Centrino System - may be you guys can advise me

asus all the way, centino price drop and its getting the gpu upgrade june 1st i believe

If reliability is a real concern for you, then you would have to go with an IBM notebook, despite the fact that they are really expensive. In terms of reliability, I believe IBM is the undisputed champion.

I believe that there are 3 things that make IBM notebooks special:

1. F'ing expensive
2. Reliable
3. F'ing Ugly cases

I second Enderet's recommendation. If I were going out to the savannah I'd want a Thinkpad too.

Another thing I just thought of...

If your notebook is going to be taking quite a beating, and you need a rugged notebook, you might want to consider Panasonic's Toughbook line of notebooks. They are also expensive, but they sure can take a beating.

i can tell u first hand that the compal cl56 does not make any noise under general use... i cannot hear any noise from it when its in a silent room

the only time i hear noise from is when the dvd drive is spinning or when the HD is reading stuff

under gaming a fan kicks on but its so soft... its like... hmm soft is all i can say

Are you sure you can't get ANY support? One of my colleagues who just recently came from India dropped his T30 and broke the LCD (Everything else is fine but the lcd screen is busted). IBM honors his warranty here in the States despite the purchase was made in India. IBM's warranty is global. So long as there is an IBM office, they should honor your warranty.

[quote]If I were going out to the savannah...[quote]

lolol - Africa isn't quite that bad... well sometimes it is...

heh

ibms are really solid, pretty rugged too. they don't have to be that expensive either.
the panasonic toughbook w2 is incredible...a little pricey but HOTT.

hey, i just caught this in a cnet review of the ibm x40:
quote:
The IBM ThinkPad X40 is also eligible for the company's International Warranty Service, which you can use to get technical support in a number of countries around the world, from Algeria to Zimbabwe.
:endquote

might be worth looking into

Unfortunately, the Toughbook w2, isnt really that tough at all, when compared to its older brothers, now THOSE can definetely take a beating. The w2 is an ultraportable, and while the case is made of a sturdy material, i would be afraid of putting it up to any test.

the compal cl56 that rincewind reccomended is a very nice system. IT has top of the line components yet with one flaw: the screen isn't of the best quality. Thus if you're watching movies or looking at pics, you may want to consider another alternative. The ECS is very loud and has top of the line componenents as well. The screen is better than that of the compal. Only bad thing is its solid 3 hour battery life. I think the asus is your best choice. 4-5 hour battery life; sweet widescreen or normal screen and a very nice video card. All for a pretty solid price.

Wasn't there something about the colour depth on the LCD of the Asus?

Shouldn't really base the ECS 556e on the voodoo M460... The voodoo was a P4-M not a P-M so, battery life should be down considerably. Atleast i think the M460 was a P4-M, dunno though. Also Guitarded and Warrenzai, both got the 556 and neither are really too upset at the noise level. (I e-mailed internetibuy they said the 556 should also get 4-5 hours, dunno how accurate that is though)

in all honesty here the screen issue is not really that big of a problem unless u were looking at a predominately black area... the vertical viewing angles do not really pose a problem when its color that your looking at..

now if u have a all black screen saver, or were playing some space flight sim with a big black screen you'd notice it...

all it is tho is the contrast/brightness not bein 100% balanced when at the 'sweet spot'

its off by maybe 10% top or bottom, but not both at the same time

Asus definitly. I have one and have had no regrets in buying it. Check out my review in the review section "my personal asus m6n review"

Actually two of my friends have the Toshiba Satellite and they say that it can handle the toughest beatings and still come out strong and beautiful. They have pretty good batery life also, you should consider one of their laptops.

i'd like to challenge some1 with a non sony xbrite fujutsu screen or high gloss screen notebook

and do the same test with a black screenbein displayed and the picture taken at low light settings and see if the blacks show up 'all black' on the entire screen

this is an LCD here, not a plasma or crt tv...

I know the college i'm going to next year has a deal with HP so that students get a discount on HP and compaq laptops, but that's probably a school by school basis.

What about an HP nc8000? Seems to fit the bill exactly here. It's very sturdy, is HP quality (not up to par with IBM but not that far), has a nice screen and runs both cool and silent.

An additional note about actual IBM reliability. I had an IBM six years ago, or to be more precise... The IBM notebook I purchased had a defective motherboard, and the replacement had successively 3 defective hard disks + toasted USB port + dead floppy drive + CD-ROM broke, and more. That IBM was nothing more but a very expensive trash can, I'd say, because apart the sturdy (and ugly) plastic housing, it had no other asset: what is inside sucks. Granted, it was six years ago, perhaps I was simply unlucky, since everyone seems to agree on IBM's high build quality; hope it's not another fine myth. I'm not buying a new IBM anytime soon, though; once bitten, twice shy.

And no, I wasn't molesting the IBM in any way nor was I throwing it periodically through the window to check how sturdy it was... I currently have a 4+ year old Gateway laptop which has no problem. Except the keyboard that is completely worn out, and the modem that doesn't work anymore; not bad for a laptop used over 10 hours per day.

Now, to get back to the subject (kind of), I have also done my research and here are my words of wisdom: if what you want is a sturdy, silent computer, with a good screen, get the nc8000.