Laptop hardware advice please!

[Bodo]

Hi all, I'm looking for a laptop that is small and light and will work for many hours on battery. It will be used as the mobile complement to my workstation, but only for the odd office/groupware stuff. It should have a WiFi interface to surf the web in public places, and a big enough disk to accommodate pictures from my digital camera while travelling. It will need a VGA output for beamer presentations too.

Since I want to carry it around very often, the case should be excellent quality and durable. Budget is €1,400...1,600

I've had a look at 12" notebooks from IBM (X-series) and Apple (iBook and Powerbook).
Any pro or con for these models? Any other suggestions?

[mcflurry]

the apple is very light, batteries last 6 hours (ish) and they are a piece of cake to configure. Am tempted myself

[Leithen]

Bought an IBM X40 a few months ago - very impressed, excellent build quality, 1.4G Centrino chip seems very fast, screen great - wireless connectivity seems very strong - amazingly lightweight, keyboard bloody good....

Standard battery not up to much - lasts about an hour - so need to think about optional larger version - dvd seperate but that's the price you pay for the dimensions and lightness.

I now cart it into and between meetings without bothering with a case - it's the first "real notebook" I've ever used.

[agent006]

New Dell X1?

I've got a Dell latitude C400 that lasts about 2.5 hours on its internal battery and will do 7 with an add on battery.

[Bodo]

cheers all.

Will have a peek if I spot a colleague with that Dell thingy. The IBM seems to be the lightest so far
Does anyone know the difference between the 12" iBook and the 12" PowerBook, apart from colour and price ?? The iBook seems powerful enough for my use, or do I miss something with not buying a PowerBook?

[mcflurry]

Bodo said:

cheers all. Will have a peek if I spot a colleague with that Dell thingy. The IBM seems to be the lightest so far Does anyone know the difference between the 12" iBook and the 12" PowerBook, apart from colour and price ?? The iBook seems powerful enough for my use, or do I miss something with not buying a PowerBook?

I think it is the apple equivalent of buying a P4 over a P3...