When I first moved to New York 15 years ago, for a few years during the holiday season I’d be asked by people from elsewhere if I’d be among the throngs in the Times Square crowd, watching and cheering as the ball drops. I’ve never done it, and I probably never will. I dislike crowds and I dislike standing in one place for hours on end with nothing to do but cheer. And the Times Square area is, for me, my work environment, and during the holidays I’d rather be at home, which for me means uptown and out of the way.

I’ve worked in Rockefeller Center, mere blocks from Times Square, for about six years now, and watched as the size and density of the crowds of visiting tourists have seemed to increase incrementally during the holiday season each year.

It wasn’t my imagination. New York City’s own official statisticians say that 48.8 million people visited the city in 2010, up from fewer than 43 million in 2005 when I became a Midtown regular. The forecast for 2011 is 50.2 million. Assuming the forecast is correct, the city will have beat by four years Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s goal, set in 2008, of attracting 50 million visitors by 2015. These same statisticians say that one out of every three international visitors to the United States comes to New York City.

And that ball has a lot to do with it. It’s said that 1 billion people will watch the ball drop in Times Square tonight on television. This I usually watch, and not because I’m a Ryan Seacrest fan. But for some reason that makes little logical sense, I enjoy seeing the part of the city where I spend so much of my daily life being enjoyed by so many people. I like seeing my adopted home town being the center of the world’s attention.

So what about that ball? It was replaced last year, and has some pretty impressive specifications. As Scientific American tells it, it is 12 feet in diameter and weighs nearly six tons, or 11,875 pounds.

It’s made up of 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles, and is lit by 32,256 Philips Luxeon LED lights, which is apparently triple the number of lights on the ball last year. All those lights — and being LEDs they’re programmable — are capable of producing 16 million colors, with the number of theoretical combinations numbering in the billions. It’s also more energy efficient — by somewhere between 10 to 20 percent — than it was last year, and consumes about the same amount of power as is required to power two typical electric home ovens. For the geekier minded among you, there’s even more to know in this article in PDF format from something called Lighting Science. It hadn’t occurred to me, for instance, that since the ball is on display year-round that it would require significant cooling during the hotter days of summer.

It has come a long way from the original ball in 1907, which had 120 25-watt light bulbs on it. There’s a picture of one from 1978 included with this long history of the whole ball-dropping tradition.

If you’re in or around Times Square in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, and have the presence of mind to look up, you can probably see one of many test drops of the ball. I found this Associated Press video covering one such test, via the Village Voice.

And if you’re not near a TV, you can of course catch a live stream of the festivities.

Happy New Year, everyone.

(Image of the 2007-vintage ball via Wikipedia.)

11.6-inch LED backlit hi-res display, Core 2 Duo processor, FaceTime camera and five hours of battery life.
$999 at 64 gb
$1,199 at 128 gb

13.3-inch LED backlit hi-res display, Core 2 duo processor, FaceTime camera and seven hours of battery life.
$1,299 at 128 gb
$1,599 at 256 gb

Annual sales of semiconductors into televisions will grow by $2.9 billion this year to $12.2 billion, according to a new report from iSuppli, a semiconductor research firm that expects that pace of growth to continue on through next year.

This growth is being driven by two trends: the falling price of liquid crystal display, or LCD, panels, and the demand for features that haven’t been part of television designs until recently.

Now that overall costs for LCD panels, which are in most televisions, are coming down, television makers are focusing on improving the performance of their devices, said Randy Lawson, an analyst with iSuppli. This in turn calls for a host of new components such as image processors, power management chips and light-emitting diodes, Lawson said.

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With a 2.4GHz Intel (INTC) Core 2 Duo processor, an Nvidia (NVDA) GeForce 320m graphics chip and 10 hours of battery life, the updated MacBook is similar in spec to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, though with the more budget-friendly price that has made it successful in the education market–$999.

A nice update to a machine that was last tweaked in October 2009, when Apple (AAPL) gave it a new polycarbonate unibody design, LED-backlit display, and multitouch trackpad.

Not much more to point out beyond that, though it’s worth noting that the machine is identical to the one described in a leak to Vietnamese Web site Tinhte earlier this week.

Consider this scenario from Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett.

