heard Gericom is pretty good.

ibm thinkpad, although it's probably above ur financial limit u set.

ibm thinkpad, me got a used/refurbished x31 from ebay, with one year guarantee. it was 600 euros. with new battery and extra battery. and i love it, its so well built, pure quality. ok its not for 3dgames, but i just wanted smth for word processin, inet, with long battery life and low weight. got it:)

thinkpad x series (12 inch)

<3 x300

thought you were loaded?

Dell Vostro 1000 with draft-n wifi, 6 cell battery and XP (9 cell battery would be better but cant find it)

i know i should google but is draft-n backwardscompatible with g? would be pretty shitty otherwise right?

yes

vostro 1400, dell with 6 cell battery. i got it works pretty well, bought it 579&#8364; on sold, dno if the offer still stays.

look for toshiba portege

MSI Wind for sure.. maybe Lenovo x300 if money isn't an issue. Maybe even macbook 13,3"

got a macbook pro which gives me about 4-5 hours battery with the brightness on really low and nothing in the dvdrw. I'm fairly sure a macbook would give you the same kind of battery life

As far as running XP goes, you can try bootcamp though would have to buy XP seperately.

I've got a Dell Inspiron 640m with the extended battery pack, it gives a reasonable battery life and generally works well. They should have come down to the £400 pound range by now.

sony vaio kicks ass, tx line (the small ones ;P) lasted for this long 4 sure

btw 400 quid is ok, I got refurbished vaio s4xp with new 250 gig hd for 250, u just gotta ebay a bit

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Toshiba-Portege-R200-Su...dZViewItem

Just bought new Toshiba Satellite A210-19A : 2Ghz AMD TL-55, 2GB ram, 200GB HDD, ATI RADEON GC , WIndows Vista Premium, bag. Battery life approx 2 hours. They sell it together with MPEG 4 player/recorder with 80 GB HDD for total price of 560 EURO (870$), the design of the NB isn't excellent but u know who cares if the price is like that!? I think it's more than good :-D Bought it in DATART so maybe they have such special offers even in your country.

Easily the macbook.

No thanks, almost everyone who owns a mac is up their own arse and thinks they're cool for being part of Apple's "hip" image.

And the worse thing about Mac users are the one's who think they're a journo, because they have a mac.
I'm telling you, you stick a copy of Quark on a mac and the mutha fuckers think they're anne frank.

Not cool, when most journo's simply lack the talent or youth to actually go out and do the subject's they write about.

Truth hurts baby.

I'm soo gonna blog about you now, you ignorant apple maggot!

Don't forget to blog it at starbucks!

Apple users love to pose at Starbucks, you know the type, brown khaki shorts, open toe sandals, ray bans and a haircut and matching outfit from page 89 of FHM.

You guy's are so cool.

If I had Starbucks in my city I'd definitely be sitting there with my Macbook Pro and have a sip on a Latte while showing off with my Exposé skills! OMG that would be so cool!

You pretty much nailed the rest though.

unless youre filthy rich or need a laptop asap isnt it a good idea to wait a couple of months or so if youre looking to buy a laptop?
im looking for one myself and ive not bought one for a couple of reasons. mainly im thinking:

companies sell loads of laptops atm so you can probably get used ones really cheap in a few months.

ssd drives as they drop in price and become better are really suited towards laptops.

N-wlan will become standardized(dunno about this one really)

laptops are becoming more portable(macbook air and asus eee etc)

built in hsdpa/3g is always nice

processors better suited for laptops than the power consuming c2d's are being developed (intels atom cpus for instance)

am i stupid for waiting, it just feels to me like buying a laptop today will be like buying a flat panel tv 1.5 years ago?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ERgZ9dztk

its great