4200 rpm HDD Speed

Hello all,

I think I have finally found the laptop I would like that has a good "bang for your buck" it is the Sony VAIO VGN-FW31M

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPr [...] 8032875460

My concern however is the 500gb 4200rpm HDD. I have been reading the difference between 4200 and 5400 is often barely noticeable, and on larger HDD the lower rpm can in fact help performance based on density.

Can anyone give me a clear opinion? I'm a bit worried I'm going to get a good laptop with a massive bottleneck.

The uses of my laptop will be:
- Office 2007/Vista (writing specifications, project plans etc)
- A few Vmware instances (not regularly used)
- SQL Server 2005 (for development purposes)
- Visual Studio
- MySQL (for development)
- watching the occasional movie etc

Any help will be much appreciated.

Cheers

The toshiba looks like an excellent fit - I wouldn't recommend the Sony.