Imagine a portable set top box, but with its own killer screen. When in the home, it would be docked in a cradle connected to iTunes via a wired broadband pipe. Navigation of programming guides and iTunes listings would occur on the iPad, using an intuitive touch interface. Output would go directly to the wide-screen TV on the wall…until you left the house. Then, you’d simply pop the device out of its cradle and take it with you. And in the process, you’d be taking your TV with you as well. A 3G (and eventually 4G) wireless connection would allow you to keep watching live TV in the back of the car or cab. Once you got on the airplane you could choose from a library of your favorite shows saved on your DVR…which also happens to be a half-inch thick ergonomically gorgeous high definition tilt-sensitive screen that fits comfortably in your hands.

A dockable, portable set-top box with LED-backlit widescreen display? Seems a bit of a stretch at this point. And it would be enormously bandwidth-intensive. But it’s not entirely inconceivable, is it?

UPDATE: Mark Sigal recently made a similar observation over at O’Reilly Radar, using MLB’s iPad app as an example:

Similarly, MLB (Major League Baseball) showcased their MLB app, which overlays graphics, information feeds, video clips and live game programming in a way that is simultaneously immersive, interactive and highly entertaining. It is both suggestive of a media-centric killer app for the IPad and a bellwether for the future of TV Anywhere, yet another reason that I believe Apple’s ambitions with respect to Apple TV remain very much alive.

Unveiled at a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the device is similar to Verizon’s (VZ) Droid in that it features both a touchscreen and keypad, but with one interesting twist: A reverse “qwerty” flip keypad that folds out from behind the display.

“Most people are used to a forward flipping keyboard or an upward slider,” Motorola’s (MOT) Paul Nicholson explained. “The Backflip’s keyboard opens up in the reverse direction.”

Otherwise, the Backflip is similar to its predecessors. It has a 3.1-inch display with a 480 x 320-resolution (HVGA) touchscreen, a 528MHz Qualcomm (QCOM) processor, 32 gigabytes of expandable memory, and a five-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. The Backflip runs Android 1.5 and like the Cliq before it, offers Motorola’s customized Motoblur social networking service.

Overall, a slick little device, though more evolutionary than revolutionary.

“Q: So if this is not the GPhone, when will we see the GPhone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a GPhone. It starts a whole wave of innovation…

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships…the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: …GPhone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the GPhone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products….If there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a Nov. 2007 conference call on Android

During an Android demo in April 2008, Steve Horowitz, one of the original engineers working on Google’s Android platform, said “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt when the operating system was announced. Now, not two years later, Google is telling us something different: There is a GPhone and its name is Nexus One.

At an event at Google’s (GOOG) Mountain View, Calif., headquarters this morning, a handful of company execs discussed the genesis of the Nexus One, tracing its evolution from the G1–the first Android phone–to the Verizon (VZ) Droid. In the short time since Android was launched, the number of devices running it has grown to 20, offered by 59 carriers in 48 countries.

“To help Android to adapt to the needs of users like you and me, our engineering department sometimes works with partners to speed innovation around Android,” Mario Queiroz, VP of Product Management, said during opening remarks. “But we want to do more. So we asked ourselves, ‘What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market that will help us better showcase some of the technology we’ve developed?’”

The result: Nexus One. “The dictionary definition of Nexus One is a point of convergence. Its that point at which Web meets phone,” Queiroz explains. “The Nexus One belongs in an emerging category of devices we call superphones.”

Eric Tseng, a senior Google product manager, takes the stage to walk through Nexus One’s features, which we’re now all pretty familiar with: 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, five-megapixel camera with LED flash, a trackball with a multicolor notification LED, light and proximity sensors that save power.

The device is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs about 130 grams, which Tseng notes is no heavier than a keychain-size Swiss Army knife. Nexus One runs on Android 2.1, a.k.a. “Eclair.” Oh, it also offers “support” for personalization–engrave your name or that of a loved one on the back.

That’s the baseline offering, but there are other enhancements. Among them: Five home-screen panels that allow users to add more widgets, like Google’s GPS weather widget, which is evidently very exciting and “Googley.”

Another enhancement: “Living wallpapers,” dynamic, animated home-screen images–leaves falling on water, for example; tap the screen and the water ripples. Neat feature, but not exactly a killer app.

Also onboard: A photo-gallery app developed with the folks at Cool Iris and tricked out with some pretty slick 3-D viewing. Tip the phone and the photos recede, etc.

Finally, Google has developed some significant voice enhancements. Evidently, the company has voice-enabled all text fields on the device. “Now, we can speak our tweets and Facebook status updates,” says Tseng.

