Fujitsu Fujitsu LifeBook A6110

The keyboard is a little clackety but comfortable and supplemented by an upper row of five user-programmable quick-launch buttons. Interestingly, the touchpad doubles as a tiny tablet that you can write on with your finger or with an included digitizer pen. In what was my second attempt at using one of these Point-and-Write touchpads, I failed once again to make recognizable letters appear in the on-screen Tablet PC Input Panel. For me, at least, too much hand-eye coordination is required to watch the screen while writing in a very small, separate area. The Point-and-Write touchpad is a great input alternative, however, for drawing and paint programs, where strokes are often more freeform. That would be reason enough for me to splurge on this $100 option, especially since Fujitsu throws in a fingerprint reader with it.

The 200GB hard drive is big for the price. The laptop also offers lots of USB ports (five in all), and both PC Card and ExpressCard/54 slots. Our test machine had the Windows Vista Home Premium operating system, bundled with Microsoft Works 8.5. For an extra $100, you can get Vista Business but without a bundled productivity application (except a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office Professional 2007). Wi-Fi with a dedicated switch is standard, and Bluetooth is a reasonable $30 extra.

For the money, you just can't go wrong with the Fujitsu LifeBook A6110.

--Carla Thornton