Need Your Advice in buying my 1st laptop

6.2 lbs is not heavy........., Dell's tech support may take long but they are reliable, trust me. There is one time, I waited about 30 min before I can talk to the tech support guy (I know its long but who cares, I am watchin tv anyway), but he helps me to fix the comp step by step. If you are busy (washroom time) and wish him to call u back, Dell tech will do it. (everything he said during the tech support is monitored by Dell company, so if he screw u, he is screwed) and also he will want u to give him a good review (u can choose to do it or not to do it) so he will help u with the best he could.

For notebook, I would recommand CL-56. Its good even for most games (not powerful enough for Doom 3 or HL2, u can forget those games)

i think that of the three you listed, 99.9% of the people here would also recommend the cl-56... only thing is that dell has a nice payment plan so you dont have to dish out $1300 at one time, that or get a cl-56 with a credit card with a decent limit / apr

See FAQ sticky

If you buy the CL-56 from discountlaptops, the OEM (ChemUSA) backs the unit for two years. They are open 24/7 and are extremely helpful. DL isn't as cheap as mwave, but the $1300 CL-56 is still a great deal.

If you play any modern 3D games, I'd recommend against the Intel 3D graphics. The Radeon 9700 is a big step up.

The P-M @ 1.7GHz is a very snappy CPU. I'd compare it to a 2.6GHz P4 (Northwood, not Prescott). Add the Hitachi 7200rpm HDD, 512M (or even 1GB) of DDR, and you've got a really fast system.

The keyboard of the CL56 is quite nice. The CTRL key is in the right location, and the keys that are most used are well placed and plenty big. It has a nice feel, not as good as the Thinkpads, but still good for a notebook.

The display on the CL-56 is pretty good. It's not quite as saturated as I'd like (compared to my 16ms AU Optronics-based desktop LCD), and the viewing angle isn't great (make sure to tilt the screen so you're looking at it right on). It does, however, have that "just right" resolution for most people. XGA isn't quite high enough, UXGA is a bit too high (YMMV, of course).

Ports are well placed (2 USB, FireWire, VGA, Parallel, LAN, modem, and S-Video out are on the back; audio and 1 USB are on the left; power is on the right). The SD slot is nice if you have SD devices, but it's not real fast (only about 1MB per second). The Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 is really nice; it pulls in the signal well on the CL56, supports WPA2, and has few compatibility issues.

The audio is generic Realtek, but it's about as good as you're going to get in a notebook. The ODD is removable and upgradable, and the HDD is easy to reach.

The product is well-built, with no "creaky" plastic. The paint looks ugly in photographs, but the metallic blue is actually really attractive. The notebook isn't "over the top" - it has a nice, quality appearence. The paint is top-notch, it is smooth and it feels like it is baked into the plastic. So far, I haven't seen any wear on the paint or other parts - the notebook looks the same today as the day I purchased it.

Indicators aren't overly-bright (like on some of the Averatec notebooks), and are well designed.

All in all, it's a quality notebook at a great price.

Gotta agree with bsoft... and for the all reasons he stated.

I would say the 700m is out of the question based on ur needs. I played around with my friends and must say it is pretty nice looking in term of size and weight, but that's about it... Don't know much about the HPDV1000 or CL-56 so I can't say except it seems a lot of people here would vouch for the CL-56.

I personally had the same dilemma as you and went with a Uniwill 259IA3... the EXACT opposite of a 700m and am happy.

I had a 700m. While it's cute and all, the keyboard was frustrating to use. You may run into problems typing reports for class. But then again I've got big hands.