All in all, an impressive device. Be sure to read Walt Mossberg’s review for a more in-depth look at Nexus One.

So how do you get your hands on a Google superphone? Through a “Google-hosted Web Store,” says Queiroz. You can buy a phone with service from a carrier partner, or without service.

A Nexus One without service goes for $529. For $179, you can buy it from T-Mobile with service. In the spring, you’ll be able to buy it from–surprise!–Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD).

Transactions will be handled by Google Checkout, so if you’re a Google Account holder, purchasing the device should be fairly simple.

One last point worth noting here: Queiroz stresses that the Nexus One is the first of a number of products developed via this new collaborative process with partners. “Our plan is to add more carriers and more devices in the future,” he says.

Ah. As Eric Schmidt said back in 2007, “Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q&A:

• Nexus Ones ordered from T-Mobile ship today.
• Google is the merchant of record. When you buy a Nexus One, you buy it from Google.
• Why was it necessary for Google to design the Nexus One? Google didn’t really design the phone. “HTC did, Google is just merchandising it.”
• Android 2.1 will be available for Droid and other Android devices soon.
• Google’s Web Store is “simply another distribution channel.” It is not designed to replace or disintermediate carriers or mobile phone retailers.
• Queiroz on the Google Web Store program: “If users are interested in a different form factor and our software supports it, we’ll pursue it. We’re going to look at different options of devices that can be added to the program. We will consider other mobile phones.”
• Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering: “Today’s superphone is tomorrow’s smartphone.”
• Question from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land: “Where is the ad-supported mobile phone? Where’s the revolution?” Sadly, Rubin dodges. Gotta take a first step before you can change the world…blah lah blah.
• How do superphones differ from smartphones? Rubin: “It’s just the evolution of the platform….It’s the greater memory, the faster processors….The Nexus One is as powerful as your laptop was four years ago.”
• Question for Motorola’s (MOT) Sanjay Jha: Is Motorola worried that Nexus One will cannibalize Droid sales? Jha says no, and his presence here today supports that. Still it’s tough to believe him. Maybe Motorola and Google are already working on Nexus Two.

The new iMacs boast LED-backlit 21.5- and 27-inch widescreen displays in an edge-to-edge glass design and all aluminum enclosure. They’re available with Intel (INTC) Core 2 Duo processors starting at 3.06 GHz, and Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors for even better performance. The low-end model is priced at $1,199, the same as the past generation, but its high-end sibling is now $200 cheaper, at $1,999.

The new MacBook features an 13.3-inch LED backlit display, a multitouch trackpad, and a $999 price tag. Though still housed in white polycarbonate plastic, it features an updated unibody design borrowed from the MacBook Pro.

The successor to the Mighty Mouse, Magic Mouse, eliminates mechanical buttons, instead, employing the same multitouch surface found on the iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac notebook trackpads, allowing users to navigate their desktops with simple gesture commands.

Accompanying the Magic Mouse is a a new Apple Remote. It’s got a new design and is, predictably, housed in aluminum.

Finally, Apple (AAPL) also updated the Mac mini. While its design is largely identical to that of its predecessor, it offers far more storage. Starting at $599, the entry-level Mac mini features a faster 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, a 160GB hard drive, five USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800, Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics and a SuperDrive.

There’s also a new $999 Mac mini that’s specially configured with a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server. It’s outfitted with two 500GB hard drives for a total of 1TB of server storage.

Quite a refresh and one analysts are already crowing about. In a bulletin released after the announcement, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster said Apple’s new machines will undoubtedly improve the company’s prospects for the December quarter.

“We expect the new iMacs, and to a lesser degree the new Mac minis, to help the desktop category rebound in the Dec. quarter,” Munster wrote. “In other words, the headwind that existed in the Sept. quarter due to aging Mac desktops has now turned into a tailwind for Mac units in the Dec. quarter….Bottom Line: Street Mac numbers may also be conservative if positive trends continue coupled with new Macs in the quarter.”

The new iMacs boast LED-backlit 21.5- and 27-inch widescreen displays in an edge-to-edge glass design and all aluminum enclosure. They’re available with Intel (INTC) Core 2 Duo processors starting at 3.06 GHz, and Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors for even better performance. The low-end model is priced at $1,199, the same as the past generation, but its high-end sibling is now $200 cheaper, at $1,999.

The new MacBook features an 13.3-inch LED backlit display, a multitouch trackpad, and a $999 price tag. Though still housed in white polycarbonate plastic, it features an updated unibody design borrowed from the MacBook Pro.

