Those Sonys are nice but waaaay expensive. I hear good things about Toshiba. Their M35 is apparently so good they've actually raised prices on it since the first of the year. Check out feedback on Circuit City. Going now for about $1400 after rebates, discounts. Everybody raves about the 15" brilliant, wide display. 3.5 hrs battery life with Centrino 1.4 Mhz, which run with Pentiums rated 2x faster clock speed. Built in wireless (802.11b), 512 megs RAM, 60 MB HD, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, 3 USB 2 ports, legacy Parallel port, iR port.

Pretty sweet, but I'd like to have a DVD burner in there and 64 megs video. Beyond that, new generation DVD burners will double capacity to 9.4 GB by using second layer before blue laser devices come online in near future with their approx 30 GB capacities.

I still can't believe I once spent $3000 on a 386/20 and another 3 grand on a 486/66, both Gateways. During that same timeframe, my company shelled out almost $5000 a copy for a truckload of Compaq 386SX's, which were something like lobotomized DX's that ran like 286's. Intel chip history.

Anyway, my current Compaq laptop has survived two nosedives onto hard surfaces. I thought it was a goner after the last freefall onto concrete, but the darn thing has kept running without a hitch. Apparently the case absorbed most of the impact shock. A pre-merger machine btw, Celeron, shared video, other compromises, but a faithful performer for three years with a lot of time on the road, in backpacks. The battery is a joke, and as you may surmise, I'm considering a new one.

Tom Petty:
"The way-ate-ting is the hardest part."

Those Toughbooks sound pretty cool too. 'Have to check 'em out.

S