Proving that a budget notebook doesn’t mean you have to make sacrifices, the Gateway NV Series combines good performance (courtesy of its 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 and 4GB of RAM) with a dash of style. Design flourishes include a metal hinge with the power button built into the side, a glossy upper panel, LED lights and touch-sensitive controls that glow red. The single touchpad button is a bit narrow, but we appreciated the dedicated backup button for protecting important data to an external drive. An HDMI port and 5-in-1 memory card reader round out the features.