The successor to the Mighty Mouse, Magic Mouse, eliminates mechanical buttons, instead, employing the same multitouch surface found on the iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac notebook trackpads, allowing users to navigate their desktops with simple gesture commands.

Accompanying the Magic Mouse is a a new Apple Remote. It’s got a new design and is, predictably, housed in aluminum.

Finally, Apple (AAPL) also updated the Mac mini. While its design is largely identical to that of its predecessor, it offers far more storage. Starting at $599, the entry-level Mac mini features a faster 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, a 160GB hard drive, five USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800, Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics and a SuperDrive.

There’s also a new $999 Mac mini that’s specially configured with a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server. It’s outfitted with two 500GB hard drives for a total of 1TB of server storage.

Quite a refresh and one analysts are already crowing about. In a bulletin released after the announcement, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster said Apple’s new machines will undoubtedly improve the company’s prospects for the December quarter.

“We expect the new iMacs, and to a lesser degree the new Mac minis, to help the desktop category rebound in the Dec. quarter,” Munster wrote. “In other words, the headwind that existed in the Sept. quarter due to aging Mac desktops has now turned into a tailwind for Mac units in the Dec. quarter….Bottom Line: Street Mac numbers may also be conservative if positive trends continue coupled with new Macs in the quarter.”

Sales in Q1 rose 24 percent to $140.4 million, the company said, ahead of an average estimate of $139.6 million, while profit of 15 cents per share, excluding some costs, was ahead of the average 14 cent consensus estimate.

For the December-ending second quarter, Cree is looking for sales in a range of $142 million to $146 million, with profit, excluding some costs, in a range of 15 cents to 16 cents per share, it said.

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When Daily Variety broke the news that Pixar had hired writers for the pitch that became the 2007 release, ‘Ratatouille,’ Steve Jobs tracked the reporter down at the Sundance Film Festival, demanding to know her sources and threatening to fire the film’s writers. He called her on the private line of a rented condo–a number she had not given out to anyone. She still doesn’t know how he found it.”

– Daily Variety, June 18, 2006

Beyond the technology on display at Tuesday’s Apple event, what was perhaps most interesting was the accuracy with which it had been predicted. Astonishing really, given Apple’s near-monomaniacal secrecy. With the exception of that bogus $800 MacBook story, nearly every single rumor voiced in the weeks preceding Tuesday’s event was proven true–Apple’s new “brick” manufacturing process, aluminum enclosures for consumer MacBooks, LED backlit display, multi-touch glass trackpads, the screaming fast new Nvidia GPUs, even the date of the MacBook event itself. So when CEO Steve Jobs took the stage and said, “we have some exciting new products to show you,” most everyone sitting in the audience already had a pretty damn good idea what they were about to be shown. And that’s got to bother Apple (AAPL), which has long argued that leaks dampen excitement around product launches and taken legal action against rumor sites that publish them. Certainly, Jobs, showman that he is, can’t be pleased that the rabbits he’d planned to pull out of his hat Tuesday were hopping willy-nilly about the stage before he even arrived.

But apparently there’s little Apple can do to stop it. Or it’s given up trying. Or something else. “There used to be saying at Apple,” Jobs recalled at our D5 conference: “Isn’t it funny? A ship that leaks from the top.”

Perhaps it’s time for that saying be brought back into popular usage.

“Field checks confirm that shipments of new MacBooks have begun, with a sharp production ramp planned for September and an introduction planned for early October,” Gardner wrote. “The most distinctive features of the new MacBook appear to be a very thin aluminum casing, an LED-backlit display and an aggressive entry-level price point.”

Gardner expects Apple (AAPL) to introduce its fall notebook line “within weeks.” October 14, perhaps?

One item worth noting which I missed yesterday: Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster in an unusually cautious (for him) research note on Tuesday advised investors to keep their expectations for the capabilities of the 3G iPhone “in check.” He said the phone is likely to be nearly identical to the current iPhone in form and function.

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As always, this is a general guide aimed at mainstream, nontechnical consumers who dwell on common tasks such as email, instant messaging and surfing the Web; managing and lightly editing photos, videos and music; and using basic office applications. It is not intended for heavy gamers, video producers or corporate buyers.

There’s a vast variety of laptop models, but this guide is meant to cover the most common types of laptops, those with screens from about 12 inches to 17 inches, and weights ranging from around 2.5 pounds to 7 pounds.

