Fujitsu Lifebook P7230 Core Solo U1400 1.2GHz/2MBL2/533MHz/1GB/60GB/DVDMDL/GigNIC/abg/10.6"WXGA/VB

The Fujitsu can zip through e-mail tasks and can handle other simple jobs with aplomb. It even played our Master and Commander test DVD without a glitch. But you'll have to be patient when attempting relatively processor-intensive operations. With a 1.2-GHz Core Solo U1400 CPU and 1GB of RAM, the P7230 managed a WorldBench 6 score of 32, the lowest mark of any laptop in our roundup. The Fujitsu took 30 to 40 percent longer than the Asus U1F to complete certain operations--such as burning a DVD or applying Photoshop filters.

Its 5800-milliampere battery life is fabulous, however: 5.2 hours on one charge. And Fujitsu claims that you can double that number by adding a second battery (for $116 more) to the modular optical drive bay and using both of them at once. The bay release is an inscrutable nub situated on the bottom of the notebook; it doesn't offer much feedback, but we eventually got the hang of swapping devices.

You can achieve even longer battery life by frequently using the ECO button. According to Fujitsu, this button disables the optical disk drive, among other features, reducing component power consumption by 30 percent. Unfortunately, the small screen gets almost unusably dark in this mode.

The LifeBook P7230 is a remarkable feat of laptop engineering: extremely light despite including an optical drive, and equipped with a nice little screen and a good keyboard. It's slow, but if e-mail, light work, and online researching on the go are all you need--along with the convenience of a built-in DVD burner--look no further. The P7230 comes as close to perfect as any laptop under 3 pounds you can find.

Carla Thornton