Well, didn't get to check back in with your comments this afternoon! I had about 30 minutes to pick something and buy it. Wound up with a full warranty "open box special" on a Sony VAIO. It's quite small (12.1" screen) which will work well in my Cayenne-hi-speed-mobile-office ........
also, has a memory stick slot built-in to make it easy to transfer my digitial photos and dictation from other Sony devices. Pentium 4, 2GHz, 40G drive, 512 RAM, wireless LAN, blah, blah, blah. Under $1000. I've got a 14-day return policy so we'll see how it works. Thanks for the help guys. -- Curt