Advice needed on buying a laptop

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Hello,

I am thinking of buying a laptop. Here are my needs, listed according to
priority.

1. 14.1" or above screen size.
2. Pentium mobile, centrino - due to heat and battery life.
3. Around $1500 or so, hopefully less.
4. Light enough to put in backpack or a laptop bag so that can travel with
it.
5. Options on Wireless connectivity, as high as possible on wireless speed.
6. If 15", higher resolution.
7. If possible, firewire port.
8. Should be able to run linux later on if I decide to someday.

Primary travel computer. But also plan to practice writing some java and c#
code, compile as a practice. As a programmer, should be able to run things
on it as practice, like SQL server, or Adobe Photoshop (it will be slow, but
as I said, just to see how different software works).

I was looking at R51 from IBM(a little worried about the weight and the
size), actually prefer the T51(less than 5 lbs). But it is too expensive.

Any other options that anyone can suggest? Thanks in advance for any help.

-Monaz