Best mainstream laptops

Mainstream used to mean the standard, 15.4-inch laptops everyone lugged around in backbreaking shoulder bags before ultraportable systems became popular. This year, we've seen a major shift toward redefining mainstream as the slightly smaller 14.1-inch size. For a small trade-off in screen size, you get a system that's usually significantly smaller, a bit lighter, and just plain better designed, as standard-size laptop keyboards seem to fit 14-inch systems much better, with less wasted space. But for general household computing, both 15- and 14-inch laptops will work fine.