laptops

We’ve always had a category covering the world of computers in our Cool Yule Tools holiday gift guide. But then computers gave way to notebooks (so we combined the category), and then tablets have entered the scene. With the arrival and success of the iPad and other tablets, many have said that “the PC is dead”, and we’ll admit, our choices of cool computers are fewer than in years past. But there are still some nice systems out there, here are a bunch of desktops, notebooks, and yes, tablets, that we think would make for some good gifts:

You have to take only a couple of business trips or vacations with a 6-pound laptop in tow before you start thinking about switching to a PC with a little less meat on its bones.

The benchmark results for Apple's latest MacBook Pros are in—and they’re impressive. In testing conducted by Macworld Lab, the laptops released last week turned in Speedmark scores between 13 and 53 percent faster than the systems they replace.

The chips inside the Dell Inspiron 14 (1464) should push this average laptop beyond midrange quality. A 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor and 4GB of RAM should power any typical home or office workload. A decent, 14-inch display gives room to edit side-by-side documents or to watch videos. Why, then, does the Inspiron 14 end up feeling more low-end in actual use?