Gateway 450X

WHAT'S HOT: A pared-down version of Gateway's 600 series, the 450S is a spartan-looking silver-and-gray notebook with square mouse buttons and a sloped front. At three hours, its battery life is strong for a Pentium 4-M-equipped laptop. And at 6.3 pounds (not including the power adapter), it should be fairly easy on the shoulders during travel. It has one modular bay, so you can remove the optical drive and swap in an optional second battery or a second hard drive.

WHAT'S NOT: The process of removing devices from its bays is much too cumbersome, requiring first shutting down the notebook and simultaneously sliding two releases on the bottom. A floppy drive costs approximately $45 extra.

WHAT ELSE: The 450S turned in a PC WorldBench 4 score of 95--about the average among other models of a similar configuration. Four application launch buttons grace the comfortable keyboard, which offers function key combination strokes to control volume from the front-mounted speakers. The sound is good enough for casual listening, but not rich enough to listen to for extremely long periods. The screen is a generous size at 15 inches but limited to a native resolution of 1024 by 768 (other 15-inch notebooks reach as high as 1600 by 1200). The side and back of the unit sport a full set of legacy and modern connections, including two PC Card slots, a TV-out port for presenters, and a FireWire port. All parts are a snap to reach, and the battery has an external LED display, which makes checking remaining juice easy. The 450S bundles an attractive and thorough user's manual.