That is the one thing I have noticed since scouring the net and asking everyone and anyone in the know their opinions on who makes the most well put together laptop. It seems that many folks are extreemely loyal to one particular product or brandname, but one brandname doesn't seem to be conclusive over the other. The Imac sure has its very loyal following, as well as Dell and Toshiba and, another brand rapidly picking up steem is HP, especially their DV6000 and DV9000 lines. I am beginning to conclude that at this point, figure out exactly how much of a laptop you need and can afford, paying particular attention to Size of Hard Drive, How much Memory (RAM), and third, how much graphics card, and lastly and most important, the CPU. I have concluded that the duel core processor is important, as it is essentially two processors stapped together, and the OS uses one for certain functions and the other for certain functions, and most importantly, only one is being used and powered when both are not needed, saving battery power and overall electric consumption. Another rule of thumb, to save money, get the base core duo (1.60GHz, I believe), and skip the upgrade on the CPU and get 2G's of RAM, as your CPU runs out of cache space for storage, it will draw from Ram, and adding RAM is much cheaper than adding a high end CPU. Bottom line, I'm waiting for some hot sales. Another thing to think about is size, and yeah, folks, size does matter... Most of the 17" models that I've tried out in the stores just seem too damn big and heavy, especially if your going to use the thing as a LAP top... it's just too damn big for my lap, and I have a big lap at that... the 12" is just too small, especialy for viewing movies, etc. That's the one thing that turned me off from the DELL XPS 1200... hot looking little machine... just too small. 14-15" seems just right for my taste. It seems to me that all these machines (Toshiba, Dell, HP and many others) are all beginning to become clones of one another. Seems they are are made in China nowadays, and no one has yet to convince me overwhelmingly that one is better than the other...

Thanks Zep. I'm quite willing to learn the Mac system and DH knows next to nothing about either. He needs little cheat sheets for each thing he wants to do. LOL! Not really concerned about file compatibilities -- I don't think. :-)) I'd probably put Open Office on the new one rather than buying another MS Office Suite. He won't do a lot of (like any) word processing and I understand anything I might create in OO will be viewable in MSO. If I were in need of editing then I'd C+P said info into a new Office Doc on my own 'puter and carry on. Might happen once a year. What I do not want is a problematical OS that I'm constantly running to fix so he can do something inane like play crib on Yahoo. I've made it a practice to avoid all MS upgrades for a considerable length of time before installing. It simply isn't worth the headaches and time involved. All that said perhaps a wiser, though possibly difficult, move would be to install my XP OS on the new laptop and buy Vista to install on my machine. I have to run thru some of the video info on Vista but I'm thinking I'd be the person that would be most likely to use (some of) the *bells and whistles* and he'd be more comfy with an interface that had some familiarity. Problem(s) arise in buying a laptop/notebook sans OS or with OS and then uninstalling / reinstalling . . . blah blah. Hmmm If I upgrade (can this be done?) to Vista on my XP machine, can I install my present XP system on the laptop? I have a gig of RAM now so would need to upgrade to 2 at least. I'll run the compatibility test but think most everything else should work. Have 2 80 Gig HD's, one of which is partitioned to run W'98 (cause I had games that hadn't yet had patches developed that I like to play). That was two plus years ago and now there are patches avail so likely this is no longer a concern. Lots of head scratching! :-)) Pleased to hear any shared thots. Thanks a bunch for the reply. Holly

To use the wireless service, you need a wireless b/g card; most of the new laptops have this built in. Rather than purchasing MS Office, why not download free Open Office and give it a try? Once you are on cable, the download should not be too much. OO documents are compatible with Office, from what others here say. Several others here use OO and can answer any questions you might have. By all means get 2GB of memory. The size of the hard drive is up to you, but it sounds as if you don't need a huge one, given the history of your desktop. You might also consider later purchasing an external hard drive just for storage of pictures, music, and such. These are not at all costly these days. Look for plenty of USB ports and built-in memory card reader to help in transferring your pictures to the hard drive from your camera. A combo CD/DVD burner is almost a given, as that is pretty standard now. The 15.4" wide screen is not at all bad, but the 17" is nice if you can find it in your price range. Check around and watch the sale circulars. There are some great buys to be found.

you do not want a tablet for that type of use. Stick with a laptop, for travel of course the 14-15 inch will be lighter weight, check the weights on any of them because they can vary greatly. I have only got warranties from the manufacturer. Once you have one you will want to declutter it, using the pc decrapifier is a good tool to help you with that. I never activate the "free" antivirus on them either I immediately fully remove it and install either AVAST free or Microsoft Security Essentials free. We can help you with all of that when you get it just come on back and ask. Here are a couple of links you can save. PC Decrapifier. Using AppRemover to remove the AV that is on it. a good place to get the things you need free with out any extras added on. Here is a link that might be useful: ninite