I'm a big advocate of the 11.6" class of full powered notebooks - the ones with dual core processors and 3-4 GB of RAM, even though this is not a widely sourced type of notebook nowadays. I presently use a Lenovo Ideapad U150 of this ilk, which weighs just over 3 pounds. Similar models are made by Gateway and Acer, but not too many other brands are presently available in this class of machine. They tend to be around $400 or so. Much more common are the 13.3" to 14" models, or the much more crippled 10.1" netbooks with only 1 GB of RAM and an Atom processor.