I Need a Laptop...

...but I don\'t know what to get.

I\'m planning to buy a notebook PC soon, but I really have no idea what brands I can rely on  (Dell?  HP?  Sony?).  Can anyone make a recommendation or two?

I\'d like to keep the price down to less than $1200.  I\'m not looking for any beast of a machine in terms of power, instead I\'d rather have something with good, reliable performance and a decent battery life.  Bells and whistles are optional.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

Just wondering, why do you need a notebook?  Why not get a desktop?  You can always get more features and power for less money in a desktop vs. a notebook.

I\'m going to be on the move a lot over the course of the next few years;  Probably only staying in one part of the world for months at a time.  I plan to get a new desktop later, but I\'d like to buy a laptop so I can have a reliable source for email and a place to hold all of the files that I accumulate.

I have been looking around, and right now I\'m thinking of going for this lil\' guy.  The price is perfect, and it seems to have more than enough power for everything that I\'ll be using it for.  I just dunno how reliable HP notebooks are, or if there\'s a better choice somewhere.  Anybody know?

[Living-In-Clip]

I\'m in the process of thinkin\' about buying a Sony Vaio. It\'s got 2.6ghz Intel, 512 Megs of Ram, 60 gig HD, 16 inch screen and DVD-R / CD-RW. I am still debatin\' if I want to spend the three grand on it tho\'.


For what it\'s worth. The ZE is a good model from what I\'ve read in other magazines.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 - I use it everyday while I am here at work and haven\'t had any problems.  It is technically a desktop replacement, but it is old as I have had it for over 2 years.  

PIII 700
512 MB Ram
20 GB HD
14 inch display
DVD
GeForce 2 32 MB

Like I said its outdated, but I can still run most programs and even a few decent games.  I think it cost me around $1200 at the time and was one of Dells higher end laptops.

I would check out the Toshibas. I have had good luck with them.
The one I have now(laptop) was around 2000.00$
2 ghz. p4M, 512ddr ram,60gig harddrive, 64mb nvidia graphics w tv out. dvvd-r cdr combo. It\'s a satellite s-703
Full battery lasts about 3 hours depending on what you are running. There is also a seperate bay where you can add a 2nd. battery which increases life to around 5 hours I believe.

Originally posted by guar
I would check out the Toshibas. I have had good luck with them.
The one I have now(laptop) was around 2000.00$
2 ghz. p4M, 512ddr ram,60gig harddrive, 64mb nvidia graphics w tv out. dvvd-r cdr combo. It\'s a satellite s-703
Full battery lasts about 3 hours depending on what you are running. There is also a seperate bay where you can add a 2nd. battery which increases life to around 5 hours I believe.

Yeah some of the satellites are nice. Ive had a couple in my day. Pretty good sound too for a laptop. If i had the money id go with the vaio i think. Not sure