I actively use three computers: my office computer, my home computer, and my laptop ( ACER Travelmate C300). The firs two I love (as much as one can love a computer) but the third is driving me crazy. I almost exclusively use it when I travel (mostly to conferences) and the damn thing weighs a ton (actually, 6.3 lbs). I bought it thinking that I wouldn’t care about the weight, but after three years and roughly 20 trips later, I am regretting my decision.

So now I’m thinking of upgrading to a new, lighter, laptop. The problem is that I’m on a pretty tight budget.

Here’s what I want:

1. Light (< 3.5 lbs)
2. Small (< 13” display)
3. Powerful enough (needs to run XP, Photoshop, Power Point, and Flash (development) at the same time…without dieing)
4. Built in optical drive (DVD reader…don’t need a burner)
5. VGA out
6. Relatively long batter life (> 3 hours)
7. Inexpensive (< $1,000)

Other than that, I don’t care.

I’m currently looking at the Fujitsu LifeBook S2210, but don’t know if it’s right for me (especially since it is more expensive than I’d like at $1,300 for the base model and the battery life sucks at 2.25 hours).

I prefer new laptops, but something refurbished might not be so bad.

Any and all suggestions are eagerly accepted.

Taking a note from Aaron’s blog, 26econ, I’ve decided to add a “tipping” link to all my posts. With the help of TipJoy any of your wonderful readers can leave me a small (e.g. 10c, 25c, etc…) tip if you like any of my posts. I don’t expect to make much, but since, for now, I’m running this site ad-free, anything will be appreciated.

Thanks for your tips!

(I can’t seem to get the tips to work via RSS. If you have any ideas as to how to fix that, please let me know)