I am in the fortunate position of being able to purchase a new laptop through the company I work for, they have given me a budget of £1700 before taxes.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

HM

It all depends on what you want to do with it...

If you want to play any games then make sure you get a notebook with either the radeon 7500 or the GeForce4 Go graphics chipset.

If you are going to use it on the road then battery life and weight are perhaps the most important factors - make sure you get a mobile processor if you want a long battery life.

If you're someone who likes style over substance, and you can't live with an ugly notebook, then your best bet is Sony. If you want reliability then Toshiba have always been the best in my view. Finally, if you want cheap then you're best going with one of the smaller OEM suppliers - (one of which I work for).

(one of which I work for).

Which ...

And to you James. I would check the prices on your local price index website. I use a danish prize index site called edbpriser.dk. There you normally get stuff much cheaper than in the stores. And they have "users favorites", which i very handy.

Probably best I don't mention who I work for - especially as I have just promoted two rival companies...

Kelkoo do price comparisons on most major retailers in the UK (and abroad):

Kelkoo

Just checking through with them, and they have a few hundred machines under the £1700 mark.

also very usefull when price comparing in the uk is www.pcindex.co.uk though ive only ever used it to find parts, not a whole machine.

I would like to use it for the following;

Administering our Servers remotely via VPN

Playing Games

Using Office XP

Pretty much it has to be able to do what my desktop does. I was looking at this Dell Inspiron 8200

Thanks

HM

If you want a desktop replacement then your best bet is to go for the fastest processor you can get (I think the highest clock speed is currently 2.4GHz), and as much RAM as you can squeeze in (512Mb is a good choice). Office XP will run on this sort of spec without any trouble.

Most laptops come with built in modems now, so dialing in through a VPN shouldn't be a problem on any notebook.

If you want to play games then as I said before you really want to make sure the machine has 7500 radeon or a GeForce 4 Go card.

The Dell I was looking at has the option of the new ATI Radeon Mobility 9000, looks pretty good.

Thanks for you feedback, is always nice to know what other people think.

Thanks,

HM

Pretty much it has to be able to do what my desktop does. I was looking at this Dell Inspiron 8200

I just picked up an Inspiron 8200. REAL nice Laptop! I'd recommend it if you havent gotten one already

Dave

First and most imprtant choice for me is size. You want to decide if you want a portable because you are going to be very mobile (carry it everywhere) or because you move around a bit - but then chuck it onto a desk and leave it there until you move to a new location in a few days/weeks. If it is primarily on a desk all day (hotel, dorm, etc) then you can go with a heavier system. Usually, the heavier (DT replacement) notebooks have more expandability, better graphics, bigger screens. They also tend to be less expensive, because the engineering / manufacturing costs are less. For me, I carry mine to every meeting (at work) and then home every night. Use my integrated 802.11b wireless to check mail, post to MSFN, etc while watching the tele and the thing sitting on my lap in the den. I chose a very light Compaq Evo N400c model:

http://www.compaq.com/products/notebooks/n...-subfamily.html

LS_Dragons

JamesB: You recommended the GeForce 4 card and the ATI Radeon 7500...

You should have said...

I recommend the GeForce 4 Chipset, but don't go for the MX Series no matter what.. Or the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

JamesB: You recommended the GeForce 4 card and the ATI Radeon 7500...

You should have said...

I recommend the GeForce 4 Chipset, but don't go for the MX Series no matter what.. Or the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

Bias?

I ordered the Dell Inspiron 8200 with the ATi Radeon Mobility 9000. I should have it the end of next week

Unfortunately for you, that your company are being so greedy on you, otherwise I would have reccomended you a Fujitsu-Siemens Celsius H...

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.de/rl/produkte/...smobile_p4.html