I'm about to purchase my firt laptop after finally having lost my patience with my faithful old AMDK6-200 ;-) ("About time")

I need help and recommendations.
My budget will be around max $2000-2500. I'm placed in Denmark, Europe.

Needed for:
- Generalized and specialized study-related assignment writing (I'm going to give Latex a go for the first time)
- Audio listening and lightweight hobbyish audio encoding/editing. (ay Foobar and Audacity)
- News, Email and surfing. (XNews/Hamster, likely Eudora, and Firefox)
- DVD watching. DVD burning doesn't seem to have a priority.
(Audio ripping will be done on my old computer and its Plextor-drives)
- Some resident P2P'eering (Emule et cetera)

Some priorities:
Stability.
Not noisy.
Long batterylife (If I should happen to enter an exam where no external powersource is available)
Software longevity

No gaming nor graphic maipulation needs. No need for a big screen nor heavy graphic card. Does not need to be pretty. Does not need to be slim or lightweight. Just portable for exams and some relocations.

What I desire is owning a faithfull, sturdy, somewhat (or totally) silent portable that can do the above tasks and hopefully continue to do so for some years into the future. I will most likely try to slim the Windows installation on it down and/or try to switch to an lightweight Linux distro in the future in order to keep it from being outsoured too soon on resources.

I have had my eyes on Centrinos, like
Dell Inspiron 8600 (Should have a testy/faulty keyboard)
Vega+ Z7 pro (may be noisy)
or maby an IBM T40 (relatively expensive)

Oh yeah, how will I most easily be able to transfer data from my 7 year old desktop to the portable? What kind of cables are needed?

Any thoughts appreciated.

I would recommend considering Toshiba. The Toshiba Tecra series has the Centrino processor and can be had for under $2000. I've never had a problem with Toshiba laptops. I use one at work (my second laptop) and it's worked just fine. My first laptop was a PII/233 that I eventually gave to my brother since it became too slow for most of the software that I use.

http://www.apple.com/ibook/

It will be my first notebook as well. Can do everything you mentioned except running foobar. I happened to like it's design and look-and-feel of it's operating system - that's why I chose it over a centrino based Toshiba or HP. Now when they upgraded the CPU to a G4 even raw speed is not so far behind the centrinos...

lol, sorry to burst your bubble or anything (don't worry, I know several people with iBooks and they are quite nice, especially considering the price), but the Pentium M absolutely crushes the G4 in CPU intensive tasks. A Mac site I saw a while ago benchmarked the "new" Al PowerBooks and compared them with Pentium M notebooks. On the CineBench 3D rendering test, a 1.6 GHz Pentium M was over twice as fast as a 1.25 GHz G4 PowerBook. UT2003 also ran faster on the Pentium M notebook, even though it had a Radeon 9000 and the PB had a 9600. Also, the unibutton (not a problem on Mac desktops since mouse is replaceable) would be limiting for me, since I'm used to having 3 buttons on my laptop (middle click is g0d in linux). However, I must say that if/when G5 notebooks come out, they should be quite interesting (and will hopefully be able to compete well with Pentium Ms).

Anyway, back to the original topic:

YinYang: you want
Stability.
Not noisy.
Long batterylife (If I should happen to enter an exam where no external powersource is available)
Software longevity

I'd say go for the IBM T41 (or wait for the T42 that supposedly comes out in a month or 2). It is extremely stable, quiet, and has amazing battery life (I can get 6-7 hours on mine and I don't even have the extra modular battery). It is also right in your price range (here in the US it's currently on sale for just over $1,800, but the price of one in Europe is higher last time I checked). The 2.5cm thickness and 2.4kg weight is also a huge plus, in my opinion.

Ah. Interesting test. But I guess it depends a little on what type of benchmark you do, what the outcome will be. In these tests G4 was not noticably faster than G3, but a lot slower than Pentium M. In other tests they are somewhere in the middle, and in a few even on top (although I don't really trust those tests all that much...)

Nevermind. Now I know I shouldn't play UT on the iBook

If your desktop has a network card, then buy a cross-over network cable, plug it into your new laptop and transfer away.

As for recommendations, I bought a Dell Inspiron a few months ago and everything seems quite nice, apart from the default windows drivers for the sound card.

