Laptop likely to be best bet

For real travelers (or laptop-toting students) who value portability and battery life over everything else, consider the road warrior. These are machines that weigh as little as three pounds and have screens in the 12- to-14-inch range. Their keyboards may be slightly less than full-sized, which can be a real pain if you or your student does a lot of writing. So try one this size before you buy.

This category is where less really begins to cost more. Equipped for college use, these laptops start at $1,300 or so - but they're beautiful little machines. I like them a lot more than I used to - and your student will love one, too.

The new category this year is what I call the ultra-light. Some of these, like the Asus EEE PC, have been hot items with gadget geeks, but their 7-inch screens and tiny keyboards make them useless for anything more than Web browsing.

For the rest of us, a new generation of low-power chips from Intel, Via and other manufacturers will result in more machines like the Hewlett-Packard 2133, which sports a 9-inch screen, a nearly full-size keyboard, and enough processing power to handle most chores. Equipped for real work by non-geeks, these machines sell for as little as $800. Definitely worth a look when portability is paramount.

mike.himowitz@baltsun.com

Next week: Shopping for PCs, one component at a time.