Looking to buy a new laptop for school

[Nav]

Hey everybody. Right now im in the market for a new laptop. So i went to the store and was overwhelmed by the number of laptops avialable. I have never owned a laptop nor do I need a powerful one. Im looking for maximum battery life. AMD would be nice but would go with intel if that meant btter battery life. (how powerful of a proc would i need?). 512mb or 1gb of ram, not sure how much I would use, I have 2gb in my desktop so im spoiled , basically looking at battery life vs performance). 60gb hard drive should be fine, 56k and broadband, wireless if possible. screen size, im not too sure. ill be typing, doing spreadsheets, surfing that kind of thing. 15" sounds okay but would appreciate any opinions. Wow, this is a long post. Anyways, would appreciate any opinions.

EDIT: not partial to any brand, but I have a budget of $1000 canadian, or about $875 US, all before tax. I know what desktop barebones are but are laptop barebones the same? Just need cpu, hdd, ram, optical drive, correct? If so, Im willing to go that route too. Thanks again.

[flanzig1]

For battery life, go with the Pentium M. You can go to the Dell web site and configure each particular model with your wish list and see what the price will be.

[Nav]

Ok I did some hmwk on the issue and I found quite a few lappys that appealed to me.

Acer Aspire 1642WLMi Intel Pentium M 740 1.73GHz, 15.4" WXGA, 512MB DDR2, 80GB HDD, DVD+/-RW, 802.11b/g, Windows XP Home: $849.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index...cf9192873ce5cb

Barebone Notebooks:

Asus Z93E Barebone Pentium M Intel 915GM 2xSO-DIMMDDR 15.4", $678.99, http://www.logiccomputerhouse.com/si...detail&id=9409

Asus Z62F Barebone YONAH INTEL 945GM 2xSO-DIMM DDR2 DVD+/-RW, $689.99, http://www.logiccomputerhouse.com/si...etail&id=10035

Asus Z63A Barebone Pentium M Intel 915GM 2xSO-DIMM DDR2 14.1" WX, $698.99, http://www.logiccomputerhouse.com/si...detail&id=9262

Asus Z71V Barebone Pentium M, $828.99, http://www.logiccomputerhouse.com/si...detail&id=9049

For the barebone systems I plan on putting in 512mb ram, dvd burner, 60-80gb hdd. Note: all prices are in Canadian dollars. Thanks again.

[flanzig1]

With the ram,see if you can just get 1 512mb stick so you can upgrade to a gig without having to get rid of the two 256 sticks.

[Nav]

Thats a good idea (why didnt I think of that?). THanks for the input. btw is there any lappy I listed that sounds like a good deal (or one that isnt mentioned?). Thanks again.

[thefultonhow]

Keep in mind that the only one of the barebooks you listed that has dedicated video is the Z71V. I'm not sure if that's a factor in your decision.

[jack10525]

I don't know if they are in your price range but IBM Lenovos are hot!!!!

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by jack10525 I don't know if they are in your price range but IBM Lenovos are hot!!!!

I have a budget of $1000 canadian, or about $875 US

You could get a mediocre ThinkPad for that much, but it would probably have a Celeron-M and 256 MB of RAM.

[Nav]

i wont be gaming very much, maybe some red alert 2 once in awhile. if i game its gonna be on my desktop. i was eying the asus z71v, has good reviews too. i found all components i need except for the optical drive. cant seem to find a place that sells notebook optical drives. gonna keep searching though. thanks again everybody, im gonna stick with the z71v unless someone suggests something else.