Acer Aspire 9504WSMi with 17-inch widescreen, 2GHz Pentium M
Acer is the latest to go wide and fast with a laptop tailored as a desktop — or television — replacement. The Aspire 9504WSMi has a 17-inch widescreen display, a 2GHz Pentium M, a 120GB drive, Bluetooth, an optional dual-layer DVD burner and RAM options up to 2GB. Acer also lets you choose your OS a la carte, offering not just XP Home and Pro, but MCE as well (which you can match with an optional TV tuner). Battery life is up to 3 hours, though considering that this box weighs in at 8 pounds, it's doubtful you'll be using it on your tray table too often. Expect to pay about $2,400, a bit less than you'd spend on a similarly equipped Dell XPS laptop.
