We had our first look at a gargantuan 15.1-inch notebook screen this month. It's nearly the size of a 17-inch monitor's viewable area. Yesterday's biggest and baddest screen for notebooks--the 14.4-incher--is already so wide it almost bursts through the plastic frame. So how did the vendors accommodate a 15.1-inch active-matrix screen on the $2999 Micro Express NP8266B and the $3999 Eurocom 8500M? By increasing each notebook's width by about 2 inches, which means that you also get a bigger keyboard. The catch? Some 10.8 pounds of pure misery on your shoulder.

Among budget notebooks, dual-scan screens, which lack the sharpness and high contrast of active-matrix screens, have been on a steady march to the technology graveyard. But several vendors are trying to extend the life of dual-scan displays with a quick fix called HPA (High Performance Addressing) that supposedly improves the screen's contrast and permits a wider viewing angle. However, that's not what we found when we examined the HPA-enhanced screen on the new Hitachi VisionBook Plus 5260. It had the same washed-out look as most other dual-scan screens we've seen. Dell and Gateway will ship HPA notebooks soon. We'll let you know if they succeed in making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

We tested ten new notebooks this month, but only the Pentium IIpowered Dell Latitude CPi D266XT, a magnificently designed machine, made the chart. The Gateway Solo 5100 LS, a fine roadster we tested for June, becomes our new number five power system. On the budget side, the inexpensive yet powerful DTX FortisPro Top5A233, also tested last month, is our number five budget system, while a $200 price cut catapults the Gateway Solo 2300 SE into the top slot.

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Top 5 Power Notebooks

1. Quantex H 1331

2. Dell Inspiron 3200 D266XT

3. Dell Latitude CPi D266XT

4. Compaq Armada 4220T

5. Gateway Solo 5100 LS

Top 5 Budget Notebooks

1. Gateway Solo 2300 SE

2. Acer Extensa 394T

3. WinBook XL K6 233

4. Quantex H 1330

5. DTK FortisPro Top5A233