I am rethinking my requirements. I play a few games, Flight Simulator, and rFactor racing, but I do so rarely. I haven't launched either of them more than a few times in the last six months. I play them on my desktop machine. I recently got a HDTV for the living room and I have this idea that it would be fun to play the flying and racing games on a 46" screen.
In the living room I have a six year old Mac powerbook handed down from my wife and it is really slow for browsing the web.
I'd like a pc notebook to replace the Mac. I'd like it to be on the light side because I might want to commute (walk/bike/train) with it occasionally - although its not that important because reading a book on the train works too. Being light means it will have a smaller screen. While I use a 24" wide screen and 20"4/3 at work, and dual monitor CRTs at home on the desktop machine, I wouldn't mind using a 14" or 15" screen on the notebook for browsing and email while in the living room.
So giving up the requirement that it be good for gaming and to have powerful graphics, it'll make the notebook a lot cheaper without it. I probably could go from a $1600 laptop down to a $1000 laptop with some low end ATI or nVidia card, and have $600 left over to put towards building an entertainment pc with good graphics card, fast processor, appropriate case, HDDVD or Blueray internal drive, etc.
What I would like in the notebook is a built-in camera for skype, and it would be nice to have built-in blue-tooth. But both those things are not even necessary as they can be added as USB peripherals.
The biggest decision for me is whether to go Vista and then later if I find that I trully need XP, install it and run it virtually, OR instead vice versa: buy it with XP and then buy, install, and run Vista virtually. Probably makes sense to buy it with Vista installed because I already own XP Pro.
In the living room I have a six year old Mac powerbook handed down from my wife and it is really slow for browsing the web.
I'd like a pc notebook to replace the Mac. I'd like it to be on the light side because I might want to commute (walk/bike/train) with it occasionally - although its not that important because reading a book on the train works too. Being light means it will have a smaller screen. While I use a 24" wide screen and 20"4/3 at work, and dual monitor CRTs at home on the desktop machine, I wouldn't mind using a 14" or 15" screen on the notebook for browsing and email while in the living room.
So giving up the requirement that it be good for gaming and to have powerful graphics, it'll make the notebook a lot cheaper without it. I probably could go from a $1600 laptop down to a $1000 laptop with some low end ATI or nVidia card, and have $600 left over to put towards building an entertainment pc with good graphics card, fast processor, appropriate case, HDDVD or Blueray internal drive, etc.
What I would like in the notebook is a built-in camera for skype, and it would be nice to have built-in blue-tooth. But both those things are not even necessary as they can be added as USB peripherals.
The biggest decision for me is whether to go Vista and then later if I find that I trully need XP, install it and run it virtually, OR instead vice versa: buy it with XP and then buy, install, and run Vista virtually. Probably makes sense to buy it with Vista installed because I already own XP Pro.
