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In our current roundup of retail-specific laptops, we've divided our 25-plus systems into four different price categories, from sub-$700 budget models to high-end ones that cost more than $1,000.

In the "Budget" category, covering laptops up to $699, we found a collection of largely indistinguishable systems, along with a few that stood out as particularly good or bad. Most of these will provide a decent low-end experience, as long as you stick to one of the models with a dual-core CPU.

Our favorite, by a hair, was the Toshiba Satellite A505-S6980, with an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 CPU and a big 500GB hard drive.

Note: For a roundup of retail laptops in all price ranges, check here.

Check out details of each system below:... Read more

Hopefully by now you've figured out that all this Black Friday and Cyber Monday hype is a bit overblown, and that the busiest shopping days of the year are still to come in mid-to-late December.

That said, there are still some decent deals to be found if you missed those hard-to-snag Black Friday doorbusters. We've handpicked a few Cyber Monday laptops to check out if you're returning to work on Monday and looking to get as much holiday shopping as possible done online.

Acer Aspire AS5534-1121
$399, Best Buy
AMD Athlon dual-core L310; 4GB RAM; 320GB HDD; 15.6-inch display
This Cyber Monday special has a processor that's at the low end of the dual-core spectrum, but it's certainly better suited for mainstream tasks than a single-core Atom CPU, and priced the same as an average Netbook.

Sony Vaio NW238F
$698, Wal-Mart
Intel Pentium T4300 CPU; 4GB RAM; 400GB HDD; 15.5-inch display
Offered as an online-only special, this 15-inch laptop is less than $700, with Blu-ray. That's a decent deal, but a similar model, the Vaio NW270, is available for around the same price (depending on the store) with the same Blu-ray drive but a better Intel T6600 processor.

HP Mini-110 1030NR (refurbished)
$259, J&R
Intel Atom N270; 1GB RAM; 160GB HDD
New-York-based J&R is offering two Netbooks for a very decent $259--the best non-rebate, non-subsidized price we've seen on a standard Intel Atom Netbook. The HP Mini 110 is usually around $329, and it is one of our favorite Netbooks. On the down side, it includes Windows XP instead of Windows 7, and the included warranty is only good for 90 days.

Fujitsu M2010
$289, J&R
Intel Atom N280; 1GB RAM; 160GB HDD; 10.1-inch display
When we reviewed the Fujitsu M2010 Netbook, we were generally unimpressed with this overpriced $449 me-too system. For $289, however, it's a steal. Unlike the HP Mini 110, it's new, not a refurb, and it has a full one-year warranty. But like the HP, it also includes Windows XP.

I'm sure that all Dell laptops are wonderful machines that would make perfect gifts for even the most misanthropic, laptop-loathing humans.

However, my feelings were temporarily frozen, not unlike Michael Douglas' forehead, when I espied that Austin's finest was trying to garland this holiday period with a Netbook that seems to have special twittering powers.

I see the liquid remnants of your scoffing floating through the ether. However, please peruse the picture with which I have decorated this post.

(Credit: Dell.com)

It's from the Dell site and it seems like a normal Dell Netbook, doesn't it? The blurb beneath this picture declares, "Build it your way make it your own," which is quite a tempting offer when you consider the price seems to be a vastly generous $299.

Yet this sweet little device appears to be called the Twitter Mini. And the promise that Dell offers reads: "Perfect for Tweeting! Windows 7 Starter Included!"

Naturally, I am already excited. It has been something of my month's dream to find a device that is perfect for pumping out my 140 finest characters. But I'm stumped to the point of limping to work out why this particular Netbook is perfect for tweeting and others aren't.

I clicked on the image and found myself at this page, which offered me nothing other than some severe pain in my neck and brain.

While telling me this was a Netbook, and while mentioning that this series of Netbooks was "small, ultraportable, and designed to keep you connected," there wasn't even a mention of the word "Twitter."

Look, were there a Technological Olympics, I would not even make it as a hostess. But could someone please explain to me why the Twitter Mini is perfect for tweeting when the Mini 10, for example, is perfect for, well, according to the site, nothing at all?

Does the Twitter Mini automatically shorten tweetable URLs if I just stare at the screen? Does it have a direct and very hot line to Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O'Neal, Stephen Fry, and that weird Russian girl who keeps following me, even though the Twitter folks keep deleting her naked entreaties?

