I would say the HP Omnibook 300 and Apple Powerbook 100.

I had a Thinkpad 240 which was an awesome little machine that came out in 99.

Depends on how strict your rules are - Atari Portfolio is small enough, but came out already in 1989. I suppose it's useless for gaming because of its display, though.

One of the best was the Compaq Contura Aero series. Sadly the 4/33c was crippled and couldn't do 640x480x256 colors despite having a video chip that could do it. I used one in college back in 2000 after it was "old" and people were impressed with its size and functionality. About the size of a smaller textbook.

Late 90s had some pretty neat subnotebooks as well; there's stuff like this Toshiba Portege and various ThinkPads like the 570 series. There's also the Sony VAIO PictureBook series which is really neat; I'd like to own one at some point.

I've been thinking about what would be the best 486 sub-compact laptop to use. While the Contura Aero is my biggest pick so far, I'd prefer to see if I can have an active-matrix color display, at least a 486SX 33mhz (or even 25mhz) processor, and, if possible, sound capabilities. Any ideas?

Another of the same period that would be well worth having would be the legendary Thinkpad 701c. Full-size keyboard, 10.4" screen.

That's just sweet. 😁

Maeslin wrote:

Another of the same period that would be well worth having would be the legendary Thinkpad 701c. Full-size keyboard, 10.4" scree […]
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Another of the same period that would be well worth having would be the legendary Thinkpad 701c. Full-size keyboard, 10.4" screen.

That's just sweet. 😁

Hah, OS2Museum.com just did an article on how to factory restore one of those these days on Sunday! 😁
http://www.os2museum.com/wp/thinkpad-701-rest … using-cf-media/

I still wish Lenovo would release a modern subcompact with that keyboard. 😁