I've been looking at the HP HDX16t series notebooks, and have owned HP before. Very capable, fairly rugged, and work well. I'm having a hell of a time finding the saved configuration I'm considering, But it's basically the Core2 Duo @ 2.16Ghz, 4Gb RAM, Vista Premium 64bit, Lightscribe BD-ROM, DVD/CDRW Supermulti drive, 512Mb Graphics, and the 320Gb 7200RPM HDD. Non backlight keyboard, 16 in screen,. etc. Without the "included" security and MS Office 2k7 suites.
The hard cap on the budget is about $1400. (The above is $1394 and I added the Targus Messenger bag to it too.
) If there's something that warrants going a little over, I may be able to get it approved. It's major use will be Email, etc. with some Gaming and movies thrown in there for good measure. (Mostly Wow to be played on it, but one never knows..)So: Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to recommend systems that you all use / covet so I can make this decision soon, before the wife changes her mind!
What's the battery life like?