Or did someone in the Dell marketing department get a little over-excited? Please feel free to send me a tweet.

There will be no episode of Gadgettes this week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the US. So, have a listen to a classic episode from the Gadgettes archive. Remember to read this entire blog post in your own "hot breath" voice for the full effect. Go ahead. You know you want to. Enjoy!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Robotic snake surgeon tinkers with your heart via your mouth

Power Shirt charges gadgets as you walk

Ergoskin: Underwear that makes you sit up straight

Remember Ring (Thanks, David!)

The Body-laptop interface is knitted from Thneed which nobody, Nobody, NOBODY needs

3D Tattoo is like a secret between you and people with funny glasses

Giant mouth exhibit is just one stop on a gross, informative journey

As Black Friday approaches and everyone readies their wallet for the next big holiday deal, remember that it's getting increasingly difficult to spot good laptop innards from, well, less ideal ones. We've made this point before with the most frequent culprit of the Black Friday Doorbuster...the Celeron processor. Many 15-inch laptops that are advertised at about $300 or less are practically guaranteed to have this elderly single-core CPU at its core, but in the case of the Celeron, all you have to do is keep an eye out for that Celeron sticker on the display model.

More sneaky is the world of ultra-low-voltage (ULV) processors. Designed as slower-running, more power-efficient CPUs ideal for thin-and-light ultraportables, they can help extend battery life while still affording better-than-Netbook performance, especially in their dual-core form.

However, Intel's Core 2 ULVs get slapped with a "Core 2 Duo" sticker on their packaging, and can easily be confused for more powerful Core 2 Duo processors that can run at much faster speeds. While thin-and-light laptops won't often be confused for full-sized laptops, a few of the larger laptop bodies out there are being packaged with ULVs. A case in point is the Asus UL50AG, which we recently reviewed.

It's a trim, well-designed 15-inch laptop with an optical drive (DVD burner) and smooth lines, but the Intel processor inside doesn't run much better than Asus' slimmer, smaller ultraportables, including their UL30A. The savings in price might not be worth it if you want power over looks--for instance, the Toshiba A505-S6980 is cheaper, has a longer battery life and a faster processor, but weighs more and is much thicker. Still, that doesn't seem like a bad trade-off for a larger laptop that you probably will keep on your desk most of the time.

How do you know what you're getting? Check the specs on the box (a 1.3Ghz-speed processor is most likely a ULV), and, of course, read reviews whenever possible. Our recommendation is that you aim for a ULV processor at 13 inches and under (especially if you want a long battery life over performance), and a regular, non-ULV Core 2 Duo for anything larger.

Read our reviews of the Asus UL50AG and Toshiba A505-S6980.

It's episode 59 of the Digital City, and if our cast looks a little different today, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Joey, Julie, and Scott all called in sick, so we recruited some of our CNET colleagues to step in and offer their holiday shopping advice.

David Katzmaier, John Falcone, and Matt Fitzgerald weigh in on Black Friday tips for big-screen TVs, home theater equipment, and digital cameras, and we go over some of the best and worst laptop deals around.

Also discussed was the high-concept Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard video game, the surprise popularity of Assassin's Creed 2, and Dan showed off his new Forza-3-branded Pumas.

Added bonus: we've got a handful of beta invites for MAG, the massive 256-person PS3 shooter to give away. Ping me on Twitter , or e-mail us at digitalcity@cnet.com, and we'll hook the first five people up.

Related links:
>>Are these Apple's Black Friday laptop deals?
>>Rating Black Friday laptop doorbuster deals
>>Review: the ColcaSac hemp MacBook sleeve
>>Hands on with 15th-century Italy in Assassin's Creed II

>>Watch the Digital City live every Monday at 3pm EST on CNET Live!
>>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes
>>Join the Digital City Facebook fan page
>>Need more? Follow Dan on Twitter!

Scott playing Left 4 Dead 2 on the Asus 3D laptop.

(Credit: Dan Ackerman/CNET)

Earlier this week, Asus unveiled a 15-inch laptop with Nvidia's 3D Vision technology built in. The $1,699 Asus G51J 3D has a 120Hz LCD panel, an Intel Core i7 CPU, and a high-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M GPU, and comes bundled with a pair of Nvidia's active glasses and the USB-powered IR emitter required to make the glasses work.

