Dell Latitude C610

WHAT ELSE: The C610 wears a slender dark case with a no-nonsense design. At this price, you get a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combination drive that uses the same modular bay as the floppy drive. You can use both at once by attaching the floppy drive externally to the parallel port, using the included cable. Other bay options include a second 20GB hard drive, a Zip 250 drive, or a supplemental battery for stretching the C610's already impressive run time. It's easy to reach parts, especially the hard drive, which slides out of the notebook's side with the removal of one screw.

The C610's keyboard is quieter than the old C600's, and its eraserhead mouse buttons are more comfortable than the hard-to-press concave buttons on Dell's new all-in-one, the C810. Unlike most laptops these days, which bristle with quick-launch buttons, the C610 offers just one for jumping to your favorite Web site or application.

The C610's PC WorldBench 4 score of 99 is in line with the scores achieved by the other three notebooks we've tested with a 1-GHz Pentium III-M processor (733 MHz under battery power) and 256MB of RAM.

UPSHOT: The C610 should satisfy corporate buyers, as it offers just about everything a company needs in a highly flexible portable. It gives you built-in wireless readiness along with more-traditional networking connections; both eraserhead and touchpad pointing devices; and the ability to rotate multiple add-in devices, including a second battery.