Writing laptop

I’m putting some thought into replacing my writing laptop.

At the moment, I have a fairly clunky Dell Inspiron 1300.  It’s served me very well, but is starting to die a slow death.

I was planning on simply replacing it with another Dell laptop of some kind (unsure as to which model) when Windows 7 releases, but I’ve been wandering around the net a bit, and now I’m not so sure.  I was half entertaining the idea of switching to a Mac (mostly, I will admit, so I could use Scrivener), but they’re so damn expensive.  It’s still a possibility, but I’d have to be really convinced that it’s worth it for the cash.

Basically, I need something that’ll work reliably for writing (running both Office and PageFour, which is my default writing software these days) as well as being able to browse the net.  Being able to play some games would be a bonus, but not really needed (that’s what my spunktacular desktop is for, after all).  Long battery life would also be a major plus, but doesn’t seem to exist in too many full-sized laptops.

And yes, I’ve thought of a netbook, but I don’t think any would be a great option for me with reduced keyboard size.

Which being me in a convoluted way to ask – what laptop do you use for writing?  What would you recommend?  What would you vehemently not recommend?

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.