CNET's top picks for the best little laptops you can find this holiday season.
Scott Stein
I started with CNET reviewing laptops in 2009. Now I explore wearable tech, VR/AR, tablets, gaming and future/emerging trends in our changing world. Other obsessions include magic, immersive theater, puzzles, board games, cooking, improv and the New York Jets. My background includes an MFA in theater which I apply to thinking about immersive experiences of the future.
Dan AckermanEditorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications.
"Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
ExpertiseI've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever.Credentials
Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Samsung's tiny laptop isn’t an "Ultrabook," but it's more affordable and just as powerful. A rose by any other name, in this case, is a budget portable laptop that might be the perfect fit for those who can't stomach a $1,000 MacBook Air.
Apple's latest generation of superthin Airs are faster and flat-out better than they've ever been, and add backlit keyboards. This 11-incher isn't cheap, but it's the best 11-inch computer we’ve ever seen, and it's lightning-fast to boot up.
Our favorite 11-inch budget laptop of the fall gets a holiday upgrade with a new processor that's a bit zippier. At under $500, this is like a souped-up Netbook with all the storage space and video-streaming capabilities that Atom Netbooks lack.
Ultrabooks are like Windows' answer to the MacBook Air. The Lenovo IdeaPad U300s is a sleek, aggressively designed superthin Windows 7 laptop that doesn’t have an optical drive, but is far more bag-friendly for it.
Even more wafer-thin and superpowered than its predecessor, the new Vaio Z is a more affordable laptop, too. It's still miles beyond the budget of most shoppers, but over-the-top features and external Blu-ray drive with offboard gaming graphics add up to a true executive supercomputer.
