A'ight.. I have come to the point of being utterly annoyed and desperate when it comes to packing schoolwork and such around between 3 different places, either through ftp or jump drive. So.. I decided to look at laptops and heres a list of ones I was looking at:
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HP Pavilion DV1000
1.4 Ghz Pentium M
1x 512 MB DDR 400(so later when I get $$ I can bump it up)
80 Gig 4200 RPM Hard Drive
DVD/CD-RW Combo
64 Megabyte Intel Extreme Graphics
Intel Pro/Wireless 2200 802.11BG WLAN
12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
14.0" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x768)
Harmon Kardon 16 bit speakers

Price: $1,274.00
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eMachines M5405
Mobile AMD Sempron™ 2800+ Processor Operates at 1.6GHz 256KB L2 Cache
512 MB DDR (PC 2700)
60 GB HDD(I'll assume its 4200RPM)
DVD/CD-RW Combo
SiS M760 64meg video
Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN, 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
8-cell Lithium-ion
15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution)
Built-in Stereo Speakers

Price: $999.99
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Dell Inspiron 700m
1.6 Ghz Pentium M
2x 256 Meg DDR(unmentioned speed)
12.1-in WXGA
60Gig HD
DVD/CD-RW Combo
802.11G wireless
64 meg Intel Extreme Graphics

Price: $1,447
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Apple iBook G4
1.2 GHz PowerPC G4 processor
256 MB DDR SDRAM > I'll probably upgrade the RAM to 512
30 GB ATA/100 hard drive> and upgrade the HD to the next largest...
12.1 inch TFT XGA display
AirPort Extreme 802.11g
32 megabyte ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive

Price: $1000
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I am more or less leaning towards the Apple iBook or the HP DV1000. I just need something I can run *Nix to do my school stuffs(and music, video and DVDs), which is basically text documents, photos, and other things. This system will mostly definatly be 100% *Nix... If I get a Mac, I'll put Virtual PC on it just for kicks since I have it already(MS partners program sends us some of the most useless stuff sometimes).

You might want to stay away from the Intel Extreme Graphics chipset. It is not well supported under Linux. nvidia provides proprietary, non-free drivers that work very well.

I have a HP nx9105, the same as the Compaq R3000z series, and it works really well. It is very full featured as well (check the HCL here for my review).


Håkan

Okay thanks, I didn't know that.... guess that really limits stuff then doesnt it? :S

I'm not what you'd call a linux expert, but slowly but surely I've been getting my Dell 600m set up nicely the way I like it. Still have a few issues though, but got the biggest ones out of the way I think (wireless, battery, alsa, resolution)

actually the intel extreme works quite well, you just have to tell X how much card you want, in the xorg file. if you say you have a 32meg card, then you have a 32 meg card, and will use the rest for memory. if you say you ahve a 64 meg card (provided the system complies with that, the dv1000 will) then you will have a 64 meg card, but not be able to use that memory. i get about 1100 fps on glxgears at default screen size, that is comparible to my Nvidia card that is 64 meg. the nvidia is faster, for sure, but compared to price, i only spent 1100$ on my dv1130us. so the extreme graphics isnt a problem, a dedicated card will be better no doubt, but for cost, get teh intel extreme. but....

here is the problem you will have with the hp dv1000 series, as well as ibm notebooks. they have locked out thier bios to only allow wireless cards purchased from them. and that is basically only the windows compatible, and non-linux friendly broadcom cards. and the prices are incredibly elevated. but that isnt even the problem, the problem is that they dont document this information anywhere, or at least not anywhere obvious. i had to be told by hp on the phone that the card that i just bought for 150 dollars (an Atheros {which is very linux-friendly} 400mW minipci card) just.... wouldnt work... and that i couldnt do anything about it. and i loooked the the box of paper work that came with my laptop, and found no such information. if i had known that i wouldnt have bought it. so i urge you, dont buy it, or the ibm notebooks. do yourself a favor and get the apple, go powerbook if you have the money, but ibook would be great. one of my favorite systems is a g4 powerbook. stay away from hp and imb. i know that dell doesnt do this bios lockout. google it and you can read all about it.