Lenovo ThinkPad X200 – $1,542

This is one of the best full-featured ultraportable laptops that offer a wonderful performance and an unbelievable battery life. It is equipped with the new Centrino 2 processor and is far more powerful than its predecessor, the ThinkPad X61, although the screen is only 12.1 inches.  But that doesn’t make this 2.95 pound beauty any less superior.

The screen is bright and easy to read with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and it also has a built-in Webcam, which makes it perfect for execs to work on the move.  The keyboard is much bigger and is spill resistant.

It comes with 2GB of RAM, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 and a 160 GB hard drive. Lenovo has also expanded the battery line and offers three choices, with the most powerful nine-cell model giving almost nine hours.

For people looking for the “best” travel laptop, nothing can beat this Lenovo model.

Sony VGN-Z598U/B – $4,450

Sony has some of the most uniquely designed ultraportable notebooks, with prices starting from $1,499.  Here, we are talking about this high-powered multimedia business machine that costs a whooping $4,450.  This is for people who can afford to pay for the convenience.

The price of this wide-screened beauty is on the higher side because it comes with a couple of 128GB solid-state drives.  It is also fitted with 4GB RAM, a 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 CPU,, as well as a dedicated G3Force 9300M GS GPU, all in its tiny 12.4 by 1.3 by 8.3 inch frame.

In spite of the heavy configuration, it weighs only 3.3 pounds. The battery life prolongs to a little more than 4 hours when working with the integrated Intel GPU.

It is also preloaded with Microsoft Works, a video editing program, video content exporter and the VAIO Control Center.

Except for the price, this is great for high-flying business people. But $2000 can be slashed off the price tag if one goes for a platter-based hard drive instead of the dual SSDs.

Samsung X360-34P – $2,500

This little machine is sleek looking and provides a clearer picture than most laptops and can attract people easily.

This is great for people who can afford to spend $2500 on an ultraportable machine that comes with a 1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 CPU, RAM of 3GB, a speedy 128 GB solid-state drive and weighs only 3.7 pounds.  The 13.3 inch screen with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution is bright and easy to view even in direct sunlight.  One of most impressive aspects of this laptop is the battery life, which is over 7 hours.

This laptop is travel-ready and comes with a lot of ports, both HDMI and VGA for video, a modem, an Ethernet jack, Bluetooth, three USB ports, a PC Express card slot, a five-in-one flash card reader and the headphone and microphone jacks, and a Webcam.  It has a surprisingly loud sound for an ultraportable laptop.

It is a solid travel machine that can be used in the office too.

HP EliteBook 2530p – $2499

Well, this one costs $2499 but it worth every penny, as it comes with a lot of extras that are rare on an ultraportable.

It has a high-end configuration of 1.86 GHz Core 2 Duo SL9400, 80GB solid-state hard drive, RAM of 3GB and weighs 3.8 pounds.   It has a 12.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel wide-aspect screen, which is bright and glossy while not being reflective.

If looks are important, then do not look beyond this black and silver beauty. Performance is great too with this Windows Vista business machine. It outperforms many laptops in the same genre.

The battery lasts pretty long, almost 7 hours and the EliteBook is equipped with the capability for Wi-Fi wireless, Bluetooth, modem and network jacks, SD Card slot, Firewire port, built-in Webcam, two USB ports and also several business applications.

A light and easily portable machine that can do wonders for a business person.

Acer Timeline 3810T – $799

This ultraportable is Intel powered and is one of the first laptops to use the Intel CULV processor. It fits snugly somewhere in between the netbook and notebook.

This slim and stylish looking laptop comes with a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400, 500GB Hard Drive, 4GB of RAM, and weighs 3.5 pounds.

The battery life is amazing at more than 8 hours, which is the best compared to so many others.

Some of the features include a Wi-Fi connectivity and Acer Backup Manager, HDMI and VGA for video with three USB plugs, RJ-45 ethernet port, Webcam, with a decent sized touchpad.  Where software is concerned, beyond Microsoft Office, there is also Microsoft Works, Orion, MyWinLocker for the safety of files and the eSobi news reader among others.

This machine scores high in the looks department and is a great deal at the low price.

With so many ultraportables in the market today, it becomes difficult to find the best ones that offer great performance.  Although, most of the laptops in this list are on the expensive side, they are certainly some of the best, for those of you that can afford to pay a higher price for better performance.

In the recent past, there has been a great deal of talk and rumors about there being a consistent decline in the ringtone craze off late, and this is mainly attributed to the fact that users are now adept at creating their own ringtones easily from song downloads.

There are sites such as makeownringtone.com that allow users to create ringtones for free. Users just need to upload songs in various formats, such as MP3 and WMA, and then select the part of the song they want to use as a ringtone, remix their selection and upload the final result to their phones. As simple as that!

