With the IdeaPad U150, Lenovo continues stepping gradually from the bookish land of ThinkPads into the world of cool ultraportables. Weighing less than 3 pounds, and stylish to boot, the U150 is an eye-catching little thing.

The HP EliteBook 8440w won't win awards for ultrathin design elements or elegant looks, but underneath the almost military-style exterior is a dual-core (with Hyperthreading) Intel CPU coupled with an nVidia Quadro FX 380M professional-grade graphicsprocessor.

The Acer Aspire 5740-6378 parks itself next to most midrange laptops. It feels fast enough for all common productivity applications; carries a big, 15.6-inch screen; and has nearly all the inputs and outputs you could want. But it never reaches beyond that middle ground.

The Sony VAIO EB12FX/T is an affordable all-purpose notebook that impresses with its style, features, and affordable price--but it is also marred by mediocre performance. It looks great and has most of the features you'd expect in a notebook costing around $750. The earthy brown finish, slim design, and clean layout certainly make it more attractive than most sub-$1000 notebooks, but it if you need a laptop for heavy-duty tasks, playing games, or long battery life, you'll have to look elsewhere.