Ultimate HVX200 Laptop

My acer works fine with P2. You gotta love the weight of this Tosh though. My only concern would be with the cpu speed (1.2)
 
If you're in the market for a laptop, check out the Sony VAIO SZ Series.

After some research, I picked up the SZ340 with a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo for about $1,550. It has a 13.3" in screen and 1GB of RAM (which I upgraded to 2GB). Best of all, it has a Type I/II card slot AND and an ExpressCard slot. It even has a Memory Stick slot and comes with an adapter to read SD cards, so everything is there.

I used this laptop on a HVX shoot in March (in the Bahamas) with DVRackHD 2 and it worked extremely well. Instead of using the internal hard drive, I picked up a Bytecc ExpressCard ($50) which adds two eSATA ports to the system. You can then use one or two eSATA hard drives individually or in a RAID (0 or 1) configuration. (With an IcyDock eSATA external enclosure and no RAID striping, P2 card transfers are easily faster than 1GB/min.)

Now, granted, it's not as light as the one you mentioned... at 4 pounds, but it's still thin and manageable.

Another slick feature is that it has dual graphics chipsets. One is for longer battery life (which you can use when handling video) and the other kicks in a GeForce Go 7400 for light 3D work and games. It's nice to have the option.

Don't mean to sound like an ad... just wanted to report that I've actually used this setup successfully with DVRackHD, Panasonic's P2 Reader, and external RAID with eSATA on location.

[My only "problem" with the setup is with the eSATA connectors... I wish they "locked" into place somehow as opposed to just sliding in/out like a USB. A small piece of gaffer's tape can ensure they don't accidentally come loose in the middle of a write.]
 
Would a 7200rpm harddrive make a difference in safely capturing straight to disk using DV Rack or is a 5200 good enough?
 
uhhh,.... I bought a 17" acer for 700$ brand new. With a dual core proc, and two pc card slots. Small screens are not great for monitoring.
 
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