Fujitsu LifeBook S7010

The svelte, full-featured LifeBook S7010 is an excellent choice for business travelers.

Full-featured portables are lighter than ever. Take the handsome Fujitsu LifeBook S7010, a black-and-silver notebook that weighs only 4.2 pounds yet includes a 14.1-inch screen, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi readiness, and a slew of other useful features.

Like most LifeBooks, the S7010 comes with a panel of dual-purpose buttons above the keyboard; the buttons function as application shortcut buttons and as a password entry system at system startup. You can order the notebook with just a trackpad, or you can get dual pointing devices at no extra cost.

To the left of the application-launching buttons sits the S7010's handy battery status LCD, which lets you check battery life without turning over the notebook (the S7010 doesn't have a power gauge right on the battery itself). The battery lasts 3.8 hours on one charge, enough to stay productive on most domestic air trips.

You can use the handy side release to swap out the combination drive for the included airbay and drop the S7010's weight to a fluffy 3.8 pounds. This modular bay can also take a second battery or a DVD burner.

Another design touch we liked was the front wireless communications switch, which lets you turn on and off wireless scanning to avoid the constant drain on battery power. Also, Fujitsu's $199 port replicator simplifies cable management and adds a DVI port for attaching an LCD flat panel.

Our gripes: The S7010 suffers from run-of-the-mill audio that's not very loud and sounds kind of tinny. And in an unusual inconvenience, the hard drive is not user accessible. To upgrade storage, you'll have to send the entire unit back to the factory.

The S7010, equipped with the 1.7-GHz/600-MHz Pentium M processor, earned a WorldBench 5 score of 75, slightly below the scores of 80 and 82 earned by the similarly configured IBM ThinkPad T42 and WinBook W360, respectively. But in the end, these are fairly trivial complaints.

For its combination of screen size, weight, and features, it's hard to beat the battery-sipping, thin-and-light Fujitsu LifeBook S7010.

Fujitsu LifeBook S7010

WorldBench 5 score of 75, 1.7-GHz/600-MHz Pentium M, 512MB of DDR333 SDRAM, Windows XP Professional, 14.1-inch screen, 60GB hard drive, combo drive, built-in V.90 modem and gigabit ethernet, 802.11g and built-in Bluetooth wireless capability, touchpad pointing device, 5.1 pounds (including AC adapter and phone cord). One-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited 24-hour daily toll-free tech support.$1919877/372-3473www.fujitsupc.comCarla Thornton