For this column, I’m not including the category of tiny machines now called netbooks, with screens under 10 inches. I am also ignoring the huge, heavy laptops with screens larger than 17 inches that are primarily aimed at gamers.

Even the remaining mainstream machines range wildly in price, from bargain-basement models at $350 to high-end ones that can top $3,000. In my experience, the top brands for technology and reliability are Apple and Lenovo‘s ThinkPad line, but various models from Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell are also worth investigating.

So, here is a quick guide to the key factors you should consider when buying a laptop.

Size: If you are a constant traveler, think about the subnotebook models, which generally weigh 3 pounds or less. There are two types of these. The classic subnotebook has a small screen, 12 inches or less, and a cramped keyboard. This year, a new type emerged, with a full keyboard and a normal 13.3-inch screen packed into a thin, light body. There are two of these: the MacBook Air from Apple and the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. All subnotebooks are relatively costly, typically ranging from $1,500 to over $3,000.

If your laptop will mostly stay at home, the office, or in class, a 5-7 pound machine with a screen of either 13.3 inches or 15.4 inches is the best bet. A well-equipped model in this class is likely to run you between $800 and $1,200. Typical models in this class are the Dell Inspiron 1525, the HP dv6700 and the Apple MacBook.

Windows vs. Mac: This is the eternal question. In my view, Apple’s Leopard operating system is faster, better and far less prone to malicious software than Microsoft’s Vista operating system. And the Mac laptops also come with better built-in software. The $1,099 MacBook is a solid, fairly priced machine, and the $1,999 MacBook Pro is even better. Both also can run Windows.

But Windows laptops are often less expensive, tend to have a greater variety of ports and slots, and come in more styles and sizes.

Apple’s MacBook

Operating system: If you are buying a Windows laptop, be aware that Vista is slower than Windows XP, in my experience, and still has compatibility issues with add-on hardware and software. If you’d prefer to stick with XP, you will find that many fewer models are available with it. And Microsoft has decreed that after June 30, mainstream, name-brand laptops will no longer come pre-equipped with XP.

Video: I recommend getting an LED-powered screen, which is brighter and saves power. Also, if you are choosing Vista, or if you do a lot of converting video for use on portable devices, consider getting a laptop with a separate video card inside that has its own memory.

Memory: If you’re buying an Apple laptop, two gigabytes of memory is plenty. If you’re using Vista Home Premium, I’d consider three gigabytes for best performance.

Processor: Any dual-core processor will be fine. Don’t pay a penny extra for faster processor speed.

Storage: In a mainstream laptop that will be your main computer, look for a 160-gigabyte hard disk or larger. A new kind of storage, called SSD, or solid state disk, is now available. But it is still way too costly for most users, and at the moment is available only in smaller capacities.

Battery life: Many laptops today rarely spend time away from an electrical outlet. But if yours will, look for a battery life of at least three hours between charges.

Wireless: Make sure your new laptop has the new, faster “N” version of Wi-Fi built in. Many cheaper laptops don’t. You can also get a cellphone modem built in, but they are costly and carry a monthly fee. You can always add an external cellphone modem later.

Other features: A built-in camera and microphone can be quite useful, and so can a feature on some Windows machines that allows you to play music and videos without fully booting up the computer.

Don’t let yourself be swayed by sales pitches, or by fanaticism for or against Windows or the Mac. Think hard about how you use your computer and what your budget will allow, and stick to those priorities.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

My computer takes forever to start up. I am tempted to just put it into hibernation or standby when I am done with it for the day, so that starting up will be quicker. Would I be damaging my computer by doing so?

Doing this shouldn’t cause any damage to your computer. For many users, one of these two techniques is standard procedure, in fact. Standby, or sleep, mode, gets you back to work more quickly, because the machine never completely shuts down. Its biggest downside is that, on occasion, computers fail to “awaken” properly from this mode, and you have to do a full restart. So I would advise that you carefully save any work before initiating standby.

In my experience, this kind of glitch is less likely to happen when you use hibernation, in which the computer does completely shut down, but first saves to the hard disk a record of the state of the machine.

When the computer restarts, all open programs and files are restored just as you left them. The downside here is that getting going again using hibernation takes longer than it does using standby mode. And, even though it’s more reliable than standby mode, I’d still advise saving all your work each time before using hibernation.

