MrFatbooty

Okay folks, I need some help here. My laptop died (repair guy says it needs a whole new motherboard which wouldn't be worth replacing). Last time around I was stupid and didn't realize that I should have gotten something smaller and lighter but instead I just got the cheapest one with the specs I thought I should have gotten at the time. Anyway times change and I'm in the market again. I would like to find the following:

weight under 5.5 lbs, lighter is better
minimum Pentium-M 1.6 GHz or equivalent AMD (if such a thing exists)
minimum 512 MB RAM
some kinda separate graphics card (i.e. not integrated with motherboard)
60 GB hard drive
internal 802.11g wireless
DVD burner
better-than-XGA resolution (1280x1024 would be nice, will perhaps consider 1280x768 widescreen if the form factor is right)
bluetooth would be nice but it's not a must-have

Off with ye my fellow geeks, and help me find my new laptop!

b00gers

The Dell 600m offers everything that you want. But if you dont mind the hassle, you should upgrade the ram and harddrive elsewhere.

I have the 600m and love it. It is much more quiet than the HP laptop that I've had. The CPU fan is only on when it starts to heat up, maybe about 30 mins of use. Then it shuts off after a min or two. The screen is very nice, although I have viewed better. The only complaint would be the build quality. The screen is too flimsy to not carry it around with extra caution. The battery giggles in place. And the plastic case has some flex to it.

14" and under 5lbs
P4m 1.8
768MB ram
64MB vcard
40GB HD
Built in B/G Wireless
CDRW
SXGA

I caught the $500 off deal and got this for about $1200 all said and up with the upgrades. However I do not know of any deals that are going on with Dell that is worth mentioning. Do you have a budget in mind? I know a DVD burner is quite an expensive add on.

MrFatbooty

Yeah see you caught the $500 off deal.

Right now if I configured a 600m the minimum of how I'd like it's a hair over $1700 with the education discount. I'm working with a $1500 budget.

The biggest thing that's killing my search at the moment is the video card, because aside from Dell all of the cheapie models have an integrated video card which I am not willing to accept.

I did find a deal on a Sony which has pretty much everything I want except a DVD burner for $1650. Maybe I don't really need the burner in a laptop. I dunno.

asiandoood

14 inch iBook G4

Andy

Do you really need a dedicated graphic's chip? You basically only really need a 3d accelerator if you play games, which isn't going to work well on an ultraportable processor. I bought my Inspirion 8200 a while back with a 64m Geforce4 card and it's powerful enough to play any DirectX8 game but the battery only lasts maybe 2 hours and it weighs 8 pounds. Looking back, I would have much rather had a <4 lb unit and just played games on a real PC. I like the 700m units from dell, especially with a bigger battery.

MrFatbooty

I've been saying I'll switch to Macs, but PCs keep me on their side with all of the freely available software floating around the net. So unless you know where I can pirate mac software I'll be sticking with my PCs.

I might go for this Sony on special at Circuit City.

asiandoood

all myths my good friend. look at my desktop bar...

MrFatbooty

Yeah see my current, now-dead HP laptop is a big honker like yours and it has an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 which if you ask me is crap even for just displaying Windows. So I think that an integrated graphics chip is going to suck even worse. If I get that Sony I'd still be stepping down from a P4 2 GHz to a P4 1.7 GHz, and that's two whole years after I got the HP!

MrFatbooty

I don't see any desktop bar. :thinking:

The iBook is nice and all, but its 1024x768 resolution leaves me rather cold.

H-Accord-22

my friend has a hook up on an IBM X T42 series, let me know if you want one. Employee REAL Discount.