[bysmitty]

I have to give the thumbs up to the Averatec originally posted. Averatec makes quality laptops that specialize in being very portable and light. I work with a lady who accidentally left her averatec laptop out in the rain!!! After a few days of slightly wonkey behavior, it dried out and now works as good as it did on day one. The x200 in it also will give you the ability to play some very basic current 3d games. It should be able to handle something like dreamfall or Fahrenheit if you turn down most of the graphics options. The only thing is the screen is only a 12" so that is either a plus or a minus depending on user. 12" means that it will be smaller and harder to see, especially at it's native resolution of 1280x800 but it also means that the size of the laptop will be small, light, and very portable. With the 80gig drive and dvd burner, it wraps it up as a pretty solid package. The 512 of memory will hold you out for now but if it starts getting real heavy use, it should be simple to upgrade to a gig.

If you wanted to sink a little more money into this system, you can get laptops that have x1600s in them. That will make gaming a little easier and a little more future proof. Since laptops are not upgradable, no matter what you get, in a year or two, it won't be able to handle newer games, period. A desktop in this price range would get you a raging system that would last you for years to come.

Why dual boot? Well, mac 0Sx is a pretty spiffy operating system. It does certain things better than windows does. Gaming is still a huge shortfall for apple though. Personally, it the PC hardware that appeals to me so dual booting a mac isn't for me yet. Now if I could dual boot my PC to xp and OSx, that would be cool.

...bysmitty