When you've been a proggy for 21years professionally and 4years for fun before that and your still POOR then it's a bad career choice. 

Shoulda gotten into window cleaning those 2 ronnies where right,  my 1 window cleaning mates a millionaire,  no stress,  no hassle,  repeat the same round every month and make a mil

To Serge, if you are still looking...

The netbooks are a good idea if all you want it for is casual, but they are very small, keyboards included, and if you are going to be doing plenty of work on it then it is likely that you will feel the cramp of the small keyboard.

I recently got a Dell and they seem to be really good computers these days. One piece of advice and I can't stress this enough, do not order through their phone system. I tried, it takes ages, the guy at the other end can't speak english, and you are just walking him through the online page that he has in front of him.

Even better, use DELL OUTLET. The computers are brand new but have been returned because they weren't wanted in the end or a customer cancelled the order. I bought mine through it and saved about 40% on the list price of the computer.  If you go with them I can recommend the XPS laptops (M13... and M15...), really nice, and the studio ones look nice also.

cool, we are going to wait untill christmas, we have massive bills to pay at the moment, just got a new sofa, was £1600, got it for £539, bill from plaster for £750 and carpenter for £900, plus just paid £135 for plumber and £500 of real wood floor. lpus normal credit card bill of a £1000 a month, all the food, baby things and fuel. so rather straped for cash at the moment.

anyway found this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146353 that looks like it would be a good buy.

I'll warn you now that the DfES buy loads of Fujtisu Siemens laptops for schools meaning I've encountered literally hundreds and they are all shite. Mine lasted the 18 months I had it only after I duct taped it together (every single screw fell out!) and added a 2 port USB PCMIA card when all the internal USB ports died.

Basically they are cheap because they are badly put together.

Yes the pictures an EEE901. I got mine because I'm fed up of the (frankly unsuitable) Fujisu's failing on me all the time. I use the EEE for planning and delivering lessons. Its hooked to an interactive whiteboard in class, so the screen isn't an issue - but I prepare stuff on it too. The keyboard is small, but much easier to use than say a PDA's keyboard. I can spend 3-4 hours planning on it without strain.

Critically it uses flash memory. Thats what makes it relatively expensive, but also better value. On laptops, especially those constantly on the move hard drives never last long.

I'm personally very keen on netbooks as I feel they are a return to what mobile computing should be. Large heavy desktop replacement laptops are neither portable, nor as good at home as an equivalent desktop. Buying the EEEPc and my desktop was actually cheaper than buying a laptop of equivalent performance to my desktop.