Laptop woes
 

I am about to spend a year studying abroad in Japan.

I will need a computer while I am there and getting my desktop there would be almost impossible.

I have been looking to get a laptop but I would want a powerful notebook. I am a computer science major, I do things in 3d studio, and run Microsoft visual studio often.

I also enjoy playing computer games.

I have been looking at the Compaq x6000 can get 1gig of ram, 7200 HD, 3ghz CPU, and a 256 video card.

The price is much lower then other comparable products.

The problem is there is no battery time and it is quite large.


Questions:

Will I see a huge drop in performance by going with the smaller 1.8 GHZ Pentium M CPU?

Where can I get a laptop with Pentium M, but still get a good video card. The dell 9200 has the specs I want until you look at the video card.

While I do not plan to carry my laptop around everywhere now, I am sure it would be covenant to be able to do so.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

You really want to get as long a battery life as possible. Short battery-life laptops aren't very useful in my experience. Also I'd check what kind of service-plan coverage there is in japan (no clue how you'd find this out), if something breaks are you going to be totally screwed?

The kind of laptop you're describing is a desktop replacement. It's gonna be pretty damn heavy, probably 9+ pounds. Just keep that in mind.