We've just had a chance to take the system for a test drive, and came away largely impressed with the results, especially compared with Acer's Aspire 5738DG, a 3D laptop that uses a pair of passive polarized glasses and a special screen coating to create a 3D effect.

That Acer model was unfortunately underpowered for gaming, especially with the added overhead of running its 3D software in the background. The Asus G51J, on the other hand, with a high-end processor and video card, seemed well-suited for mid-to-high-end gaming. Of course, it lacked dual SLI video cards and the 1,366x768 15-inch display is no match for some of the nicer 17-inch 1080p displays we've seen.

The Asus G51J with Nvidia's 3D glasses and IR emitter.

(Credit: Dan Ackerman/CNET)

While playing Left 4 Dead 2, the 3D effects appeared crisp and appealing, and didn't seem to distract from the speed of gameplay or the screen brightness. There appeared to be no real hardware burden in generating the 3D in terms of frame rate or graphics detail, either. On the other hand, the 15-inch screen is a little small as compared to a nice big gaming monitor, and that mitigated the overall immersion of the 3D effects.

The bigger problem is that 3D gaming is still a novelty. It's not actually needed to appreciate any game at this point, and it has an expensive and often clunky set-up for users to navigate through.

Many people haven't even seen 3D of the caliber that Nvidia is currently offering, and so they have no idea how smooth and crisp it is compared to the fuzzy double-vision experience of years past. What's particularly great about Asus' solution is that it's already integrated into a reasonably priced Core i7 gaming laptop, so the set-up and research into compatible hardware components is almost entirely eliminated.

This is an interesting trend to watch for in gaming laptops, and it should be included in more Core i7 laptops aimed at gamers, especially if Nvidia is serious about getting a larger adoption. We expect to see more 3D Vision capable laptops from major PC makers by early next year.

As most laptops are essentially commodity products comprised of the same stock list of components and parts, one might assume that all laptop brands are the same, at least as far as the general reliability of the hardware itself.

Warranty firm SquareTrade has just released a research paper analyzing the failure rate for 30,000 laptops comparing brands and hardware categories--and the results might surprise you.

The headline news is that over three years, one out of three laptops will fail, and that Asus and Toshiba laptops have the lowest failure rates, while Acer, Gateway, and HP have higher than average failure rates. Additionally, two-thirds of those problems are hardware malfunctions, while the final third are classified as accidental damage.

Netbooks, in particular, didn't fare as well--as one might expect from low-cost machines. They failed at a rate 20 percent higher than mainstream laptops. But keep in mind, since Netbooks are a relatively new category, this is based on only one year of data.

The full report can be found at the SquareTrade Web site, and we've excerpted some of the most interesting charts and graphs below (and note that some of the numbers presented below are projections based on previous data).

The key takeaway is that laptops in general fail much more often than many other types of consumer electronics--in part because they're among the most complex devices one can buy, and perhaps because pricing pressure has led to lapses in quality control in the design and manufacture of many of these systems.

(Credit: SquareTrade )

(Credit: SquareTrade )

(Credit: SquareTrade )

Just barely making it under the line for the holiday season, Dell's eagerly awaited Adamo XPS laptop is now available to configure and pre-order on the Dell Web site. The estimated ship date given to prospective buyers -- December 22.

According to the online configurator, this system starts at $1,799 and despite the presence of a handful of accessory options, is essentially a fixed, non-customizable laptop.

The base specs include a 128GB Solid State Drive, Intel's 1.4GHz Core SU9400 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 13.4-inch LED display, a 20Wh battery, and integrated Intel GS45 graphics.

Beyond the usual warranty and software options, you can choose to add an external Blu-ray drive for $199, a 500GB external hard drive for $175, or an extended 40Wh battery for $100.

We've previously gotten a chance to take the new Adamo for a test drive, and were impressed with its thin 10mm design and intrigued by its tilted keyboard, but concerned that it was overpriced and underpowered in a a very value-conscious market.

Read our hands-on impressions of the Dell Adamo XPS here.

Hands on with Dell's new Adamo XPS