Designer Looks: HP Pavilion dv2660se

The $900 HP Pavilion dv2660se offers strictly middling performance, but its exceptional battery life and a great design make it our winning laptop under $1000. The notebook's WorldBench 6 score of 67 is significantly lower than the high-eighties marks of some portables with the latest mobile chips, but it's not bad for a budget machine. Though the 14.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel screen could be a tad brighter, it's easy enough to read. Nice extras include a bundled copy of Microsoft Works 8.5, and the ability to play a CD or DVD without first launching Windows. The dv2660se also has upgrade potential thanks to a side connection (one that all Pavilion laptops have) for HP's xb3000 Notebook Expansion Base.