In the Lap of Luxury

It's August. Barbeques. Beaches. And sadly, back-to-school.

In this digital age, getting ready to study usually means suiting up at least one member of the family with a slick new laptop computer.

That's too bad. There's nothing more idiotic than a laptop.

Portable computers break every law of common sense.

First, they're too big. Even the smallest real laptops -- no micro, personal digital thingamajigs here -- are monsters. The lightest machines, such as Sony's (SNE) Vaio TX750, weigh in around five pounds, once you factor in power supplies and the accessories you really need for it to work.

Laptops are also too expensive. The simplest machines, like Dell's (DELL) Inspiron B130 with its pathetic 14-inch screen, start at a stiff $500.

All that money doesn't buy much performance, either. Portable computers always lag desktops in terms of processing power, storage and other metrics.

And that's ignoring the fact that some Dells just plain blow up.

But, irrationally, people love their notebook computers. Digitimes reports 80 million laptops of varying types will ship worldwide this year. Inside this tech tsunami is my personal pick for most bizarre laptop: the desktop replacement portable computer.

Desktop replacement laptops create the ultimate illusion of the ultimate computer solution: They claim to offer similar performance to desktops, but in a portable package.

But they don't. Instead, they are often hilariously garish riffs on the portable computer, the monster trucks of the PC world.

DRs come with huge screens: 17 inches is almost standard.

They're stuffed with multimedia features such as digital-video-disc drives and universal-serial-bus connectors.

They come chock full of processing power and storage.

And most start at a husky 10 pounds. That makes them heavy enough to not only replace the desktop computer, but the desk itself.

Desktop replacements aren't cheap. Decent desktop replacement notebooks start at more than $2,000. Even hitting $5,000, as we shall soon see, is no challenge.

Two Put to the Test

	H-P Compaq nw9440

To get a sense of the allure of desktop replacements, I got ahold of two of the better models: Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) Compaq nw9440 mobile workstation (about $3,550) and Alienware's Aurora mALX (about $4,870).

First, the H-P. The 9440 is exactly what you would expect from a higher-end H-P notebook: a serviceable 17-inch screen married to a perfectly fast Intel processor.

Both are built around an attractive, if bland, case that holds plenty of memory, storage and battery life. My 9440 ran a bit more than 2½ hours at max battery burn. Real usage will be about double that.

The 9440 wasn't unreasonably huge; with a power supply and the other junk I carry, my unit touched 10 pounds.

However, all this heft paid dividends.