Value Desktop Replacement

1_What is your budget? $500-600 CAD (~$450-550 USD)

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? At least 14”, but when at desk will connect to 22” LCD. I could go +/- 1” or so.

3_What screen resolution do you want? Laptop screen not important, but enough in the video to run the 22” LCD (1680 X 1050 or so)

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? 80% desktop, 20% portable

5_How much battery life do you need? 2-3 hours, but will never be far from an outlet

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low, Medium or High)? The occasional relapse into Civ4 may occur...I don’t play the new games, though I would like to try Spore someday. Settings can be set at low.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? There will be intensive spreadsheet work sometimes (analysis with large data sets), and must be able to multitask well (mp3, office software, web browser with many tabs, etc.)

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? Amount of storage not important these days, 200GB is more than enough, but would prefer faster hard drive (is SATA II standard? 7200 RPM?)

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
I am open to suggestions, have mainly been looking at Dell and Best Buy, but I know there must be better ones out there.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3-4 years.

11_If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them.
I am looking for the elusive intersection of value and power for a primarily non-gaming machine. It seems that most machines out there can play some games at least, and I haven’t bought a new game in years…still hung up on my old ones, if any. To compare, I built my current desktop in 2003 with an Athlon XP2000+, nVidia Ti4200 card, 80GB 7200RPM HDD (EIDE), and 1GB RAM. I could go for today’s equivalent of that.

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I have no specific brand preferences, although if you can suggest a good OEM laptop (shipping with no OS) that would be splendid.

13_What country do you live in? Canada (Southern Ontario)


I appreciate and am grateful for any and all feedback. If there is something in my wish list above that doesn’t jive with my budget, please let me know (I’m thinking the fast hard drive here).