Help me buy a laptop!

[ciphergoth]

My work now say I should just choose a laptop, they'll check out and approve the purchase, then I should buy it! I don't suppose they'll want to spend a lot of money though - I don't think I can really justify spending over GBP 1000 or so.

So, advice, what should I buy? What features should I be looking for?

Important things:

• It'll mostly be a Linux machine. So the built-in Winmodem might be cute, but unless it's a Linmodem it's not much good to me. Ditto XFree86 support for the frame buffer, preferably with an open source (not binary-only) driver.
  
• I have to fly with it a lot. So the sort of laptop that puts the CD-ROM drive and floppy drive as separate accessories sounds tempting; I can just put those in hold luggage, making my hand luggage lighter. Hand luggage is usually limited to 5 kilos; it's annoying when the laptop takes three of those!
  
• Currently my laptop is my main Widnows machine as well as my work Linux machine. I do use Widnows from time to time. However I'm really not that pushed about bundled software, and cute features that only work under Windows are of very marginal interest to me.
  
• I think I'm more pushed about weight, ruggedness and reliability than performance. Battery life is somewhere inbetween.
  

I look forward to hearing ideas...

Comments

Weight

[gingiber.livejournal.com]

Sorry this is a bit late, but I have noticed when I have been flying recently, laptop weight is not usually included in hand luggage weight, much the same as handbags. My laptop bag with a couple of 18Gb SCSI drives added for ballast was coming in between 8 and 9Kg and no-one ever batted an eye.
This goes across companys, as I use easyjet, go and BMI.