$3500 Thin and Light Laptop

cysus · June 12th, 2005, 06:52 PM

I'm looking for a nice laptop for my father. He has a Powerbook G4 right now but his work is transitioning to all-PC’s so he has to get a notebook that supports windows. Ideally he'd wait and get a dual-boot OS-X and Windows XP Apple-Intel system next year (he might still get one), but he has to have one sooner. He's had terrible luck with PC's, they crash on him, act crazy, etc, so I'd like to get him the best out there. However, there seems to be no clear-cut leader. He would like a thin and light laptop with the following features.

*=must have

8"-13" high quality screen* (maybe widescreen ASUS W3)
Pentium M CPU
4hrs or more battery life
DVD Burner*
Swappable Optical feature* (remove and replaceable CD Drive with Battery)
4lbs or less*
low heat*
low noise
768mb ram or more
2+ USB ports

He'll be comparing this to his Apple Powerbook G4 so quality is very important. The ASUS W3v seems nice but the heat, DVD playback and audio quality worry me, also it's a bit large (14”) for him. Sony's S series might work but the battery life is discouraging. I'm looking for something the falls into the specs I've given and is of the highest possible quality and reliability.

The computer has to be "reasonably" (word he used) priced between $1500 and $4000 including some accessories (extra battery, DC adapter, Port Replicator TV in/out USB, etc) that’ll total at about $300-$500. That leaves about $3500 to work with.

Thank you

Friedchicken100 · June 12th, 2005, 06:55 PM

The newest Sony VAIO are extremely thin. I'll find some links.

Friedchicken100 · June 12th, 2005, 06:58 PM

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE..._balanced.isml

All have Pentium Ms.

bfcx · June 12th, 2005, 07:08 PM

Dell just had their 700m's on sale with 750 off, i got one with a dvd burner 12" widscreen, 512ram, 60gig hd for $900 Pentium M 1.6ghz.

My friend has a 300m, it is very portable, the 700m is just a little bigger, but still ultra portable.