I am thinking about switching to a MacBook Pro laptop. I understand that it has a real good automatic Wi-Fi detection system. But if I also use a cellular modem card from Verizon or Sprint to access the Internet, won’t the two conflict?

No. The Mac operating system treats the two kinds of connections separately, each with its own user interface. It can detect and connect either one, if you have coverage of both types.

I’m interested in getting a laptop with LED display and SSD drive. Do you think the price for those components will fall drastically in three months’ time?

Displays that use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been around for a while and don’t tend to be a major deal breaker in the higher-end laptops in which they are commonly offered. But solid-state drives (SSDs), which replace hard disks with memory chips to store your data, are much rarer and newer and still can add significantly to the price of even a high-end laptop. I am no expert in price forecasting, but, while SSD prices will fall, I doubt they will drop “drastically” in as little as three months.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

I’ve been testing two of the latest efforts to crack that problem. The first is from Toshiba, a company that once dominated the laptop world, but has since slipped badly. The other is from Dell, best known for larger, clunkier laptops. Both machines are stylish and worked fine in the tests, but each has flaws that might give a buyer pause.

These two new laptops, which use Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor, are very different in size. The Toshiba Portege R500 weighs just 2.4 pounds, has the footprint of a standard sheet of paper and is only about ¾-inch thick at its thinnest point. Yet it squeezes in a DVD drive. It sports a 12.1-inch widescreen display with very good resolution. The screen is lit by LEDs instead of by traditional lamps. That makes for more brightness and saves power.

The Dell XPS M1330, while still relatively small, is larger than the Toshiba. It weighs a hair under four pounds, has a larger footprint and is thicker. It falls into a hot new laptop category that features 13.3-inch widescreen displays — a size considered a good compromise between the small displays on the lightest laptops and the larger ones on the heavier models. The M1330 has some very un-Dell-like aspects to it, such as a choice of three lid colors and a slot-loading DVD drive that doesn’t require a pop-out tray.

Toshiba claims the R500 is the world’s thinnest notebook with a built-in DVD or CD drive. Dell claims the optional LED version of the M1330 is the thinnest with a 13.3-inch screen.

The Toshiba starts at $1,999 for a unit with a 120 gigabyte hard disk, a gigabyte of memory, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking. The Dell starts at $1,299 for a model with a 120 gigabyte hard disk, a gigabyte of memory, built-in Wi-Fi (but not Bluetooth) and standard display. An LED display costs $150 more; Bluetooth is an extra $20.

I tested the base model of the Toshiba R500 and found that it performed well. My particular machine came with Windows XP, though Windows Vista is also available in a model that costs $150 more. The tiny silver computer handled everything I threw at it, including Microsoft Office, the Firefox Web browser, the iTunes music program and more.

Toshiba’s Portege R500, top, and Dell’s XPS M1330

In my tough battery test, where I turn off power-saving features, maximize screen brightness, turn on Wi-Fi and play an endless loop of music, the R500 lasted an impressive three hours, 44 minutes. I estimate that in more normal use, you could get five hours of battery life.

But my test Toshiba, a production unit, had a major flaw: The DVD drive didn’t work. Apparently, the lens on the drive had come loose in shipping. Toshiba sent another unit with a working drive, but this is a major issue because the machine uses a new, very thin type of DVD drive that seemed fragile to me.

In fact, the R500 lacked a solid feeling overall. The keyboard was OK, but the touch-pad buttons seemed flimsy and stiff, and I had the impression that this was a computer you’d have to treat gently. It also had trouble reconnecting with my Wi-Fi network after waking up from its sleep state. And it was loaded with the trial software and offers I call craplets.

The Dell XPS M1330, on the other hand, felt solid through and through. From its crimson cover to its wedge shape, it’s also a handsome laptop. The unit I tested had the LED screen and a full complement of options, which would have brought its price to $2,188.

Like the Toshiba, the Dell speedily handled Microsoft Office, Firefox, iTunes and other software. Its Wi-Fi worked very well. My test model used Vista, and had the extra memory and souped-up graphics Vista needs to work well. The M1330 isn’t available with Windows XP. To Dell’s credit, it can be ordered with no craplets on it, for no extra money. But because it uses Vista, it starts up painfully slowly. A reboot took more than four minutes.

The big flaw on the Dell is battery life, a major downside for a machine meant to travel. In my test, the M1330 lasted just two hours, 27 minutes; so, you’d be lucky to get 3.5 hours out of it in normal use. Dell says the base model would do better because it has a wimpier, but less power-draining graphics system. You can get a bigger battery for $30 more, but it makes the machine larger and heavier.

