Best laptop for around 2k ???

get a sony vaio w/ a centrino processor

the most important features here are

1. very light (mine is 4lbs)
2. battery life w/ centrino processors is great


sure you can get a beefy 10lb gateway or dell laptop for less than the vaio but why lug around all that extra weight?

HAve a Sony Viao 900 MHZ.. getting dated and only has a 6 gig HD and 256meg ram.. Battery life has always sucked, maybe 45-1 hour, even when out and spent 150 for the "better" battery, same results. Other than that it's been pretty solid.

One thing, I need the laptop to have a DVD burner.

for 2k i'd get a sony or an alienware.

toshiba.

I like my Dell Inspiron 8600 with the Pentium M chip w/ 1.7 ghz processor. Cost me about $2150 after rebate a few months ago. It has great battery life, a WUXGA widescreen and isn't that heavy for a functional desktop replacement, so it's still pretty portable. I hook it into a Dell Advanced Port Replicator on a D/View stand in my office with a real keyboard and mouse hooked up to it. It seems to work about as fast as the 2.6 Ghz P4 in my desktop for most tasks which is important because I use it as a secondary video editing workstation in the office. Runs Premiere Pro and Cleaner XL very well!

My buddy got a Presario (ya I know) for 1400 and it has the new 64bit amd in it. Its pretty sweet. Sigh only has 2 hour battery life. For the price and what it came with its awsome.

hp pavilion zt3000

Toshiba

why spend that much? you can get one of the top laptops on the market right now for almost $300 less than that...

15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution)
CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon? 64 3200+ Processor
64-bit Architecture operates at 2.00 GHz
System Bus uses HyperTransport?
Technology operating at 1600 MHz
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory: 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2700)
Hard Drive: 80 GB HDD
Optical Drives: DVD +/- RW Drive (Write Max: 2.4x DVD+R/RW, 2x DVD-R/RW, 6x CD-R, 10x CD-RW; Reads 24x CD, 8x DVD)
Media Reader: 6-in-1 Digital Media Manger (Compact Flash, Micro Drive, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro)
Video: ATI® Mobility RADEON? 9600 with 64 MB Video RAM
Sound: PC2001 Compliant AC '97 Audio
Built-in Stereo Speakers
Modem: 56K* ITU V.92 Fax/Modem
Network: 802.11g Built-in Wireless (up to 54Mbps)
10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 IEEE 1394, 1 VGA External Connector, 1 S-Video Out, Microphone In, Headphone/Audio Out, 1 PCMCIA Slot (Card Bus type I or type II)

$1549 after rebates
http://www.emachines.com/products/pr...Machines_M6809

don't let dell rip you off with their pure garbage of laptops....I have had two, and they both ended up on the recieving end of a sledgehammer...

and anyone who tells you emachines is shit, has never owned one or had one when they first came out...they are some of the bext rated notebooks out right now...

get a TOSHIBA

sony vaio

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...sktopComputers

alienware has some nice models for below 2k.

www.alienware.com

Glad to hear that - I just ordered one! First ordered the 9100 but it's just too big and bulky. I should be getting the 8600 in the next couple of weeks

how's the battery life on it?

If its a desktop replacement look for some of the old model Sony Viao's with the P4's - a 2.8P4 is as fast a the new 2Ghz Pentium M (or '755' or whatever it's called) and a heck of a lot cheaper. Plus some of the Viao's have 16" screens.

I picked up a 2.8P4 16" Viao with 512RAM for $1.5k which I think is as fast as anything out there now.

hit www.dell.com

I'd avoid hp, compaq, ibm, all commercial laptops or pcs like the plague.