Until recently, small, ultraportable notebooks—those in the 3-pound range—haven’t offered much of an alternative. They’ve been more gadgets than professional-grade productivity tools.

But the new LifeBook P7120 from Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. is one of a growing breed of featherweights with the kind of features a mobile government manager requires.

Despite its compact size—just slightly bigger than 10-by-7 inches—the 3.1 pound P7120 has almost all the features of a full-size notebook, including 512MB of memory, a 60GB hard drive, a rewritable DVD drive and a 10.6-inch widescreen display.

You can travel light—if your workload isn’t too heavy.

Battery life is always a concern for execs on the road. No worry here. The P7120’s standard battery is a six-cell model that gave us more than five hours of run time right out of the box.

Among other features, the P7120 has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth communications, plus three USB ports, a FireWire port and a four-in-one memory card reader. We found the WiFi radio powerful enough to pick up distant access points, but the bundled WiFi management software actually made setting up our connections more difficult than Microsoft’s standard Windows utility.

For security, the P7120 also has an integrated fingerprint scanner that works exactly as advertised. It’s the kind you swipe your finger across, so it takes up very little space, and it’s fast and accurate.

As for physical security, Fujitsu has beefed up the P7120 with extra shock-absorbing ability around the hard drive and a magnesium alloy lid. These are nice touches, but remember this is not a ruggedized system that can take a beating in the field.

On the downside, Fujtisu went with an ultralow-voltage Pentium M processor, which is good for conserving power, but is sluggish. It’s often hard to tell the speed differences these days, but you’ll certainly notice the P7120’s lack of pep in everyday applications. And while you might want to watch a DVD during the train ride home, you may quickly find (as we did) that the P7120 can’t keep up.

Moreover, the built-in speakers, which ride alongside the battery in the back of the unit, are weak.

Still, if what you need is a secure portable that takes up little room in your briefcase, there are few better than the $2,149 P7120. Stick to e-mail, Word documents and the occasional spreadsheet and you’ll be very satisfied.