As 2010 comes to a close, it gives me a chance to reflect on the more than 140 laptops that have made their way through our lab this year. Since the holiday shopping season is upon us, I thought it would be a great time to share the notebooks that really stood out in my eyes. I’m a little biased towards machines you can easily take on the road—or at least to the couch–but you’ll find a pretty wide variety here both in terms of size (11, 12, 13, and 15 inches) and price ($500 to $2,000).

So without further ado, here are my 5 favorite notebooks of 2010.

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11-inch MacBook Air ($999)

Yes, the new 13-inch Air has the SD Card slot and faster processor, but the 11-inch version is a remarkably versatile and amazingly slim travel companion. At 2.3-pounds, this ultraportable weighs less than most netbooks yet features a full-power Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia graphics, and over five hours of battery life. Best of all, the 11-inch Air’s use of flash memory allows this 0.11-inch thin work of art to spring to life whenever you lift the lid.

Read The Review

Pros Amazingly thin and light design Wakes instantly from sleep, boots very fast Comfortable keyboard and large gesture-friendly touchpad Webcam makes FaceTime calls Surprisingly strong features Good battery life

Cons No SD Card slot Keyboard not backlit Lid sometimes falls back Competing ultraportables have faster CPUs