Due to my growing needs to do work on the go, I have decided to buy a new laptop. This would only be used for business uses (Word Processing, Database Management, Spreadsheets, etc) and not for gaming. I have narrowed it down to two possibilities, and I'm wondering what your opinions would be on which is the better of the two.

Option I (this is my favorite of the two):
-Brand: Dell Latitude D600
-Processor: Intel Pentium M 745 rated at 1.8GHz
-OS: Win2000 PRO SP4 w/ Win XP Pro License
-256MB DDR SDRAM
-8x DVD w/ MPEGII
-40.0 GB Hard Drive
-Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g, 54Mbps Dual-Band WAN
-Microsoft Office Software 2003 Professional and Adobe Acrobat 6.0
-Logitech Optical USB Mouse
-2 Six-Cell batteries (One primary, one spare)
-Floppy Drive
-Internal 56kbps modem

Option #2 (this one is almost $500 cheaper, even after taking my corporate discount into effect, but the software package is crap):
-Brand: Compaq Pesario
-Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000+ (rated at 1.8GHz)
-OS: Windows XP Home Edition
-512 MB RAM, expandable to 1.25 GB
-2x2x6 DVD+RW/16X8X24 CD-RW Combo Drive
-External Floppy Drive
-nVidia GeForce4 420 Go w/32 MB DDR RAM
-MS Works, Adobe Reader (not Acrobat, grr!) and lots of other stuff that I don't want.

Once you consider in my costs of improving the software package on the Compaq to match that of the Dell, I'm looking at probably a few hundred more for the Compaq.

Keep in mind that I can change just about anything on Option #1 to suit me more. So, what are your opinions? Anything you'd change?

What line of work are you in, and what type of programs will you primarily be running? That should be the biggest consideration.

Also - ditch #2 altogether. From everything I've heard, and from friends that have owned them, Compaq laptops are really crappy. No personal experience here, but every programmer I know is either on a Dell or a Toshiba, period - and wouldn't touch a Compaq if it were a gift.

That's what I figured. It would also end up costing me more than the Dell to bring it up to speed.

The work that I would be doing would be primary (actually almost entirely) document processing, financial analysis/investment research, internet browsing.

D600.. Is that the one with the widescreen?
If it is, I would go for something else because I can't stand to work on those screens.

But I would definitively go for a Dell, very reliable and robust

It's got a 14.1 inch XGA display.

Then, as far as I'm concerned, the set up you already have is more than edequate. You only really need to worry about the big guns (overclocked processors, gallons of ram, super graphics cards) when you're running a remote server or graphics programs (like I do) that really impose a heavy toll on your system resources.

I would switch a few things, personally. First, unless your work requires you to watch movies, ditch the DVD player in favor of a CD Burner. Backing up your work to CD every month, quarter, whatever, I think you'll agree is infinitely more useful.

If you can't get a Zip drive installed, I would consider buying an external USB one. As I'm sure you know, even the cheapest Zip disks store 100 times what your standard 3x5 does.

You can never have too much RAM, either...maybe bump the 256 up to 512?

That's the size I got too.

Why ditch the dvd drive when he can just get a combined one. That's what I've got and it works great. I actually thought that was standard these days...

Yeah, that's kinda what I meant. Realized that after I posted but was too lazy to correct.

I already own a Zip drive which I could plug in. I could get a DVD burner for an extra $200.

Which OS do you think is better? Win2000 Pro or WinXP Pro. The system actually comes with both, so I can use either.

A year ago, I would have said XP. But since then I've come to realize what a buggy, vulnerable mess windows XP is. If you don't mind constantly sweeping for spy-ware and downloading a new windows update every week, go with XP. But until Microsoft gets their sh*t together and creates an update with a long series of decent, permenant fixes for XP, I'd stick with 2000. It appears you can upgrade to XP at any time anyway, right?

Note: there are two computers in my family right now, Mom's and mine; both have Windows XP. My mom gets on the internet every day (mainly AOL and internet gaming sites), and in the last year my computer has been online only once. Mom's computer is a buggy, slow, bogged down mess because of all the Trojans and spyware eating up the system resources. Mine runs like BUTTAH. So there is a direct correllation between how frequent your internet use is (and the kinds of sites you visit) and how saturated your system is. Your mileage may vary, but unfortunately that's the state of the internet right now.

When you really get down to it, there isn't enough difference between XP and 2000 (other than appearance) to really, really make much difference IMO.

I've got a Dell laptop similar to the one you are looking at (but a year older) and it rocks. I would imagine that one of the big considerations for a business laptop would be how much you expect to have to carry it around. Even small differences in weight can be a big deal if you are hauling it around every day.