M – I feel you on that Toshiba. What I dislike about the Toshiba in particular is the keyboard which is just too small. Plus battery runtime. Isn’t there any way to sell it?

You know I succesfully bid on a HP nx8220 (M760, 1 GB, 80GB) some days ago but the seller on Ebay hasn’t responded yet so I am a bit confused on whether I should stick to the deal or not. Also, I realized I could save some money and invest into an older machine (technology wise) which delivers battery runtime instead of Core Duo performance and works just as well for half the price.

And I also narrowed my search down to having a decent keyboard + good battery runtime (= harmonized hardware that is configurable with power tools) so it all comes to either HP, IBM or maybe even ACER for the keyboard layout. I hate Acer quality though. HP would be the best for my needs. Still have to check out Lenovo’s Z series in action though.

I had a Toshiba a while back that attracted bad luck like choma attracts flies. First, the screen broke and a replacement would have cost more than the laptop.

Then the hard drive died catastrphically taking 2 years of work with it . . .

Then it fell again.

Just for this, I will never get a Toshiba again.

- Steve

Am still regretting my purchase 8 months down the line.

Me — like Ntwiga I’d go IBM. Solid quality

@Mimmz: eeeh, Sony puts a nice screen on their books, but the machine just looks too vulnerable…

@Ntwiga: WOAH! Thank you very much for that detailed answer! In fact, I was searching Ebay (DE) for T42,(T43), T60 and their “p” versions but couldn’t find a really good deal. I agree that the Z series isn’t what we’re used to from the ThinkPad range. I initially wanted to setlle for a Z6ot, but it seems that their screens are just too dark.

An alternative could have been some new “cheap” models, such as the BenQ S73G (also sold as Mitac xxxx) that come with everything. But I don’t trust those fancy, shiny machines in the long run. Plus, the display doesn’t even have a hook!

Anyways – wednesday evening, I managed to secure a used HP nx8220 via Ebay for just EUR 725,- — which is ok although it comes without an OS and who knows about battery runtime of used models. I bid on it because I really dig the HP (Compaq) keyboard. Now let me see if this seller respondes – hasn’t done so so far and I am a bit sceptical about it. If it doesn’t work, I will wait and check out if there’s anything better in August. Also, I’ll need to have a closer look at the T42p soon :-)

- if you buy a Thinkpad, make sure you buy a p series machine (it should say p after the model e.g T41p rather than T41, T42p rather than T42 and so on. ‘p’ stands for performance/professional, almost like buying an ‘M’ series beemer.

- watch your mailbox . . .

- Steve

You have obviously done your research here – you seem to know all the models and their features so I am not sure I can do much to woo you over to the Thinkpad camp.

Some thoughts all the same:

First, you need to figure out what the most important aspect of the laptop you want to buy is.

You can choose from one of 3Ps:

Portability
Performance
Price

The 3 are to a large extent mutually exclusive. Of course, if price is no issue, you can have all 3 in the best laptop on the market.

On the other hand, there is the small problem of that Eur 1500 limit . . .

So, if you are willing to live without Vista (which I have already decided to do), I would recommend going with a Pentium M and savings your money for something thats more fun.

The rules for buying a laptop:

- plan on ditching the machine in 2 to 3 years so don’t overbuy technology
- buy the best processor, video card and screen resolution you can afford since it is difficult to almost impossible to upgrade these items without stress.
- dont worry too much about RAM/disk and features such as Bluetooth, cardreaders and such as these are relatively easy to upgrade or add on later. If you have to chop somthing to save, cut RAM or disk.
- if you want realibility and ease of use, buy a business line machine (a Thinkpad or the like) rather than a home use one (Dell )
- if the machine you are buying has a fixed (non-replacable) optical drive, buy the best you can afford.

So, if yo choose to go with a used (or off-lease Thinkpad), you can actually score a T42p with SXGA+ (1400*1040) or UXGA (1600*1200) machine with a v1200 Radeon 128MB graphics card (like a bottom end x300 I think) and DVD writer, Bluetooth, 60 to 80GB disk and 1GB of RAM for about $1400. And you get 7 hrs of battery life out of the box with the extended use battery. And it only weighs 2 kilos.

No card reader, firewire or dual layer here though.

BTW, the T43 is a no-no, it has lots of issues.

The Lenove 3000 is a nice machine performance wise but it looks cheap when you look at it: the plastic looks like the same stuff they have in Toyota dashboards. And mimmz is right, the SONY while very flashy and very cool will eventually die on you at some point.

Maybe the new HPs? Not sure about this but I keep hearing good things about them.

Z series Thinkpad is a Lenovo 3000 re-badged. Don’t know anything about any of the other machines.

Steve