Rather than trying to get the mythical perfect compromise - a powerful yet portable laptop – I went for the other option, and complemented my very-powerful-but-absolutely-not-portable laptop (I had to search hard to find a laptop bag where it would fit…) with a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (2.3 pounds, 232mm width, 32GB solid-state hard drive). Too early to tell how much I like it yet, but the contrast between the two is striking. Next step: putting Windows 7 on.