Purchase of New Dell Laptop

[Sam]

My son needs to purchase a laptop for use when visiting potential customers.
He currently has a Dell Dimension 8400 computer with windows XP Pro (SP2)
and QuickBooks Pro and a small graphics program. When visiting potential
customers, he would like to have the laptop to show some of the work he has
done for past customers (reports, graphics, and photos of buildings, etc).
I don't have any experience with a laptop so would very much appreciate any
help and suggestions. I should note that he expects to have to purchase
additional application programs such as QuickBooks Pro for the laptop.

I have suggested a mid range or higher Dell laptop as far as cost is
concerned with windows XP Pro, but don't know which model to recommend.
However, I have suggested two internal physical hard drives if possible, DVD
recorder, wireless card, the fastest or next to the fastest CPU available,
three year full warranty if possible, the near best screen and video card
available, and one GB RAM memory as a minimum. Another area I have no
experience with, is the ability to sync the files from the Tower to the
laptop and back again if necessary. Is there a program to do this function
or does windows XP have this feature built in? Also is a docking station
necessary?

Any other information and suggestions would be also very much appreciated,
Sam.

 

[R. McCarty]

There is a "Transitional" period now with notebooks. Intel has the new
Core-Duo (Dual Core) Centrinos and AMD will shortly have their own
Dual-Core Turions. Memory of 1.0 Gigabyte or greater is advisable, as
it builds in some Vista OS capability. I would get a notebook with a
Serial ATA or SATA drive or 100+ Gigabytes. Personally, after much
research and a misstep buying a Toshiba Satellite, I now own a Sony
Vaio FE. One thing to consider is the heat factor. Many notebooks look
nice but are VERY warm. If it's for demonstrations, then you'd probably
want a 15.4" Widescreen aspect display ( or wider ) but too big makes
it cumbersome to carry/setup.

Best thing to do is check Notebook forums, you can get very good info
from existing owners on their particular choice. Most major OEMs have
their own Forums and there are a few independent ones that have sub
groups for particular brands.
Below is a good "Starting-Point" forum for Notebook advice:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/

Dell is hard to beat on prices, but as a Service provider I've seem more
than a few Inspirons in the shop lately.