Laptop Suggestions (work, movies, light gaming)

[Gaidal]

So I'm looking hard at purchasing a new laptop primarily for travel and to carry to/fro from work. I have a desktop at home that is my primary "home base" with a big hard drive to house mp3's, do gaming, etc., but it would be nice to do some light gaming on the laptop when things get slow, etc.

The only other thing I think I will be big on is a nice screen. Battery life will be nice, but doesn't necessarily have to set the world on fire.

I've been taking a hard look at the Toshiba M45 series, mostly because the price is right ($1300) and the screen is very nice, I think. Sony Vaio's looked nice as well, but overpriced.

Any other suggestions? I know there are some Dell fans here, but what other brands are good? I'm wary of HP/Compaq due to some issues with computers over the years (before I started buliding my own)

My budget is < $1500 and would love it if the laptop is < 6 pounds.

 

[fbrdphreak]

We will have a review out on the Toshiba M45 here in a week or two, should cover anything you want to know about the M45.

The HP dv1000 notebook is very good for portable use. 14" widescreen, Centrino, 7 hours batt life w/12-cell, well loaded under $1500, built very well.

dv1000 Review

Don't be afraid of HP/Compaqs. The notebooks are in general built well for the money and I don't hesitate in recommending them to anyone.

Fujitsu has some of the best screens out there, but they are generally more expensive.

I see you mentioned light gaming. You can get an Asus Z71V barebones w/GeForce 6600 128MB graphics, PROBABLY around $1500. You'd have to add your own memory for sure. Acer is coming out with a 15.4" model that uses the Turion 64 processor & a 64MB X700 GPU for $1349, but no idea on the ETA for that.
Acer 4000 News

You've left a lot of room open here. What screen size do you want? How flexible is the budget? What is "light gaming?"

 

[Gaidal]

$1500 budget pretty solid. I'd like to not move much more than that. Less is better, even.

As for the screen I guess bigger is better without sacrificing the weight. 15.4 seems like a pretty nice size just from looking at varous laptops.

Light gaming... well I have a desktop that I think will take care of most of my gaming needs. I don't anticipate playing a lot of graphically intensive games (like FPS) on the road anyhow, but I think it would be nice to run some 3D real time strategy games or something to fool around with for a few hours. I think it'd be nice to have a solid ATI or GeForce card but not essential. May help with video playback as well. Can laptops generate HD quality pictures (on DVD's, etc.) with the new LCD screens?

I guess one of my main priorities is the screen... seems like any computer you buy will be out of date, but at least you'll have something nice to look at for a few years.

 

[keeleysam]

http://www.apple.com/ibook/

 

[fbrdphreak]

I configured an Asus Z71v from Geared2Play.com with the following specs:
Pentium M 1.6
40GB Hitachi 5400RPM
a/b/g Wifi
XP Pro
CDRW/DVDROM
2 year warranty
128MB GeForce 6600
$1418
Add in 1GB DDR2 for ~$110

BLAMMO, awesome system