I got a Dell Inspiron 9300 with a 17" brite screen. It's really great except that I had to change it twice (the whole pixel stacks died).
Dell Vostro 17" laptops are the cheapest it appears. I can get a pretty decent setup for about $1250 and that may be good enough for trading since I have no need for high-end graphics card. If the screen is as good as what some of you say, then Dell is probably the best bet for me. Thanks.
Some Dell models like Inspiron 1721 have builtin RAID, running a RAID 1 mirror might save your trading if one of your drives dies. Or get the 32 or 64 GB solid state drive. Integrated graphics is good enough for trading and general business apps. Dell UXGA/WUXGA screens are great.
An excellent point about running a RAID, especially since the laptop will most likely take some pounding on the road. I will definitely have to look into that. Thanks.
It's always best to have at least some type of backup (you always hope you have "one more than you need"). If your computer is really likely to face physical stress, look into Solid State Drives. That's what the military uses in the field. Rather than RAID 1, you could get a copy of Acronis True Image and periodically "image" your hard drive to an external HD. ATI is fast, easy, reliable... $30-$35.
Yes, I do that currently with my two desktops at home. ATI is a great software by the way! But for a laptop, I don't think I want to carry around an external HD when I am on the road. I suppose I can get one of those mini HDs, like Western Digital Passports or something similar though....
If you're backing up every day, then you'd have to carry some type of media. Otherwise, a periodic imaging at least gives you a place to restore from without losing everything. I periodically image or clone my hard drives. Daily, I make backup copies of current market data to USB flash drives. To be kept current while on the road, all you'd really need to do is make a copy or 2 of your data folder to flash media. The Inspiron 9300 has a built-in media card reader. You could make backup copies of your data folder to a SD card.