Also, if you happen to get one with gigabit ethernet (T41, hint hint) a crossover cable is optional - a normal network cable will work. This feature has come in handy a number of times.

Hmmm. I'm not sure, exept that Mac is out of the question. I'm personally to stylish to have a Mac trying to steal my glitter.

The T40/T41 sounds very promising but with import taxes they are still in the $2400-2600 pricerange over here. And that's as a parallel-import

Dell Inspiron 8600 is a close contender, but I'd really loathe if it shows to have a saggy keyboard in need of repairs. Has anyone (besides QuantumKnot) bought one of these in recent times?

D'oh. Why didn't I just think of network cable connection between the two. That should do it.

Edit: added Quantum.

Dang. I forgot about checking out Toshibas. Must do that.

You may be able to purchase a laptop from the US and get it shipped there (although it is more trouble). I know Euclid Computers will ship to at least the UK for about $80 shipping (so hopefully they could also do Denmark and give you another place to choose from). I believe IBM's warranty is good worldwide (since everwicked bought a T41p in the UK from Euclid and I remember him asking them about it), not sure about any other company's though.

You're suggesting that I, a student of law, should evade legal custom fees.

Sounds like good job-training

Thanks for the link. I'll think about it.

Edit: Seems they have locations in Finland. That might make a buy easier.

2nd Edit: Yes, they ship to Denmark (Fedex $120) and have quite the vertasile selection. I think I'm I'm about to go powershopping

Hmmm,
why is this
http://www.euclidcomputers.com/frameset.cg...top+IBM+23738SU
$9 more expensive than
http://www.euclidcomputers.com/frameset.cg...top+IBM+23737FU

when the latter is Centrino, has a RW and network card as only difference? Weird.

I didn't say that - you thought it :B everwicked did pay about $600 VAT - if I remember correctly, FedEx held his package until he paid it. However, even considering 17.5% VAT, it would probably still save you quite a bit of money. I believe even after VAT and all, everwicked's T41p still would have been 1.8x the price he paid had he bought it in the UK.

EDIT: missing 'd'

Much better. Now I'm a bit more relieved, since I have a tendency not to believe in a good thing unless I feel I have covered all the angles.

Back to the calculator and VAT.

Weird indeed. My first thought was that one has an SXGA+ display and one XGA, but they are both XGA. For around the same price, might I suggest model 2379DJU? It only has 256 MB memory instead of 512, but it has the higher resolution display (and memory is much easier to upgrade than the display). I got the 2379DJU, put in more memory and got an additional high-capacity battery and I am very satisfied with it - I like it a *lot* more than my previous Dell which I sold after 2 months. IMHO, the build quality of a ThinkPad is unmatched in any other notebook I have seen.

The other day, while carrying my ThinkPad, I accidentaly bumped it into a wooden door frame *really* hard. I figured that I probably just broke/dented my TP, but upon examining it I realized that the ThinkPad took out a piece of wood from the door frame There was absolutely no damage to the ThinkPad and there was to the wood. I'm quite certain that if I had any other laptop the laptop would have been on the damage receiving end and not the damage causing end

EDIT: better link

Well, those suggestions was before I thought of VAT. I've had to downgrade my expectations since you burst my bubble

Lol, now look what we (I?) have done to the Google ads up top ^ 3 of the 4 I just got are for IBM :B

I was originally skeptical when my previous company planned to procure expensive IBM laptops. After a couple of hours of use, however, I begin to see the beauty of the IBM laptop... if one word can describe the IBM Thinkpad, it's "solid".

Plus, at least here in Portugal, FedEx charges enormous amounts for customs retrieval. I once bought a new battery+charger from the united states, costing about $200 including delivery and ended up waiting +2 weeks and paying €180 more because of that (and some more from VAT, of course).

Since then, I've never bought anything through FedEx. UPS, DHL and even USPS are quite better.

But this is the Portuguese situation, things can be a lot different over there...

Yes, I too was once an IBM skeptic. When I first had my Dell, I wondered "wtf, who would pay 1.5x for basically the same specs?". Then, I got fed up with it and my friend happened to want a Dell so I was lucky enough to switch to an IBM. Now I am, sadly, one of those people who would pay the extra $$ for the unmatched IBM quality. I used my friend's new Toshiba and they *work* but they feel cheap and I don't get along with the ALPS brand touchpad they use. IBM doesn't seem to be all about the "cutting edge" technology like, say, Dell - non-'p' T41s have just 32 MB video cards. They are just about making an extremely solid product that just works. After you spend too much time with an IBM, you can never go back :\

I have another question.

