I think it is "Core 2 Duo" which in laptops was code-named Merom as Conroe is for desktops. Now the last part needs a little elaboration from my view as the m of ram is Memory and for most folks 1 GB should be nice as I doubt XP or Vista would even try to run on 120 megabytes. Did you mean that the video card should support 128 MB of memory? That needs a bit of elaborating.

You did leave out for what you'd use the laptop which may be useful in looking at various models. Is this mostly for simple office use, photo editing, or gaming? That may play a role in what some suggest, IMO.

Regards,
JB

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Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility

Most Windows XP machines tend to have 512 MB of RAM as a minimum with many having 1 Gigabyte or more. For Windows Vista that is coming out January 30th, it is advised to have 1 Gigabyte as a minimum with many places recommending 2 GB. This is what I think you mean by "basic system memory" which is just usually called RAM. Video memory can be either on the card itself or taken from the system memory and with laptops having the small space as well as heat issues that they often do what is known as "shared" memory or taken from the system with an integrated graphics solutions, at least in the lower-end laptops. My laptop for example has 2 GB of RAM but also 128 MB of dedicated Video memory on an ATI Mobility Radeon X700 card I believe.

On the topic of broadband access this opens up a few questions as many laptops do have wi-fi or some form of wireless networking on them for one idea while some like the idea of having a card that allows them access from various locations though this means you'd have to get in touch with whoever is providing such a card and see what they offer and possibly test it out to some extent. In my case, my laptop is wired at the office and I have a wireless network set up in my apartment that works fine for me in having broadband at both places. Thus there is a question of where do you need to have access as if it is just at home then a wireless router is likely a better option than getting a card and paying so much more a month but that's JMHO on that.

I should point out that graphics cards a.k.a. video cards aren't usually upgradeable in a laptop so you should make sure that the laptop does meet what you require of it so that a few months down the road you aren't kicking yourself for having what you do. Also, figure out how important is battery life as if you take one of the higher-end video cards this can mean quite the drain on your battery if you plan on running the laptop off it most of the time.

Regards,
JB

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Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility

My insight would be that the security side of things would tempt me to not try that in the first place. If one finds someone who has an unsecure wireless connection that one can use, just who else is also using this and what kinds of protection does one have to prevent someone from stealing the data in that case? The legality is simply another reason to not try to do this from my view.

Just to give a simple analogy on why this is bad: Imagine being in a dark room and having to yell your credit card information to buy something you wanted. Do you think anyone else may hear you? Probably if there is someone which you don't know as you can't see anything.

Regards,
JB

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Home Desktop: VoodooPC Hexx. AMD Athlon FX-60, 2 GB RAM, 2 x 250 GB HD, 7900 GTX video card. Home Laptop: HP dv4000, Pentium M, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, ATi 700 Radeon Mobility