Best Ultraportable Laptops

With pricing just over $700, the Thinkpad Edge E220s is a bit more expensive than a few other ultraportables on the market but the overall package that it comes in is much nicer. The internals and performance are very similar to many ultrabooks but instead of using the new Intel technologies and solid state drives, it uses a traditional 320GB hard drive that gives it more storage. It is a bit thicker and heavier but this gives it a greater variety of peripherals ports than can be found on the ultrabooks. It does lack an optical drive which may be problematic for some but this is becoming much more common. Just be expecting to clean this often as the glossy exterior is a fingerprint magnet. Now if you are looking for something more affordable, the MSI X-Slim X370 can be found for under $600 but is does sacrifice some performance by relying on the AMD E-450 processor.

While there are a lot of great 13-inch laptops out there on the market, Toshiba has done an excellent job of balancing performance, features and price. The Portege R835-P56X comes with a Core i5-2410M processor, 4GB DDR3 memory, 640GB hard drive and a dual layer DVD burner all in a package that costs around $800. This is hundreds less than many similar equipped laptops. Add to this that the laptop also has an amazing 3.2 lbs weight that is just slightly heavier than the much thinner MacBook Air 13. Of course, it doesn't have the same level of feel as the aluminum clad laptops from Apple. There are some downsides including a keyboard that could use improvement and a display that has some narrow viewing angles. A nice alternative for those looking at a full featured ultraportable is the Samsung Series 3 which has many of the same features although not quite as nice feeling but at a slightly more affordable $750.

If you are looking to have the longest running times without having to carry additional battery packs, then the HP Folio 13 certainly leads in this category with over six hours of continuous video playback. The ultrabook is a bit larger and heavier than much of its competition but this allows for the larger battery pack and more peripheral ports such as Ethernet and a full sized HDMI port. Performance is pretty typical but the display certainly needs to be improved as it is darker than the competition. At least it is pretty affordable with prices under $900. Of course, if you want a long running ultraportable with a bit more performance and an optical drive, the Apple MacBook Pro 13 still offers some outstanding running times even if the platform needs a major redesign.

Even with the onslaught of ultrabooks recently, the Apple MacBook Air 13 still holds up well as the best ultrathin laptop. It may not have the battery life of some of its competitors, but the $1299 price is reasonable and it still outperforms much of the competition both in boot times and in general performance. The 13-inch screen also offers an above average 1440x900 resolution and some better than average brightness and viewing angles. While I previously names the MacBook Air 11 as a more affordable alternative, the Dell XPS 13 ultrabook is a better choice thanks to its very solid performance and $1000 price tag in a package that in some ways is more compact than even the MacBook Air 13.

Who would have imagined an 11-inch laptop being able to handle computer gaming? That is exactly what Dell did with the Alienware M11x and for $1000. The system now features the second generation Intel Core i processors and 4GB of DDR3 memory and then adds an NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics processor and a 1366x768 11.6-inch display on top of it. It also has a DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA video connectors for use with external displays. Now, there are some downsides including a thicker and heavier case as well as a fairly noisy fan when running it to full performance. Of course, there isn't really any other laptop in this size range with such features to even compete with it.