I think the Ibm T-23 Laptop’s Sucks big time.
If you lose your password Ibm will charge you $800.00 just to fix the system.
They say they have to replace the system board. Even if your under warr….
DON’T BUY IBM’S SHIT “AND IF YOU DO NEVER EVER SET ANY PASSWORD IN YOUR BIOS.
HAVE A NICE DAY……With-out IBM ….

who can i get 100-120 GB drives?

Phil, your spec really seems extensive and cannot go around with the fact that aviation sw is only available on MS.

However sharing my recent laptop experience: I wanted to have something that works for home use: basic comms, some graphics&pics work, writing. Definitely not MS (been there, done that) and as for Linux – well there

I am very happy with my Toshiba 3500 TabletPC (and would be even happier with an M200, had money not been an issue), but I definitely second the advice that you get IBM T41 plus bluetooth mouse plus external firewire/USB2.0 combo for your needs.

One thing about bluetooth though: it is rilly nice, but it interferes with wifi when using both at the same time.

short note: IBM with 80GB disk is really 75GB, and then 5GB are taken by a ‘hidden’ partition used for preinstall / recovery. so you end up with only 70GB for windows (total space, not free space).

in order to get back those precious 5GB, you need to reset your bios settings and reformat your whole drive, reinstall all drivers (>100MB of drivers!) (one long enjoyable afternoon…)

except that, best laptop.

The solution to your problem is, as you might have imagined, a Thinkpad. I would recommend getting the most recent T series (T41) since money seems to not as big a concern as it might be for most people.
Hard Drive Space – As you might have figured out, 80gigs is as big as it gets for 2.5″ HDs, but there is a solution. Get the internal 80gig drive and then get the Ultrabay adapter for a second HD and either put your existing 48gig drive in it (128gigs) or buy a second 80gig drive to give you a nice 160. I know it ain’t pretty, but you certainly can keep your data/system seperate with those two drives. (Note IBM seems to not have correct information about buying an 80gig drive alone, just call them, I’m sure they will be glad to take your $499…part 08K9869)
Thinkpad’s obviously still have the TrackPoint nipple, but just in case you decide you like the trackpad better it has that too.
Built in S-Video and headphone (mini) outs. I use an external adapter with mine when there is no svideo available.
Speakers – Obviously any laptop speakers aren’t going to be great, but I’ve always thought the T-series ones were smartly designed. The are on the front of the laptop angled down so the sound bounces off whatever you have the laptop on (hard surfaces work best).
USB Ports – It only has a pair, but I haven’t seen many laptops with more. If you truly need more, you could use one of your precious CardBus slots for a USB card.
Microphone – Although the thinkpad does have an internal mic, why not use a bluetooth headset? The quality will be far better and you can share it between your phone and your laptop.
Webcam – My thinkpad has an ultraport connector at the top to which you can attach a the Ultraport Camera II. I’ve never used it, but the placement at the top of the screen seems good to me and it is small enough that you could leave it attached all the time without it causing too much trouble. No dangly cables and such. I can’t tell if the T41 has an ultraport…it looked like it did in the 3D view, but you’d need to call and ask. If it doesn’t have that port, your stuck in the same boat as almost every other laptop, with a ineligant camera with cables.
Memory Card slots – The T series doesn’t have an internal slot, but would you consider keeping a PC Card adapter like this one so you could do SD/MMC/SmartMedia/Memory Stick. This wouldn’t let you do CompactFlash, but you could get a PC Card->CompactFlash adapter as well if you needed it.
Wireless – Built in bluetooth and a 802.11a/b/g combo MiniPCI card. Or, just like with any laptop, you could buy a GSM or Sprint PCS PC Card and use that.
2 PC Card slots.
Display – 14″ with either 1024×768 or 1400×1050.

Although this doesn’t meet all your criteria, I think it comes pretty close (especially if the T41 does have an UltraPort for the camera.) According to the website, you should be able to do all this for under five grand. With the DVD/CDRW combo drive in, it weighs in at 4.9lbs. The second HD would add a little bit to that and depending on how you use it you might find it a hassle to have a second drive, but personally I find I use my optical drive for little other than playing back CDs and DVDs and would just leave in the second HD most of the time anyways. Of course, YMMV. Others have stated it, but I must remind you that another laptop might have more features than a Thinkpad, but you won’t care about the features if it ever breaks. From my personal experience (Thinkpad T21/T22/T23/T31) Thinkpads are built like tanks and just don’t break, and if they do, IBM fixes them. Fast.

Best of luck finding a laptop.

a few odds & ends:
1) thinkpads are the primary users of the button mouse. nearly everyone else, afaik, has trackpads.
2) if you want a huge disk, probably the best you can do is to order a dell (not sure about other makers) model that holds more than one HD. IIRC, there’s a Dell you can put 3 HDs in–one built-in and two in optional bays, which can hold optical drives, batteries, or HDs.
3) the built-in camera is mostly a Sony thing.
So, buy 3 notebooks or change your requirements.
4) PS – I like tablets, but they’re primarily useful if you’re in lots of meetings and actually take lots of hand-written notes. I find I can take notes as fast as someone else can speak, but writing full sentences as the speed of my own thought (i.e., composing emails) is a task much better suited to a keyboard. otherwise, the trade-offs (small screen top among them) are not worth it. I’ll also second someone else’s strike against transmeta–as much as I want to like the company that employs Mr. Torvalds, a TC1000 with a 1 GHz Transmeta is dog-slow compared to a later TC1100 with a 1 GHz Centrino.

Bluetooth mice are very power frugal; You can find models that run for a few months on a single pair of AAs. Even if they die while you’re on the road, you’ll be able to buy another pair in most places. If you’re going someplace where that isn’t possible, well, a pair of AAs will take up far less space and produce less clutter in your bag than a coiled up USB mouse cable. Or you can just plan on falling back to the built-in pointing device if the batteries die.

I don’t think anyone has suggested Bluetooth for other devices, though; I certainly wouldn’t. At 1/10th the speed of USB 1.1, Bluetooth is way too slow to be the primary solution for any task that involves transfer of large quantities of data.

Add my voice to the ‘Thinkpad or Powerbook’ chorus. While I’m happy with my 12″ PowerBook, I do think IBM makes some really nice laptops, easily the best on the X86 side. I don’t know of any Vaio owners who are happy with their purchase. And the Dell laptops I’ve used or dealt with were all falling apart within a year.

People talk about Bluetooth mice, etc. One of the advantages of USB devices is that they can suck power from the USB cable. If I were to get Bluetooth devices instead wouldn’t I have to carry about a huge bag of spare batteries and/or custom chargers?