What the best laptop around AU$1500-$2000

Hey guys I've been working hard to finally come up with the cash to buy a new laptop. I'm pretty excited and I can't wait (I aint no pc geek by the way)

The thing is I dont know what laptop to get and where is the best place to buy one.

I have a friend who's dad works in a electrical store but his prices are around 4-500 dearer than online prices. Which one is better? Store or online...I'm scared I'll get ripped off or its going to get hard to fix something if sh*t goes wrong.

I'm looking for something with 512+mb ram, 40+gb or basically the more features the better.

One thing I'd like to have is the headphone jack to be on the side or back instead of being in the front. If the jack is in front chances are that the jack gets broken because of the positioning close to my body or gets hit by the hand i use for the mouse. (check Asus A6u for example)

I love my Vaio. It's really functinal, it's light, it has a brilliant screen, it's very portable, and it's versitalie. I'd recommend that or a Dell or if you can afford it an alienware laptop but they are kinda costly.

I have two. A Toshiba Satellite pro and an Alienware.

Both have over 1gb of ram. I would recommend that you get Windows Professional not the Home version due to the fact that Pro is much more customizable and you can manipulate the networking with more options than with Home. Also make sure you have integrated wireless and a true brite screen.

What do you guys think of Asus A6u?

I might be getting one if I can't find anything else better for my price bracket.

Toshiba and IBM are the best bang/reliability for the buck.

Ive just put in an order for an Asus A6U wit 1gb ram but only 40gb HDD. But I've added a 300gb External HDD on it.

I feel as though having a small HDD on the unit will let me down in the future. I also got a car charger for the unit so long trips wouldnt have to be boring.

I am also getting a sh*tload of free software from the guy I am getting it from. Things like the new office, utilities, partitions, media players, winamp, msn, p2p, codecs, updates, games and over 200gb worth of songs, movies and tv series.

All up???

$2000 What do you think? Not bad hey

Dell you can build your own....

This thread came along at a perfect time. I've been wanting a laptop for some time now but I think I now have a good idea of what I want in one. I want one that will be the best in dealing with school and buisness type stuff. The IBM sounds good (I like the nubbin) and it deffinitly needs to have integrated wifi (802.11b & g) You think the IBM would be good for that? I prolly wouldn't be using it for media much (Music and thats it)