Why are thin & light laptops anything but thin and light?

[Cadaver]

OK, here's the deal...

I've been looking for a reasonably full-featured laptop to take on frequent business trips. I do mostly Office (Word/PowerPoint), email, web and a few misc things (light Photoshop if I need to edit pics for a PowerPoint, etc) while on the road. Certainly not high powered 3GHz stuff, but I'm in no mood to fight with a Celeron either. I also need a CDRW. A DVD/CDRW combo drive would be nice to watch movies on the plane, etc.

Now, I've looked at many manufacturers of laptops, and I've found a few things - either the laptop has what I want but weighs 7+ pounds and is 1.5" thick or more, or is thin/light but has a microkeyboard and uses external CD drives. Compaq has the gall to call a 7.5 pound, 1.4" thick machine "thin and light."

Basically what I want is a 15" PowerBook G4 (1" closed, only 5 pounds, fullsize keyboard and a stellar screen) that runs XP.
Even Dell just a few days ago released a 1.6GHz Pentium-M Centrino Lattitude laptop with a widescreen LCD, but it's over 7 pounds for crying out loud. The brand-new Inspiron 600m (Centrino processor, 1.2" thick, 5.2 pounds) is the closest I've seen to an ideal machine, though don't know where to see one in person. And Apple now has a 12" sub-5 pound PowerBook too.

Anyone have any suggestions? Not too concerned with price. Features/weight are much more important to a frequent traveler.
I've even thought of buying the Mac to use on the road for the reasons above. At least it'll run Office, Mozilla and play DVDs...

Listen, I'm not trying to start a Mac-PC flame war. What I want is a PC laptop with a Powerbook-size case. Anyone??

 

[LethalWolfe]

Why not get a powerbook? Word, powerpoint, photoshop, etc. are all cross platform and if you need a windows only app you can always run VPC on the powerbook.


Lethal

 

[ObiDon]

Originally posted by: Cadaver
I do mostly Office (Word/PowerPoint), email, web and a few misc things (light Photoshop if I need to edit pics for a PowerPoint, etc) while on the road. Certainly not high powered 3GHz stuff, but I'm in no mood to fight with a Celeron either.

So, which one is it? It sounds like either a contradiction or an exaggeration.

Is this Sotec laptop too small?

 

[0roo0roo]

i dunno, there are tons of 3~lb laptops. even my z505 from over a year ago is only 3.75~lb

 

[Thor86]

Fujitsu Lifebook P-Series

 

[dolph]

Originally posted by: Thor86
Fujitsu Lifebook P-Series

2nded. i have it, it does it all though you might not like the 933mhz crusoe if you're not crazy about celerons... it suits my needs fine, though

 

[GizmoFreak]

If price is not a concern as you mentioned, the IBM T40 seems tailor made for you... < 5lbs, 1 inch thick, 14 inch screen, combo drive, pentium-m

 

[PurePeon]

Obviously you didn't do enough research. Next time just ask for some opinions or where you can find thin and light laptops, not knock the few laptops you did look at.

 

[EdipisReks]

the lifebook series is really sweet.

 

[Baronz]

Check out the Sony VAIO Z1. Its 4.7lbs, and .9-1.5" thick. Im guessing it tapers off at the front. Seems very small from the pictures though

Here

Plus it is a pentium M meaning its quite fast and the battery life is upwards of 6 hrs. Sort of expensive though.

 

[Cadaver]

I guess I posted too late... many of the Centrino laptops, such as the Sony Z1, is what I'm looking for.
Before the Centrinos, most were just too darn big.
Thanks for the many good suggestions.