If I was buying now I'd go with the 700m. You may want to save a couple of $ and stick with XP home, which is good enough for most people.

5150 Mobile P4 3.06 HT
64mb Nvidia
768 Ram
UXGA Samsung
Hitachi 7k60
1300 Wireless
DVD+RW NEC 6100a
Bios A29
XP Pro SP2

definately the 700m. i have it and love it. make sure that you get the 8 cell batt, thatll give you about 5 hours run time, plus the 2.5 from the 4 cell and your ready for the road, class, or whatever.

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happy hunting

My 2 cents...

when I was planning which laptop to buy, I looked at both 600m and 700m. In October when I finally bought one, I chose the 700m because it was more powerful and more inexpensive. But the screen is smaller (if I remember correctly).

I love my 700m. Definetly worth getting the bigger battery. It still only about 5 lbs. Can't go wrong with a laptop that weight.

I'm going to go the other way. I have the 600m. I chose it because it has a discrete 3d graphics solution. The 700m and most light laptops have the Intel Extreme Graphics integrated into it which share memory. For 3d games, this is a nono and in general, I'd rather not the limited memory bandwidth of the centrino be used for graphics if avoidable.

The 600m weighs 5lbs vs 4lbs for the 700m, has a 14.1 screen (up to 1400x1050) vs the 12'1 screen of the 700m and has a Radeon 9000 vs Intel Extreme and costs slightly less. I have never used a 700m keyboard (though dozens of people at my school have it) so I can't compare the size/functionality of it. You probably from seeing the differences have preferences that are more clear.

I totally agree with rp3w600m.

He explain exactly why I bought the 600m.

just a couple friendly counter-points,

700m keyboard - i have it and like it more than my regualar desktop keyboard. i actually like the tighter fit, even with the small punctuation key.

700m screen - i would not by a non-acrylic or non-glossy screen, like the 600m. i was an early adopter of the NEC LCD's which have the acrylic screen and it impoves clarity by leaps and bounds. the non-acrlyics all have the screen door effect, regardless of resolution.

Gaming - i dont play any games and im always surprised people would want to play a game on smaller laptop anyway. as for the shared VRAM, just make sure you have at least 512 or more, you should be go to go.

one last thing, the 700m's smaller footprint is great, it fits on airplane trays and even the smallest of lecture hall desks.

happy hunting
dave