[VANITY] Please Recommend Decent Bang-For-Buck Notebook Computer

I have a sudden need for a decent notebook PC. This will serve as my "temporary desktop computer" at a client's office where I will need to be working for the next several weeks.

I want a lot of "bang-for-the-buck," including sufficient memory, screen size, etc., to do some pretty heavy computing (running engineering software including CAD, etc.)

I'd like some recommendations. I haven't been keeping up with the notebook market AT ALL. Thanks in advance.

My notebook is an ibook, but I've been told by a purchasing agent who has purchased a boat load of notebooks to always go with IBM if possible when it comes to notebooks as they have all the parts for repair and other manufacturers do not and you basically have to junk them when your keyboard goes bad and stuff like that. This was told to me a couple years ago so maybe things have changed.

Anyway, funny you ask about this because I just got an ad in the mail for the IBM thinkpad R31.

14.1" XGA TFT display
Integrated Intel graphics
'128MB SDRAM (this sounds awfully small)
30 GB hard drive
Ultrabay Plus DVD-ROM
Integrated Ethernet and modem
Windows XP Professional, Lotus, SmartSuite,Millennium license, PC Doctor
3.1-hr Li-Ion battery
5.4 lb travel weight
1 yr limited warranty
Mobile Intel Pentium III Processor 1.13 GHz - M supports Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology

$1,259 or $1,328 with Microsoft Office XP

And then there's the IBM ThinkPad A31 with 256 MB DDR SDRAM, 15" display, 40 GB harddrive, 1.80 GHz Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor, and some other stuff for $1,699 or $1,768 with S Office XP

If you use my discount you will save shipping costs. Freepmail me for the number if you decide to go with IBM.

Hey Illbay..I cannot give any positive suggestions, but Iwill say this, I have a Dell Laptop. I hate the thing. The disk is frag'd all the time (I have seen this acorss many OS's), it take forever to boot, it creams battery life. I've run the thing under many situations, and can tell you this, I hate the thing.

When I goto the market for a new one, I am looking for a few things, good battery life (which depends on compnents), BIOS it uses, processor it uses and above all, support for docking station video card (which is most likely tied to BIOS). HD is cool, but hte higher speeds mans more juice and more heat..I do mostly SAN at my home, so small HD is preferrable for me.

Just some food for thought.......

Just went through all this. Looked at Gateway, Dell,
Sony, Compaq, etc.

Rejected Gateway due to "fuzzy" screen which was
noted as a concern by many users although Gateway
generally gets good marks for robustness.

Rejected Sony because of a number of complaints
about construction quality such as marks coming
off keys and screws falling out.

Could not find Dells to look at locally although
they generally are thought Ok.

Had previous Compaq which worked fine but needed
to replace because of 133 mhz proceessor and 64mb
of memory. Also had good parts experience with
failed floppy. Parts are in stock and good parts
- repair manuals are on line.

Finally went with Compaq because of previous good
experience and excellent display quality.

Got Presario 2800T w 1.6 gigHz Pentium and 1 stick
of 256 Meg SDRAM. Bought 2nd stick from Crucial and
put in myself which is easy to do and raised RAM
to 512 meg. Got XP Home which is working well
and much better than WinME on office computer.
LOOKED AT COMPAQS IN LOCAL STORE AND ORDERED 15-INCH
XGA (REPEAT XGA) DISPLAY WHICH IS ACTUALLY SHARPER
THAN THE HIGHER RESOLUTION DISPLAY. Display is
bright and very sharp. Ordered CDRW-DVD compo which has
worked fine and includes related software.

Ordered multi-bay floppy but should not have. Went out
and bought USB Mitsumi which is easier to carry and
works great. As near as I can tell the battery life
is fine. Suggest you get a USB Microsoft mouse and
perhaps also a USB keyboard depending on your use.

I really looked hard at other manufacturers this time
but still wound up with Compaq because of build
quality and on-line access to parts and repair manuals.
BTW, actually got a separate XP operating system disk
(Compaq labeled) with the laptop which is not,
I understand, always the case.

With some intrepedation, I used PartitionMagic to
partition the hard drive to have an E drive for files.
Worked great despite Compaq advising partioning was
not recommended.

To get good speed you need to get rid of a lot of the
garbage that MS runs in the background. The best site
for looking at this is is
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
which you can use in consort with the task list. It
is amazing how much garbage runs in the background.
Also use the Classic XP setting as those fancy rounded
corner boxes are another processor drain per:
http://www.winxpfix.com/page9.htm

Bottom line: Compaq notebooks seem better than
Gateway, Sony, and at least as good as Dell

Ordered direct from Compaq and actually got delivery
earlier than stated date.

Regards and good luck.

Thanks so much for all your suggestions. I hunted around a bit. There is a Compaq Outlet Store (soon to be HP Outlet) here in Houston (surprise) and I went by there. They had a nice Compaq Presario for $1,149, and I was tempted, but walked across the way to Fry's.

There, I found a Sony VAIO PCG-NVR23. It was $1,499. I bought it. Reasons:

1. Someone here said "Have a VAIO and love it." My dad also bought a VAIO for an employee (he is completely computer illiterate) and said the employee loved it.

2. Someone here said "Get XGA." It has XGA.

3. It has a 15 inch screen, while the Compaq (and others in this same price range) had 14.1".

4. Came with Corel WordPerfect Office which will do instead of MS Office, I think.

5. Came with a neat feature where you can "hot swap" a "Ten-Key Bay Unit" (giving you a numeric keypad--the lack of which I've always hated about notebook computers); or a "Compact Subwoofer Bay Unit" for playing games or DVDs. Gives a REALLY COOL SOUND; or a Floppy (don't NEED a floppy, really, but it's nice to know I have one. I actually have a couple of programs that still install from floppies).

6. Was fastest processor at the price-point, with an Athlon XP 1800+ 1.533 MHz (equivalent to a Pentium 4, rather than the Pentium IIIs that other computers had).

7. Has a GeFORCE 4 graphics processor--nice.

Anyway, thanks again. I'll let you all know how it works out.

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