Laptop recommendations

Currently - 60 strong laptop fleet, all Dell many > 4yrs old - most failures are due to mistreatment. 2 motherboard swaps last year. One Sony (2 motherboards swaps)last year and rubbish service. 1 IBM - 1 motherboard swap year before.

4 yrs ago IBM - 5 laptops, 3 motherboard swaps, numerous bits falling off. 35 Toshiba's, 2 motherboard swaps in a year one due to hairline crack.

In both places these machines were being used by engineers plugging into HV equipment so serial ports were frequently frazzled. The Dells however seem to fare better. The Sony and IBM were used by salespeople and rarely plugged into suspect eqpt.

Personally I have a Sony (it was mistake IMHO, next time its a Dell or Toshiba).

IBM every time ! I would have no problems recommending them to any client ether.

My trusty T22 has been used every day at work for 4 years - and has been ravaged by dust during tornado chasing and survived two really bad water dousing during hurricane intercepts - and still survices to this day.

More over IBM replaced the screen FOC after 2.75 years under the warrenty - no questions asked

On my third DELL laptop. Other two past onto to children and still in daily use.

Been buying DELL since 1986 wouldn't buy from anywhere else.

you can check out the notebook reviews section at www.computers.com ...its an american web so all prices are U.S. - convert and add on 20% for the rip-off UK price.

I like DELL, but also could go for Evesham or Toshiba. Stay away from Sony.

Sal.

I disagree - huge IBM fan very robust machines. If money is no object go T42p with fingerprint recognition - it blows the competition out of the water!!!

Dell (pay extra for Gold support if you want to talk to a knowledgeable Irishman) or Toshiba.

I avoid HP (and therefore Compaq) having had poor experiences - IBM last time I used them 4 years ago were very poor reliabilty.

dont need anything too advanced

Etch-a-Sketch do a nice line...with USB for syncing your designs to PC if you want.

Seriously, the HP's are pretty good, as are IBM Thinkpads.

I hear good things about Acer as well.

Avoid the Sony Vaio's...unless pretty designs, poor quality builds,average performance and high outlay get you hard.

As a recent convert to contracting I want to set myself up with a laptop for business use. I dont need anything too advanced since my focus is project management rather than anything technical i.e. using project files and word/excel and then the rest will be for the management side of running the company.

I was thinking of a Compaq, Dell or Toshiba? In terms of accessories I was thinking of DVD/CD-RW, GPRS/WIFi PCMCIA card, possibly Bluetooth. Any comments/suggestions? What size of memory or hard drive do people tend to go for?

Thanks in advance for your help.