It's going to be one of those "mobile office" deals -- net surfing, document editing, spreadsheets, plus watching movies when I'm goofing off. Don't plan to do much game playing. I love a big bright display, but I want it to be really lightweight. I'm likely going to install a mobile broadband card, so I need an appropriate expansion slot. I found a Dell Inspiron E1705 with an Intel Core 2 Duo (T7200), 17" Display, 1 G DDR2 and 80 G hard drive for $1,532. I think this might be overkill though. I don't think I want to go too far beyond $1,000, and a sub-$1,000 solution would be great. Edit to add : I 'd like to be able to run a dual Linux/Windows system, likely with VMWare.
I'm not sure about the Linux/Windows issue, but Toshiba and HP are really competetive right now in the price range you're talking about. It seems like just about any of them are carrying pretty good discounts and rebates to help soften the blow to your wallet. The Sony's are darn nice, but seem pricey, while other brands don't especially excite me. The Dell specs look good, but there definitely is an undercurrent among the experts in these parts against Dell laptops for supposedly cheesy construction. I make no claims for the accuracy, I'm just sayin' Just my two cents....ymmv...
I'd agree... while hp has had a bad rep for desktops, they have been doing a very good job with laptops for some time now.
you should be able to go far below 1000, you can get suitable laptops here for around 600 euro's - except for the 17" screen, though. Check out the 15" screens irl, they're not as small as you might think.
