Notebook buying advice please...

Compal CL56 or Mitac 8050 - They are both in the 6-7 pound range, run pentium M's for the battery life you're looking for, and have good video cards (The mitacs will soon be coming with the MR9700). Not only that, but depending on the reseller from which you buy them, they fall under your price range.

Also, you might want to check out this thread, in which one of our cohorts nicely ran through the popular centrino notebooks and their ODMs

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=22187

First off, you need a Pentium M or the new released Dothan (only difference as of now is the 2mb cache on dothan compared to 1mb on Pentium M; not too big of difference. Later on in September when alvisio is released, the dothan will have a 533mhz bus speed compared to the 400mhz bus speed now.) This is the only processor capable of delivering 4 hours of battery life. But don't worry, this processor performs admirably. A 1.7GHz PM is comparable to a 2.8GHz P4-M.
To play Doom 3 you will definitely need the ATI 9700 128mb video card (the 256mb version is only found on systems with P4 which gives 1 hour battery life)
Although the Athlon64 is the best processor out now IMO, the PM will be able to manage DOOM III.
Here are a few systems:
The Acer Ferrari 3200--released this week. Uses Athlon64 true mobile (for a 4 hour battery life) 1600mhz bus speed and ATI 9700 128mb video card. IT has an 80GB hard drive. Comes to $2000, $200 over you budget but truly is a great system. Can't customize an acer.

Widescreen alternative:Hypersonic CX6--same components except for Pentium M and a 15.4WXGA screen.

***Both systems weight 6.5lbs (not too shabby)

The Dell I8600 meets or exceeds all of your requirements. It has a base price of around $1200. There is also a 10% off sale going on right now so you could really load up on the options.

Raj: although the 9600 pro turbo found on the I8600 is really nice, the MR9700 showed a 30% increase in performance is some benchmarks. Doom 3 is a very demanding game.

The mitac 8050 is the same chassis as the CX6 which all ready uses the MR9700. Don't go with the CL56. It doesn't have a good viewing angle and many people have problems with the screen; although the price truly is nice.

these specs are unrealistic...no laptop with a good graphics card will last 4 hours of gameplay...playing a game is the hardest thing you can do and sucks up battery faster. Listed bat times for laptops is based on far less power consuming tasks.

probably the most cost effective game friendly (9600 64MB) laptop is the eMachines 6809 which you can get at BestBuy for 1399 with all the rebates.

If you are willing to pay more then 1800 the Ferrari Acer 3200 or 8003

both the Asus M6N (available w/9700 in June) and Dell 8600 can be configured to above or below 1800 with a good game card, but you will have to sacrifice Processor and HD.

TonyinLa states the obvious. Who said that you could eek out 4 hours of gameplay? He simply wants a laptop with a 4 hour battery life. A system that can get 4 hours of word processing but can play Doom III as well on the AC.

Hi there...

The Acer 3200 started shipping to retailers today/yesterday from what I have heard. So that means they should be available for sale sometime next week; as for places to buy I would go with PCtorque or if you look on Acer's website it will list a bunch of places where you can buy this laptop.

However, my personal opinion is that you get a Pentium M based machine either the ECS or Compal. I have a Compal Cl56 ordered which should show up in a week or so, and I will post my thoughts on that when I receive it.

I also recommend this laptop because it is just a better value than the Acer, Acer you will drop 2k for the laptop and are stuck with 512 RAM and a sucky slow 4200 RPM HDD. If either of those things matter to you I wouldn't recommend the Acer, as your going to drop about 400 bucks more into it to get a 7200 RPM HDD and 1 GB of RAM (self installation). If you want it "professionally" installed its gonna cost you about a hundred for the service so 500 for upgrades/service + 2000 for laptop = 2500 (only a 1 year warranty too).

For 2200 bucks you can get a Pentium M 1.7 Dothan, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB 7200 RPM HDD, DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, ATI Radeon 9700 128 MB, 15" SXGA screen, Intel 2200 Pro Wireless card, 3 year warranty (shipping included in price) from powernotebooks.com. Only thing that is different here is the type of chip...but plugged in they offer pretty similiar performance, and you don't have a DVD burner (but you can add one for 150 bucks).

Forgot to answer if Acer is a reliable brand name...and yes they are a good company in that aspect.

Honestly getting the DVD burner isn't worth it on these notebooks anyway. From what I understand you won't be able to get a Dual Layer one.

Still, these are pretty cost effective options:

HP nc8000 /w 64 or 128 MB ATI MR 9600 Pro (2.95 kg, SXGA+ 1400x1050, 3-year warranty)
HP nc6000 /w 64 MB ATI MR 9600 (2.3 kg; XGA 1024x768, no firewire, 3-year warranty)

nc6000 can also be customized to have SXGA+ but it can be pretty pricey.

Acer 3200:
1.) it shipped from pctorque yesterday.
2.) there are several resellers on the internet that ship to US. Pctorque, harmony computers, computers4sure etc.
3.) Adam@pctorque has promised a review on the lappy. and as axeman said, acer is very reliable.

The acer is going to offer you the best gameplay because it has the strongest video card and the athlon64. However, this system ships with the 80GB drive with 4200rpm which really hurts performance. That's the slowest drive you can get. Since your budget is $2000 you wouldn't want to upgrade to a 60GB 7200rpm or 80GB 5400rpm drive for the extra $225. Other than that the system is very sweet and even has a dvd burner, although I reccomend using your desktop for burning because you can get an 8X burner and can burn dual layers.
Other systems: (you're not going to find a lot that can seriously game yet yield reasonable battery life)
1.) Hyperdatadirect.com The laptop is called the mitac 8050. Its the same chassis as the CX6. It's cheaper at this site and has Dothan available. (Dothan is the next generation Pentium M which was known as Banias. Dothan shows between 10-20 minute longer battery life and has an increased cache of 1mb as compared to 2mb which makes it shine in office tasks. However, in September when the Alvisio chipset is released, Dothan's with 533mhz bus speed will be available!!!) The Mitac 8050 will easily play Farcry and can probably handle Doom III reasonably well. The ACer 3200 should have a battery life of 3 hours flat; that's what acer is saying now. However, with the 8050 you're gauranteed at least 4 hours if not 5. (this is the lappy that Im going to purchase.)
2.) The dell inspiron 8600 (It won't game as well as the 8050 due to 9600 pro video card but it can handle Far Cry and probably Doom III as well.)
3.) Hp's nc8000 or 6000 (although they ain't exactly cheap.)
Bottomline: there aren't many systems that can play Doom III and yield a 4 hour battery life while doing other tasks. There are even fewer with a price tag of $2000. I strongly reccomend the Mitac 8050. The 1.7GHz Dothan could be compared to a 2.8GHZ P4. I've been looking for the same laptop as you have and its obvious to me that this lappy is incredible.

Oh, I almost forgot. Take a look at Acer's Aspire 2025. It runs for $2250 yet is made of brushed aluminum and screen with an incredible picture and viewing angle. Same features as the Mitac 8050.