It's going to double as a student/business thin-and-light and a gaming machine. I'm looking at something with the following features:
- light (<6lb - need to think in lbs now
) and easy to carry around if I have no car
- fast (at least 1.5Ghz)
- preferably Pentium M
- big HD (60GB+)
- WIFI connectivity
- DVD/CD/CDRW
- lots of ports
I'm not hugely fussed about the monitor size, as long as I can look at spreadsheets etc on it. I'm planning to get an LCD screen to have at home anyway.
I was thinking this:
Basic specs for HP Compaq nc6230
Processor-- Intel Pentium M (2 GHz)
RAM installed-- 512 MB DDR SDRAM
Hard drive-- 80 GB IDE
Removable storage type-- None
Input device-- Keyboard, Touchpad, Pointing stick
Weight-- 5.1 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H)-- 12.4 in x 10.1 in x 1.1 in
Display-- 14.1 in TFT active matrix
Max resolution-- 1400 x 1050
Video RAM installed-- 64 MB
Audio output-- Sound card
Networking type-- Network adapter
Modem-- 56 Kbps Fax / modem MDC
Battery installed-- 1 Lithium ion
Mfr estimated battery life-- 4 hour(s)
OS provided-- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service & support type-- 3 years warranty
With this stuff on it as well:
Priced at $2,108 (as of March 2005), our nc6230 test unit featured a nice array of components: a 2GHz Pentium M 760 Sonoma processor, 512MHz of average-speed 400MHz memory, an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 graphics chip with a standard 64MB of VRAM, and an 80GB hard drive spinning at a brisk 5,400rpm. Our model also included a 14.1-inch display with a high 1,400x1,050 native resolution; a Broadcom 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI Wi-Fi card, which does not support Intel's Sonoma technology; and a useful CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive in a hot-swappable bay. Another corporate thin-and-light with nearly identical components, the Dell Latitude D610, is slightly more expensive.
$2k seems a bit expensive though...