For all You Laptop Geniuses... Help?

The "other" thread was entertaining, but I need some more specific help.

I am looking for a Laptop for personal use and for business use.   I will need to be able to run internet via Sprint Card and/or Verizon Fios Wireless (what I have at the house), alot of spreadsheets (Excel based), I definately need Word and it will be used for very limited gaming.

I have this disease that I have to have the biggest and baddest of everything, but for this one time, I am actually going to set a budget up.   I want to spend < $1500 and preferrably closer to the $1000 number since in reality probably 95% of the time I will be playing Hold 'Em online, lol!.  

I am a computer moron.   I don't know the virtues of Duo Processing and the true ramifications of 68325 TB of RAM.   Please give me some advice as I will be buying/ordering in the next few weeks.

As an added limitation, I do not want any custom build manufacturers.   I am very low-tech and I want large company support.   I have access to Dell and Apple Stores as well if this helps.

Thanks guys.

overall i have been fairly pleased with my HP laptop. it cost an arm and a leg but then again it was a desktop replacement. i doubt you need the power it has so i was just browsing their site for a low priced laptop. i ran across this.

hopefully that link works. point is there is no specific brand that works better than the other. it is all based on what hardware is included as well as what software you run(including the OS). just browse some sites that offer them or if you buy one in a store be sure to look for lower prices online. let's not turn this into a mac versus pc debate, just link some good products for a decent price.

i do have a question, how heavy of a laptop are you willing to put up with, and would you settle for a 15" screen?

my HP pavilion notebook cost just over $2000 a couple years ago. with that it had a 3 GHz processor, 15" display, dvd burner, decent graphics card, and the media card slots were a nice touch since i am into digital photography. 80gb hard drive but that doesn't matter, as long as you can get to the drive to take it out, you can put whatever you want in it. i list these specs not to show off, but rather to give you a feel for where the technology has come. oh yeah, mine weighs about 9 pounds.

Obviously you know what I'd normally suggest, but I wont bother

On a more useful note, my friend has an Acer that he's using for his schooling, and something with it got borked, they didnt fix it right, so now Acer sent someone to his house to pick it up. He didnt have to drive anywhere with it, they picked it up for him. I thought that was cool, and have no idea if thats typical, and no idea how the laptop performs. I know he has trouble connecting to the network sometimes, but so do most people running windows around me.

Again, thank you everyone for your input, I am checking all the links as I see them.

In all of your opinions... am I better off purchasing direct from the builder (Dell, HP, Samsung, Gateway, Mac, etc...) or going through a retailer like Best Buy or Fry's?   It gets confusing because of all the options... it seems that the retailers often have a better price (below MSRP) than ordering straight from the manufacturer.

Get a 12.1 inch screen. You will be better than everyone else.

Thanks... to everyone except for Dave... he ALMOST is "NOT Rocking" after that comment!

Hairball, the Mac Pro starts at $1999 so that immediately knocks it out of contention.   I was playing with a Mac Book at their store last weekend and it was nice.   Just different coming from a PC based system.

LOL!  I was just going through and pricing that very machine out of their website.

Dave has officially retained his "Rocks" title.

apples will run excel and word right? and you can play hold em on them

if not, id go with an acer or hp, not a dell

Apotheosis wrote: TEHGANGSTER wrote: apples will run excel and word right? and you can play hold em on themif not, id go with an acer or hp, not a dell What is that word that comes before Word? Erhmm... Oh yeah, <span style="font-style: italic;">Microsoft. </span>Granted, I'm sure Macs have their own word processing program, they don't have Microsoft Word.

You

Are

Retarded