To help you make your choice, I would concentrate on weight.
I just bought an Asus N10Jc for my daughter for school. Great little pc for school.
it has 1 gig ram with XP costs A$1000. Another model N10J has 2 gig ram with vista costs $1200. Weighs 1.4kg.
It has a NVIDIA® GeForce® 9300M GS with 512MB VRAM so it can handle games.
Always work out what your needs are and buy a laptop to suit.
Choosing a laptop
=============
Laptops are excellent for running a second screen.
So please consider this
Two screens are a lot of fun. Assignment on one, internet, research on the other. Game on one, messenger on other.
I suggest to buy the laptop to suit your travelling needs, and have a second 19 inch screen at main base to plug into.
If you moving the laptop every day, so that you plugging into the main base every day, I suggest to set up a docking station complete with usb mouse and usb keyboard, and of course the second screen.
The docking station sets the laptop at a 45 degree angle so its keyboard is 45 degrees and you hinge open the lid so its vertical.
If you have 19 inch on its own stand, then the top of the laptop is the same height as the top of the 19 inch..
Now you can buy the second screen and docking station later on, and the docking station is not really necessary for home use, but for office use its best practice, so ensure you get a brand that has this available, if you think you need it..
If you walking a lot eg college, then gives you the opportunity to buy a light weight small screen type that's easy to carry
You have to decide on weight and battery criteria.
1. Weight - If you are going to carry it to and fro to school/office then consider getting a lightweight model. An external CD drive may be an option as if you not into burning disks or watching DVD then you hardly use the CD drive. Something about less than 2 kg is a lightweight. Anything over 2 kg is very heavy to carry.
2. Battery Life, - if you never going to use it on batteries then you can go bigger processor and larger screen. You can consider not buying the battery if appropriate. You can have two power supplies; one at home and one in the office is good for large heavy laptops.
If you want to use the laptop on batteries then you may have to choose a smaller processor and a smaller screen so you can get the hours required out of the battery.
3. Minimum specifications –
Games will require more specifications – more ram and –more video card specs – more processor power.
A 1.6ghz processor is not good enough for big games, a 2,4Ghz is more suitable.
Generally though:
-a decent video card (for projection of power point presentations)
-Wireless networking
-Ethernet
-Consider a high speed hard drive
- Consider 120GB Hard drive or larger
- Consider an external DVD drive or an Internal Burner -depending on your needs
-Consider 1 Gig RAM for XP or 2 Gig RAM for Vista, double that for Games or autocad type software
-Software able to update from their websites
-Internet security and
-Antispyware (free from net) is a must for internet use.
-Easy accessible USB ports
- built in webcam /mic
- A Mouse - wireless mouse are a pain, get a small usb mouse.
- a keystone lock
-A carry bag. Sometimes the manufacturer’s bag is the best buy
Consider getting the hard drive partitioned to C: and D: The C drive can be 30 gig for a laptop D drive is extended across the remaining.
Good buying: I suggest to buy from a discount store that can offer extended warranty, which you may pay for. If you do this make sure all the ram is in so it is covered by the warranty. Extended warranty will cover it for 3 years, and a lot of laptops do go wrong. The store should do the following
1. add the ram
2. install the software
3 partition the hdd
4 Ensure the hdd is NTFS file system