Computer companies are rolling out lower-priced laptops designed for education, claiming that the new "netbooks" are better tuned than past models to the needs of young learners--and to the constraints of school budgets. The new models may help revive confidence in 1-to-1 laptop programs, which some school districts have backed away from in recent years because of the high cost of standard laptops, their unproven benefits to student achievement, and other problems. The financial risks districts take in assigning laptops to all students and teachers can drop when the price is $500 or less, rather than the $1,000 apiece that school districts have typically paid for notebook computers. On April 8, Hewlett-Packard Inc. unveiled the Mini-Note, a "mini-notebook" that starts at $499. An H-P official said the device is the company's first computer designed from the outset in consultation with educators. One week earlier, Intel Corp. unwrapped the second version of its Classmate PC, originally intended for primary school students in "emerging markets" overseas. The new version, which is expected to cost from roughly $300 to $500, depending on features, will be available in developed countries as well as emerging markets. The chip-maker dubbed the device a "netbook," a newly defined class of computers. The Taiwan-based AsusTek Computer Inc. also offers a $400 netbook, the Eee PC, for education. Netbooks share features such as being small, ultralight, and energy efficient, with rugged plastic bodies, compact keyboards, and built-in antennae that can tap into wireless links to the Web. They typically rely on Web-based access to other computers for major data storage and computer applications. Many don't have hard drives, but instead use less roomy but cheaper "flash" memory cards to save user data.