let me correct that & say do not buy a Dell XPS EVER
my 1330 has had 3 service calls in the last 3 years and instead of replacing it they expect me to pay to extend the warranty on this POS !
I think i'll just pick up a used IBM/Lenovo. The last T61 i had was old enough to have only 1/2 a meg of RAM but it would run for 4.5 hours easy on a 6-cell battery which is pretty good for a full-fledged notebook and comparable to the 5-6 hours i get from my Asus netbook with its 6-cell power source
about those IBMdepot deals, i'd pick the cheapest one as long as it had 802.11 g connectivity