I have had good luck with IBM Thinkpads, now Lenovo. Sort of plain, black laptops, but very reliable. Also, very simple and lightweight. My current T40(about 3 years old) has an excellent wifi antenna in the cover and good sensitivities to pick up wifi, in my experience. Also a titanium frame.

I went and looked at many. Ughh, too many options.

Where did you look?

See, you're a Mac guy and didn't even know it. :D

I went to BestBuy, Mac store, Circuit City, Staples, Costco.

The Mac is all but out. I spoke with my wife (Mac freak) and she admitted that she has annoying issues with office stuff and cannot open some e-mails from customers, etc... .exe files, etc.. It's not common but it's not nonexistent either. I'm sure that there are backdoors to these issues, but it's not worth the hassle.

No Mac.

I have a Mac Book, my daughter has a mac book (4 years of college no problemo)
All my tech friends have Mac Books, High on the food chain at Broadcom.
I have had one issue, my OSX crashed, lost no Data. Took it to the Apple Store (Genius Bar) They fixed it no charge.
My Daughters is getting replaced after 4 years, its been dropped, cat has knocked it off the counter ect. It does not close any more. The screen is pulling away from the frame.
Its a mess, but still works. I am replacing it for her 21st B Day.
Go online use the student discount $100.00, Apple does not care. Less than a grand delivered to your door

exe are windows executables. windows apps. not cross platform. no one needs to email exe's. more likely a virus. either that or the incorrect file extension was applied by a server along the way.

little known bit about apple service.

they have an option called Fixed Rate Repair. if you opt for it you will spend no more than a bit north of $300 for repair no matter how little or how much needs repairing.

brought my 17 in intel macbook pro in for repair after it slid off my seat, smashed into the dash and hit the floor. they replaced entire screen and logic board, $320 out the door. Less than 10% of the original purchase price.

Another option is executable zip files. We still use a zipper with encryption for sensitive files sent over e-mail and sometimes send them by .exe to package the decrypter/decompresser.

+1 on Dell laptops for same reasons stated before
-1 on HP/Compaq and Toshiba Laptops heh for same reasons stated above.

There's that also. But most modern utilities support encryption and there is always PGP.

What about CAD files and other manufacturing language files? Any issues there?

X300 FTW - if you don't know, you don't know.

So you're hopping happy about only spending $320 deductible on an extra cost service plan on your $3000 Mac. Everything is in perspective now!

Len, ou know I'm the first to recommend a mac. If I were you I would get a Windows box.

You have a mac in the house. You have not converted. It just may not be the thing for you. And there is nothing wrong with that.

You have had enough stress in your life this year. Buying a computer should not add to it.

FWIW, I am partial to Thinkpad/Lenovo boxes. They are friggin tanks. Not impressed with Dell at all but your mileage may vary.

+1 bajillion

Thinkpads are pretty awesome. They might not have some of the whizbang software that you get with Sony or others, but they are very solid work systems.

The X300 is the uber-geek toy of the moment, with solid state hard drive and a DVD burner to boot. Real road warrior stuff.

OK,

I'm leaning Dell XPS, either the little guy or the 15.4". Questions:

1)Which Vista? Ultimate? Business?

2) Are all Vistas 64 bit? Does it matter?

As tempting as 64 sounds, there are some compatibility issues. Fore what it sounds like you are doing, business may well be the best fit. If you can justify the extra money, ultimate would cover all the bases (entertainment, movies, built in fax). I have home premium. It's only annoyance, business wise is lack of fax.

Ultimate. For the small price difference, get all the parts. But nothing wrong with Buisness.

No, 64 bit is a different CD. Yes, the XPS line will run them. No, Dell does not support 64 bit installations.

I loaded 64 bit on a second hard drive. Runs nice, probably even faster. But in the end, I loaded Server 2008 (64 bit w/Hyper-V) and use it as my desktop OS.

Why no support of 64 bit? Is it still "beta-ish" or something?

Get a laptop running XP!!!!

Laptops are just not strong enough yet to really run Vista yet. If you get a "Vista" laptop you will not be happy...

Dell has a limited set of drivers for 64 bit. For example, the only way to buy a laptop these days is with the add-in video chip set. In the case of the XPS 1330, that is an nVidia 8400GS. Dell does not yet publish the 64 bit driver. I had to find a "hacked" driver.

But why not support it? IMO, they are too lazy. Or their script writers in India are already too busy.

As Joe suggests, XP is still a great option, especially with SP 3 out there now. But again, you have to do some looking to find all the drivers for the XPS M family of laptops.