The Dell XPS M1330 is a good, solid, mobile computer that needs better battery life and can get expensive once you start ordering options. The Toshiba R500 seems like a dream machine for travelers, but its DVD defect is worrisome and you may have to treat it like glassware.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Most of the major specs I recommended two weeks ago in my annual spring guide to buying a computer hold true for laptops as well as desktops. That guide can be found at walt.allthingsd.com/guide. But buying a portable involves additional factors, so here are some tips for making laptop purchases.

First, you may want to wait to get that new laptop until later this year or early in 2008. There are a number of interesting new hardware features coming. One is called a “solid-state drive,” or SSD, which replaces the traditional hard disk with a faster drive made of memory chips like those used in digital cameras. Another is a “hybrid hard drive,” or HHD, which combines memory chips with a standard hard disk, for faster start-ups.

Also, more and more laptops will be using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to light up their screens — a method that promises to be both brighter and less power-hungry.

You also may want to wait for laptops with a new type of Wi-Fi wireless networking built-in. It’s called “N,” and promises to be faster and to have longer range.

For Windows Vista users, another new laptop feature coming soon is a small screen on the lid called a SideShow, which can display calendar appointments and new emails.

Even if you don’t wait, there are some features to know about that aren’t available on most desktops. One is a built-in Web camera and microphone, highly useful for making video calls and recording videos to be posted online. Another is a feature that allows you to play music, videos or DVDs without booting up Windows.

In addition, if you travel a lot, you may want something called a built-in WWAN, or Wireless Wide Area Network. This is essentially a cellphone modem that makes Internet connections over a cellular carrier.

Another key feature is a new kind of slot on the side of most laptops for add-on cards, like wireless modems. It’s called an ExpressCard slot and, confusingly, it comes in two sizes. Your old-style cards, called PC Cards, won’t fit in these new slots, so unless you want to buy new cards, you might look for a laptop that has both the old and new slots.

Battery life, weight and size remain crucial on laptops, unless you are buying a huge “desktop replacement” laptop, which will rarely leave the house or be unplugged. For everyone else, I recommend finding a laptop that offers at least three hours of battery life on a single charge, without requiring you to dim the screen so much you can’t see anything.

Most laptops cluster around the six-to-seven-pound range, which is fine for occasional travel, or for carrying between classes, or between home and office. But if you are a frequent air traveler and have the budget, shoot for a laptop that weighs four pounds or less and is small enough to use on a seat tray in coach even when the person in front of you reclines.

The most expensive laptops are at the extremes–huge, multimedia machines and ultra-portable models for hard-core road warriors. Most well-configured Windows laptops, with typical 15.4-inch screens, are between $900 and $1,500.

I find that laptops with 13.3-inch widescreen displays make a nice compromise between mobility and power. At the moment, there are very few brand-name models in that size, notably Apple’s $1,099 MacBook, which weighs 5.2 pounds; and Sony’s Vaio SZ line, which weighs 4.1 pounds but costs roughly twice as much. More 13.3-inch models are coming later this year from other manufacturers.

Finally, there’s the perennial issue of Windows versus Mac. Apple’s two laptop lines, the MacBook and MacBook Pro, are very good. They have better built-in software than any Windows laptop I’ve seen and don’t suffer from the security issues that plague Windows. And they can even run Windows software, if you need that.

But the Mac laptops lack some features that are common on Windows portables, such as slots for camera memory cards and built-in cellular modems. And the MacBook even lacks an ExpressCard or PC Card slot.

Among Windows machines, I think Sony and Lenovo make especially well-designed laptops, but almost any name brand would be fine.

Addendum: I’m happy to say there is a new, expanded and redesigned online home for all my columns. It’s at walt.allthingsd.com and access is free. It contains the current versions of the columns with the accompanying videos, plus a searchable two-year column archive and a new blog called Mossblog, which I will update occasionally.

This new column home page is part of a larger new Web site called All Things Digital, at allthingsd.com. In addition to my columns and blog, it contains technology news, analysis and opinion from journalists Kara Swisher, Katherine Boehret and John Paczkowski, and guest blogs from prominent technology figures.

My columns will still be published on The Journal’s main Web site, WSJ.com, which is available to paid subscribers and includes a much larger archive, going back more than a decade.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com