabs that epitomize function over form. Well, the company is coming out of its shell with the designs of its new Skylight netbook and IdeaPad S10-3 tablet.

Thinking about picking up one of those Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbooks? Good news! The company has announced that the product line has been refreshed to include the new Intel Atom N450 processor (the newly announced Atom that previously went under the code name Pineview). The N450 clocks in at 1.66 GHz and incorporates a new integrated graphics processor.

The new CPU promises better performance and battery life - Dell claims about 9 1/2 hours using a 6-cell battery. You can further get the new Mini 10 with a standard (1024x600) or high res (1366x768) display, an optional TV tuner, optional mobile broadband and GPS, and a 160GB or 250GB hard drive. One disappointing note: it looks like the systems will still be limited to 1GB of DDR2-800 RAM.

Media-centric smartphone users, meet Dazzboard: An easy, lightweight and clean way to transfer media to your smartphone. Dazzboard runs on your browser, works with multiple phones and MP3 players (iPhones and iPods, of course, excluded) and is completely free. To get Dazzboard, you simply go to Dazzboard Web site, register for an account and then download the free browser plug-in. Also, make sure to check whether your browser and OS are covered by Dazzboard here. Dazzboard is still working on compatibility with Mac OS and there's no Linux support.

First, you have to connect your phone to your PC and set it as a mass storage device. Dazzboard explains how to do this with different phone models in their FAQ. Once you're set up, you'll be able to view and manage all of your phone's content on the Dazzboard homepage. You can also transfer files from your PC to your phone, including your entire iTunes library. The Dazzboard user interface is very clean and incredibly simple as it shows thumbnails of your photos or albums so you know exactly what you're going to transfer.

We’ve all had those moments at an airport waiting room, hotel lobby or coffee shop when we just want to yank out our laptops, hop onto the Web, check our e-mail and get offline. Try that with a Windows notebook and you’re talking about a few minutes to boot up, and maybe even longer to shut down. Your plane could be gone by then.

My index finger went completely numb. You could poke it and I wouldn't feel a thing. That was the flashing red neon sign telling me something was wrong. The culprit: laptops. My esteemed partner in crime, Patrick Miller, recently wrote about what bugs him about laptops. Now it's my turn, but I want to share a personal tale with you. Along the way, I'll tell you how to avoid the same mistakes I made.

Carpal Tunnel: A Loathe Story

This week is as good a time as any--just before Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Consumerpocolypse Tuesday--to look back at a year's worth of laptops. In fact, we've got a huge laptop holiday gift guide feature that I encourage you to check out. In the meantime, though, I threw out an innocent-enough question to the Internets (Facebook, Twitter, TwitBook...whatever!) this past week: "What are you looking for in a new laptop?"

You wouldn't believe (or maybe you would) some of the answers I got from folks. Here, in no particular order, is a sampling--with some of my snark thrown in for good measure. (Note: Messages from Twitter were expanded from 140-characterese.)

With the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 last month, we saw a variety of new smartphones showcasing the updated OS. But truthfully, none of them were exactly mind-blowing. Sure, the HTC Pure and Tilt 2 and others are solid phones, but none of them impressed us like the recent crop of Android phones. Windows Mobile fans may no longer have to feel left out: Verizon today announced the Omnia II, available December 2 for $200 with a two-year contract.

The candybar Omnia II sports a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display. AMOLED is becoming the standard for Samsung's high-end smartphones and we were impressed by the quality on phones like the Samsung Moment and Behold II. There's no physical keyboard, however, so you'll have to rely on the virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology. Swype lets you type faster and easier with one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard.

I'm a big man with big, goony hands. And if there's one thing I've learned from testing laptops for PC World, it's that a good keyboard and trackpad on a laptop is kind of like a toilet. You take it for granted until you're stuck with one that doesn't work so well. Read on for a list of keyboard-and-trackpad complaints, from yours truly and some of our readers.

Last week, while I was jet-setting off to Dell HQ to get a gander at the Adamo XPS (you did read our exclusive look at prototype laptops that'll never make it to market, right?) I found myself with a lot of free time at the airport. I could have been productive and done some writing--but that was prime time to marry my love of laptops with my love of goofing off. This week, I'm telling you how to make the most of a low-powered PC, be it a netbook or humbly equipped business machine.

Earlier this year, I remember AMD reps stumping about how laptop battery life gets measured. It's misleading, to say the least. MobileMark07, they said, is a synthetic test that measures idle time before a laptop battery dies. Many vendors use MobileMark07 results because it's a repeatable test, and those are the numbers you see pushed in promotional materials. But is that how you use your laptop? Hell no! You're running apps, watching video, listening to music, firing up the Wi-Fi--you get the idea.

Someone I know recently visited a couple brick-and-mortar stores to try a little social experiment. Playing the dummy, she said she needed a laptop with a long battery life. On every occasion, she got directed to an Intel machine. When I mentioned this to AMD's Leslie Sobon, VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, she: "The way people report numbers needs to change."

Hope you didn't put away those Windows 7 party hats because, apparently, Lenovo waited a couple days longer to share its news: It has crafted "Enhanced Experience" PCs that are faster and Windows-ier than competitors. Lenovo worked closely with Microsoft on the optimizations, even going so far as to say that its products get the nod from Microsoft for the "Enhanced Experience" certification. Of course, we can't back up these claims with conclusive tests just yet (when some of these new rigs show up, we can give you a better idea where things stand)--but that isn't going to stop me from telling you the how's and the what's....

The Big Claims

Lenovo says that its machines boot 33 percent faster and shut down up to 50 percent quicker than comparable rigs.

Lenovo announced two new additions to the business-oriented ThinkPad family, the 14-inch ThinkPad SL410 and 15.6-inch SL510, both of which come with Windows 7.