If you've ever listened to National Public Radio's Prairie Home Companion, you may have heard the host mention in a folksy way that "all the children are above average." Alas, some products are just average--neither setting the bar for excellence nor dismally poor. Micro Express' NBL26 is just such an undistinguished product.

If you're looking for a solid media notebook that's small (though not terribly lightweight) and quick, the Asus N82Jv all purpose laptop is a good bet. The N82Jv features a snappy 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 450M processor (with turbo boost up to 2.66GHz), a 500GB hard drive, an nVidia GeForce GT 335M graphics card (plus integrated Intel HD Graphics), and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

Sony targets the everyman with its VAIO EA series of all purpose laptops. They're affordable, medium-size, general-purpose workhorses with a variety of customization options. Available in a swath of colors and configurations, the EA series is neither slim and sexy nor bulky and heavy. It's as close to the middle of the road as you're likely to get from Sony.

If you're looking for a mainstream, all-purpose laptop with above-average gaming capabilities, the 6-pound Toshiba Satellite M645-S4055 is a worthy, albeit pricey, contender for your computing dollars. It has top-notch input ergonomics, snappy performance, excellent sound, some nice usability flourishes, and a reasonable size for travel. It retails for about $1049 (as of August 27, 2010), but you can sometimes find it online for just under $1000.

The Acer Aspire 5741G-6983 is a tweener in the best sense of the word: It fits right between a great mainstream unit and a powerful gaming laptop. It has good input ergonomics, a nice 15.6-inch, 1366-by-768-pixel display, great everyday performance, and elegant styling. Throw in an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5470 (with 512MB of dedicated memory) for smooth video and decent gaming frame rates, and you have a laptop that can handle almost anything.

Gateway's ID49C13u, a thin and sedately handsome all-purpose laptop, is a giant step forward for a company whose recent notebook PCs seemed stuck in the doldrums. Gateway has even included a glowing touchpad that pulses in hypnotic rhythms while you boot up.

The HP Envy 14 starts at $999 in its base configuration, with a Core i3-370M CPU at 2.4 GHz, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. My test model came upgraded to a Core i5-450M, also a dual-core CPU with hyperthreading at 2.4GHz, but supporting Intel's Turbo Boost technology. It also has a 500GB hard drive and HP's Radiance display, a $200 option that gives you a higher-resolution screen (1600 by 900) and better brightness, contrast, and color. This boost the cost of our test model to $1289. All Envy 14 models have a slot-loading 8X DVD-RW drive and ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card. To save battery life, you can switch graphics between the Radeon card and Intel's integrated high-def video chip.