CNET sources recently created a base for rumors by reporting that Apple has come up with an excellent innovative idea, that of offering ready-made ringtones for the iPhone.

Apple has concentrated a lot on the iPhone in the past and continues to do so. iPhone users have enjoyed the option of creating their own custom-made ringtones for their devices ever since 2007. Users had to look for the bell icon next to the song that indicates the song can be converted into a ringtone, and double click on the bell for the ringtone editor to open. Once the portion of the song for the ringtone is selected, the user has to click buy, for the ringtone to be created and the user charged for the purchase. It will then show up in a ringtone play list to be synced to the iPhone. The whole process takes the least amount of time and one doesn’t have to be tech savvy either to figure out how it is done. Even a child can do it with ease.

However, Apple is bent on pampering and making iPhone users lazier than ever. It is said to have struck a deal with the music industry and obtained rights for offering ready-made ringtones.

Ringtones have been a hit with the users ever since they have been introduced. The music industry benefits a great deal from them too, as it has been seen that people prefer ringtones that play for a few seconds rather than full song downloads. In the past, people were even wiling to pay $3 to hear bits of their favorite song when receiving an incoming call, in MIDI format. Music labels and retailers find them more profitable when compared to full song downloads.

But now most phones use the standard file formats, such as MP3s and users who are not happy with default ringtones, use the option of creating their own. It costs just 99 cents to use the custom ringtone feature on the iPhone, and it enables them to select a 30-second segment of a song to play back as a ringtone on their iPhones.

But these music snippets are now becoming more of a convenience-based feature, what with Apple painstakingly editing these ringtone clips. Users can just select from a 30-second ready-made ringtone clip created by Apple. This alleviates the need to create ringtones of their own.

Although, the cost of these ready-to-use ringtones is not known yet, it is rumored that they could be anywhere between $0.79 and $1.29. While some people opine that these ready-made ringtones may help improve sales, others feel that since Apple charges very less for custom ringtones and makes it simple to get any clip of a song; the ready-made ringtones may not really make much of a difference.

In a scenario, where users can get cost free, easily made ringtones by just selecting clips from any song they wish, why would they want to pay for it?

It is left to be seen if these ready-made ringtones from popular songs provide the much needed shot in the arm for a dying ringtone market. If you go to the discussion boards and see youngsters talking about them with all the enthusiasm and excitement, it sure does not look like the craze for ringtones has gone down. But sales figures are what we have to go by and there is still time for the verdict to be out.

Even as people await the release of the much-speculated tablet from Apple, Freescale has come out with the Smartbook that could be a competition for the low-cost mini laptops.

Smartbook is a combined effort of Freescale Semiconductor and Arm Holdings.  The company is marketing the smartbook as a new category of computing devices that can be squeezed somewhere between the smartphone and the PC-like notebook or netbook.

Freescale Semiconductor is a leading manufacturer of embedded semiconductors for the consumer, industrial, automotive and networking markets. The company is based in Texas and has several research and development, design, manufacturing and sales outlets spread all over the world.

Rich Beyer, Freescale CEO said, “Netbooks based on Intel’s Atom processor and Microsoft Windows simply replicate the PC experience, they are just notebooks in a smaller format.  The Smartbook is a different experience, something between a small screen phone and a PC.”

The biggest selling points for the Smartbook are said to be its instant-start feature, intuitive interface and long battery life.

The company has commissioned several prototypes by entering into a deal with a leading North American industrial design program.  These prototypes were displayed at the Computex show in Taiwan.

-         One that unfolds to offer a keyboard and mouse

-         A sleek smartbook with a touchscreen display

-         A device that enables customization

-         Smartbook with sliding keypads

-         A sleek prototype featuring vertical display

Created with an unusual design, the smartbook stands tall as it is meant for vertical displays, and unfolds into several pieces, allowing users to use a keyboard and mouse. There is the option to slide the keypad out from both sides of the smartbook.

This 409 gm lightweight product sports a 5-inch screen, which is larger than the smartphone device, has 512 MB memory and 4 GB flash storage device that can be extended.  When the smartbook was launched in Japan by Sharp Electronics recently, there have been mixed reviews.  But there is one thing everyone agrees to, and that is – it takes no more than 3 seconds to boot and the battery lasts as long as ten hours.

Freescale is also working closely with the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) on a program that explores all the requirements, such as user interfaces, ergonomic issues, form factors and also accessories for new age smartbook devices.

A marketing director of Freescale states, “As the smartbook market emerges, new form factors and product categories will evolve to support and better align with user needs, and our engagement with SCAD demonstrates Freescale’s intention to lead this evolution. This initiative has given Freescale valuable insight into how end-users prefer to interact with smartbooks, and this knowledge will be fed back into our chip design processes, ultimately resulting in future i.MX processors that enable compelling consumer experiences and entirely new classes of consumer devices.”