What are the main differences (target group- and spec-wise) between the T and R series? because some of those R's look pretty tempting too. If it's just a matter of size and weight, then I'd have no problem "settling" for an bigger and heavier R.
Heck, I'd even settle for a pink laptop, if that made it cheaper

Judging from IBM's homepage it seems the R might be a bit more noisy at the same heat production (comparing R40 vs T40), yet they also claim to be Centrinos.

The T series is a "thin and light" - it is more expensive but it is much thinner and lighter than an R series. It is targeted more towards people who bring their notebooks everwhere they go.
The R series is I guess more of a "desktop replacement" - larger, but less expensive. Still can be carried around, just not as easily.

In your case where you don't mind the extra size and weight, the R series is probably a good choice. If you are looking at the older R40 series, be sure to only look at the Pentium M models and not the P4-Ms. The Pentium M models will get far better battery life as well as being faster than the P4-Ms on many things.

Exactly.

It seems that (for me) the main difference is that an R50 (which I'm looking at) is 4 dB louder than the relevant T, but OTOH I get some more RAM and a bigger harddisk.

Oh, and I gain one inch in (screen) size

Looks like you are a student. Who does your school get their computers from? Arizona State uses Dells, so as an Arizona State sutendt I got a 5% discount when I got my Dell Inspiron laptop. In the long run 5% isn't that much, but Dell Inspiron has been a good system for me so far.

We too get a discount on Dells here (our discount is considerably larger than yours - I got a Latitude for just over $1,800 that would have been about $2,400 w/o the discount then). However, my friend's D600 that is identical to the one I had just died today (again). Let's see, the 1st time, his USB ports died -> Dell sent someone to come replace motherboard. 1 day later, it smelled toasted and died completely. Dell wouldn't send someone out to fix it, even though he has on-site service. He sent it in and about 2 1/2 weeks later they sent it back with a 1.3 GHz Pentium M instead of a 1.6 like he originally had. Then he called them up, asked for a refund, and they said no but we'll send you a whole new replacement. And now today, the replacement is completely dead. Man, am I glad I ditched my Dell (oh, and my D600 that I sold also had its USB ports die later on too).

EDIT: I don't know if it's just horrible luck on his part or just Dell Quality™ at work, but since yesterday my friend was using the other 1.3 GHz that he still had from when Dell messed up, and today it too, has died. Funny thing is that I haven't heard many complaints about their Insprison series.

hehe, i got into a similar story with my gf's gericom, luckily she got 40 Megs drive and 1.8 gigs celeron instead of 20 megs ans 1 gigs celeron at the end..., but was like month of waiting ..., and finnally when the latest replacement arrived it was missing those rubber legs, ect (it was a cd drive repair really ).

i also got a gericom , 2.0 mobile cpu thingy, it does work flawlesly since i reformated everything to fat32 (original was ntfs), but i have a feeling that something is wrong with the hd, so this reformat will just basicaly hide the malfunction. Other than that i dicovered that usb2 seems to be limited to about 16 megs/s, so i had to get the additional cabling to connect my external disk via firewire..., sound output is better than some laptops i heard so far (nosie & crap), but still not quite perfect for some headphone listening, in any case i was more interested in the big screen (not really 'portable').

(oh, the gericom home page and the operation manual are really short on some subjects, like i dont have a clue if i can enable spdif somehow, and the email tech support is non-existant - i wrote several mails and never got any replays.)

here are some specs:
http://users.volja.net/smoker/pub/woody/list.htm


p.s. oh, the cdrw/dvd combo seems to be slowly dieing as well, also i never got the drive to work correctly with eac... (so iam using my old standalone for all the ripping purposes and crossnet the bastards for encoding )

Heh, after all these Dell deaths, he just bought a $3,000 IBM T41p 2 days ago (and it was on sale for 10% off too) Talk about really nice but still overpriced. Guess that's what happens when you get fed up with one company - you go buy another company's top-of-the line product