Cheap, lightweight laptops have quietly gotten better over the past year.

This end of the home-use market is no longer owned by heavy, hot, battery-draining machines running on desktop processors that barely keep up with present software.

Not that there isn?t a market for such things, but ?desktop replacement? laptops poorly serve college students and others who regularly take a computer away from a desk.

Much credit for this improvement goes to a new crop of efficient, compact processors that put out less heat and don?t need to be cooled by an array of noisy fans.

They have given far more options to budget-minded shoppers who want less than five pounds of laptop hanging off their shoulders.

Any one will do

But here?s a downside to this new wealth of portable-PC choices: Almost any new model will do.

Buy one with a laptop-optimised processor (Intel?s Core 2 Duo has been running away with the light-laptop market) and enough memory (at least a gigabyte on a Mac, 2 GB on a Windows Vista PC), and you can?t go wrong.

That was one conclusion from a test drive of four new laptops: Apple?s MacBook, Dell?s Inspiron 1318, HP?s Pavilion tx2500z and Toshiba?s Satellite U405-S2854.

All featured 12- or 13-inch widescreen LCD screens; weighed just under five pounds; provided more hard-drive space than desktops did a few years ago; and threw in such luxury items as high-speed WiFi, Bluetooth wireless (except on the Dell) and built-in webcams. They?d all suffice for everyday home computing.

But plenty of other things still set them apart.

Let?s get the obvious one out of the way first: Mac or PC.
Apple?s Mac OS X Leopard makes Windows Vista look clumsy, unmanageable and obsolete.

Vista?s not as bad as many people regard it but Microsoft?s year-and-a-half-old operating system can?t match OS X?s simplicity and relative security.

Superior stuff

Apple also provides superior music, photo and video programs with its iLife suite; automatic backup tools; and the Boot Camp software that lets you install Windows alongside OS X.

Note that of the four tested laptops, only the $1,099 (Dh4,035) MacBook shipped without any third-party ?trialware?. This MacBook ran longer than the other three laptops on one charge while playing a DVD.

It lasted three hours and 17 minutes, compared with 2.15 for the Dell, 2.03 for the Toshiba and 2.00 for the HP.

That said, Apple has put itself at a temporary disadvantage in the cheap-laptop market. The MacBook?s basic design has gone two years without major upgrades ? it seems obvious that Apple will redo it soon.

In the meantime, many cheaper Windows laptops now match the MacBook?s features and add more memory and storage options, such as extra USB ports and memory-card slots.

Bits of Apple

Dell?s Inspiron 1318, for example, sells for $698 (Dh2,564). It includes some of Apple?s stylish refinements such as a slot-loading disc drive.

But this bargain-bin model?s drive burns DVDs as well as CDs, and the 1318 includes a slot for SD cards and memory sticks, too. (Less desirable: the glossy, glare-prone screen.)

Dell also seems to have learnt from its past errors with bundled software: The 1318 was the cleanest machine I?ve ever seen Dell ship, with only a trial copy of Symantec?s Norton Internet Security.

HP?s Pavilion tx2500z, at $900 (Dh3,306) and up, offers a feature absent from any Apple machines
and most under-$1,000 (Dh3,673) Windows laptops ? it?s a tablet PC, with a screen that swivels to invite touch-screen control and text entry with an included stylus.

This model, too, can burn DVDs and CDs; if you buy special LightScribe discs, it can write labels on them, too.

The tested model, however, came with only a 12.1-inch screen instead of the 13.3-inch displays of the other three. Such ill-chosen upgrades as the Ultimate Edition of Windows Vista bloated its price to $1,539 (Dh5,650).

Cluttered but better

The tx2500z?s software bundle was about as cluttered as older HP models ? though still worlds better than the junk accumulated on Toshiba?s drive.

Toshiba?s $950 (Dh3,489) Satellite U405 combined capable, if sometimes odd, hardware (USB ports that can recharge your gadgets while the laptop sleeps) with a laughably bad software bundle.

Much of it ? the desktop clogged with irrelevant shortcuts, the pre-installed software for little-used music and video stores, the online help on a lengthy PDF file ? betrayed a lack of consideration for what a customer would actually need.

Distinguishing features

HP Pavilion tx2500z

* 12.1-inch swivelling touch screen, 4.9lbs (power adapter adds 0.8lb.)
* Battery life: 2 hours for DVD playback, 2:24 for MP3 playback.

Notes: Tablet PC. Absurd amount of memory and hard drive (4 GB and 320 G. Only model to include a dial-up modem. ExpressCard slot stores a nifty little remote control.

Toshiba Satellite U405-S2854

* 13.3-inch screen, 4.6lbs (power adapter adds 0.9lb.
* Battery life: 2:03 for DVD playback, 2:31 for MP3 playback.

Notes: Plain but generally competent machine that suffers from a thoroughly mediocre software bundle. FM radio seems out of place.

Apple MacBook

* 13.3-inch screen, 4.9lbs (power adapter adds 0.6lb.)
* Battery life: 3:17 for DVD playback, 3:37 for MP3 playback.

Notes: Runs Mac OS X but can run Windows as well. Seems overpriced, considering limited memory and storage and lack of DVD-burning capability. High odds of being replaced by a new design.

Dell Inspiron 1318

* 13.3-inch screen, 4.9lbs (power adapter adds 0.8lb.)
* Battery life: 2:15 for DVD playback, 3:07 for MP3 playback.

Notes: Dirt cheap and yet fairly stylish but no Bluetooth and relatively little memory and storage. Blissfully clean software bundle.