My old Thinkpad Z60m was starting to do some strange things like randomly shutting down. So I decided it was time for an upgrade.
I finally settled on the Dell M1530
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)
3gig of ram
NVidia 256mb GeForce 8600M GT
200GB 7200RPM Sata
Wireless N card Some other bells and whistles like a built in webcam.
I love the look of the laptop and was fairly happy with the build quality. The Z60m had the best build quality in a laptop that I have ever seen so it's not surprising that the new Dell couldn't live up to that. The first problem I had was that there was a dent around trackpad, but Dell gladly replaced the whole laptop. However another problem I had with both of the laptops was that they wouldn't sleep 95% of the time. They would just crash and reboot. After hours of research I found some info on the Internet that diagnosed the problem as PC-Cillin anti-virus that comes pre-installed. How exactly Dell ships software in this condition baffles me. I uninstalled (or at least tried) PC-Cillin and presto, no problems at all anymore.
Couple of things I like / are different:
The 9 cell battery doesn't extend horizontally out the back like other laptops, it actually extends vertically out the back. This creates its own little laptop stand, and so far I like it. The big barrel hinge at the back of the laptop means that there is no 'latch' to close the lid, it just closes and stays closed by magic. Not sure how I feel about that, I like the idea of a latch keeping my laptop closed.
The touch sensitive media control buttons on the laptop look really cool, but there is a learning curve to using them. Once you learn the proper way to 'touch' them they are fine.
Update - March 18th, 2008
Still loving the new lappy, survived a trip to Vegas and the battery life was spectacular.