This product uses Freescale’s iMX processor and targets youngsters who are internet-savvy and expect instant access to the Net, visit the social networking sites, check out YouTube clips or watch movies.  It runs the Linux operating system as Windows loads slower and is not the best interface for all these activities.

A full-featured smartbook currently will be priced at $480 in Japan, but according to the CEO, it is expected to be available in the market for around $199 within a year’s time.  The manufacturers believe that it will prove to be a challenge to netbooks once it hits the lower price point, especially in countries where netbooks are not doing as well as expected solely due to the higher price.

Smartbook Network Systems has created a video conferencing application for the smartbook.  A camera has been inbuilt into the smartbook and it allows users to use the video chat feature using the Smartlink application, similar to how Skype is used.  The video quality is said to be very good and the images are expected to be even better by the time the product is perfected.  The company says that only half the power of the processor is being used currently.

Freescale is devoting a large share of its market budget to smartbooks and hopes to meet the increasing demand for handy ultra-portable devices.  Only time will tell how well they are accepted.

Most gamers prefer nVidia and ATI for Graphics Cards, 2 Gigs of RAM, although most high-end laptops come with 4 or more Gigs of RAM.

Be prepared to pay top dollar for high-end gaming laptops, especially when you are interested in the well-known brands.

Alienware Area-51 m17x

Alienware has always been a leader for gaming machines. But then for all that performance and style, you are expected to pay as they don’t come cheap. This 10.5 lbs machine comes with the 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 CPU, 4GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive (at 7200rpm), 512MB nVidia Quadro FX 3600M graphics, 17” dWideUXGA display 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview technology. It comes with Windows Vista Ultimate.

The only issue is with the battery, as you can expect with any gaming laptop. It is a power hungry monster that can use up the power pretty quickly. Although, it is mobile, it serves better as a desktop replacement rather than a portable laptop. But even if you wish to lag it around, it is still one of the coolest laptops – looks wise too.

Alienware m17

Although, “cheap” is certainly not the word that can be used for any Alienware laptops, this one is pretty low compared to their other machines. Price range is about 1,300 and a little more. It packs 1GB of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 x2 graphics processing power, and comes with 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU, 4GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive (at 7200rpm). This results in the ability of this machine to run most modern games at a decent speed. It provides a great gaming experience, delivering speed where it is required. However, where office applications are concerned, the speed may not be all that great.

HP HDX 18

The HDX 18 from HP is an out-and-out multimedia machine, right from its fashionable look to performance. Although, HP HDX 18 is not the fastest machine around, it’s more than enough to play many of the games as well as video. With a T9600 processor, 4GB of RAM and 9600M graphics, it certainly can play some of the big guns without much of a hitch. Games like Fallout 3, which is an action role-playing game and Left 4 Dead can be played smoothly on the screen’s resolution of 1920×1080. If you wish to have a serious gaming machine, you will have to look at something with 9800M graphics card; although, this surely is great for almost all the games, except perhaps the most demanding games like GTA IV.

Eurocom D901C Phantom-X

This machine comes with a 3 GHz Xeon Quad Core X3370 processor, two 80GB solid-state drives with Windows Vista and with 8GB of RAM. Add the nVidia GeForce Go 9800M GTX graphics running in SLI and you have a deadly gaming combination. This speed king dominates many games such as Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament III. With 1900 x 1200 pixels, the 17.1 inch screen is bright and clear and more than perfect for extended gaming sessions. Well, all this power does not come cheap and this is expensive at $5950. But if you’re a game addict that values high-levels of performance, you probably won’t mind the steep price.

Gateway P-7811FX

The Gateway P-7811FX is an inexpensive alternative to the higher priced gaming laptops. This is a perfect deal for people looking for a good gaming machine yet want to stick to their budget. This machine is run by a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 CPU and a 4GB of DDR3-800 RAM. This has the capacity to handle most of the current games. Although, the 17.1-inch screen is not as bright, the colors are perfect in still images. The only problem if you perceive it as such is the glossy coating on the screen that may be distracting when playing. The 200GB 7200rpm hard drive, the nVidia GeForce 9800M GTS graphics make up for everything else. It comes with Windows Vista Premium (64-bit) and weighs 9 lbs.

This gaming machine offers good value for money and certainly something that should be taken into consideration, especially if you cannot afford the higher-end machines. You get to own a good gaming machine as well as save on some money in this time of recession.

These are just a few of the good gaming laptops available in the market. Many of them are certain to give you a good gaming experience. You may find other gaming laptops that are far cheaper, but you will have to look around a bit. For Mac lovers, there is the Apple MacBook Pro and you can also run Windows to play games. When looking for a gaming laptop, you should go for one that can be easily upgraded when you need to or when you have more money. Since many gamers don’t like Vista and prefer switching back to Windows XP, you should check if the laptop will accept XP before you buy it.