I've bought stuff from Dabs, novatech and simply all before and they are
good firms.

If I were buying a laptop I would pay the extra for a HP or an IBM thinkpad
and definetely stear clear of compaq (they are very good machines but all
the proprietry stuff is v annoying). Many companies buy these in bulk.
Thosiba make robust stuff.

I recently bought a second hand thinkpad, becuase its a massive seller so I
find spares - batteries etc very easy to find. Also IBM's website is
v.comprehensive e.g I've downloaded the complete user manual and specs for
my machine. I can recommend www.lowcostcomputer.co.uk for second hand ones -
I got a thinkpad 600, 266hz, 128MB, 4G for £145 this is perfect for surfing
on the sofa wouldn't use it for work - far too slow. The hard disk failed
they sent a courier out to pick it up and they replaced it with a 10G one.
Why buy on ebay from an individual for a similar price?

Also remember when specing out a machine - that unless you do loads of
graphic stuff, number crunching high end gaming you rarely max out the
processor. So compromise get a lower speed proc and more - fast memory and a
bigger and faster HD. Having more memory and if possible 2 HDs (one for
windows swap file the other for data/programs) which are fast speeds up
normal applications more than a faster processor would.

Also make sure it has the latest bus technology you are interested in e.g.
the latest hardware version of USB or firewire.




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