Need basic recommendations

[asim]

Hello all, long time lurker, not often poster here.

My brother and I will be studying abroad in Europe this summer (May through July). Both of us have beefy desktops, but unfortunately those don't travel very well. So we need laptops so we can do work.

Since it's currently Febuary I'm not currently in a huge rush to buy anything. However, I really have no idea of what the laptop industry really looks like and would like some recommendations in terms of brands and whatnot. We'd prefer to have cheaper (sub $1000) laptops so that if something happens to do them we won't be out a ton of cash (and with the desktops we have, that's about all we're willing to spend for an additional computer anyway).

No preference in terms of CPU or amount of RAM. I personally would prefer that it weigh less than 6 pounds, and less than 5 if it all possible. (I've always figured if I'm going to have a portable, I actually want it to be light enough so that it's actually, you know, portable.) In terms of video, I'd want something more capable than the built-in Intel stuff.

So based on that stuff and the price point, what are some good brands / actual computers?

Thanks a bunch. Lemme know if this is too vague.

 

[cheesehead]

Don't worry about the low post count. You're not annoying people, you're polite; it's nice to have you on the boards. (It's also my birthday, so I'm in a good mood. Whee.)
I'm a bit of a laptop junkie; I use mine something like eight hours a day, and replace it
yearly, so I can safely say what's the best bang for the buck. And I'm still in high school.

I own a HP/Compaq NC4010. It's a great laptop; it's got 768mb of RAM, a 60GB 5400RPM hard drive, and a 1.7ghz Pentium M for 750$. And best of all, it only weighs three and a half pounds! The battery life is a bit over three hours. This price is for a refurbished laptop from Geeks.com; tech support did'nt have any problem at all, and it comes with a 1-year warranty. (The only downside is the lack of an internal optical drive; you can get a bus-powered CD burner for about 50$ if you wait until they go on sale.) Note, however, that this is only a reasonably priced laptop because it was actually a bit of a flop; when it was released a bit over a year ago, all of its competitors cost less (it retailed for 2250$ without CD burner) and had better battery life. HP's non "business-line" laptops are generally not of as good quality, but you could do much worse.

IBM(lenovo) and Asus are other good brands. Lenovo's an excellent brand, but all the sub-1000$ laptops, although well built, are rather portly. (The ~800$ R50e, a nice laptop with good performance and battery life, weighs something like six and a half pounds.) ASUS makes several rather nice laptops; however, you're likely to go over-budget buying one if you get a Pentium-M, which generally gets better battery life over their celeron-M cousins. JNCS.com is a good reseller and system builder from ASUS barebones; NewEgg is a good place to get an R40e.

I would avoid Dell. I've had nothing but horrible experiences with them.

 

[asim]

I am going to avoid Dell. When I think Dell laptops (or anything, for that matter), I think back to the dorms freshman year when all the clueless kids had Dells. Endless supply of problems with those.