LAPTOP COMPUTERS Low End High End  PHOTO COURTESY OF TOSHIBA    TOSHIBA SATELLITE A55-S306   Suggested Retail: $1,300   toshibadirect.com

Toshiba Satellite A55-S306
Toshiba is always the fastest innovator in the world of laptops, but it doesn't always have the best prices. That's why we were pleasantly surprised to discover this model with a 15-in. display and a 1.5GHz Intel Pentium M at the core of the energy-conserving Centrino chipset with integrated Wi-Fi networking. It weighs under 6 lbs. and can run for over 3.5 hours on a single battery charge. (There's even a battery with twice the capacity, which you can buy for $135 extra.) The basic configuration gives you a 40GB hard drive, 256 MB of RAM and a CD burner. The next model up, the $1,600 A55-S326, gives you twice the RAM, a 60GB hard drive and an internal DVD burner which can, of course, also burn CDs.