While I was in Toronto for the public Joel on Software lunch, I couldn't help but scope out a couple of notebooks. Most of the stores that I frequent (around College and Bathurst) carried a few refurbished ones. The big problem with this is that you see something (like, for example a Compaq Presario R3000 - on my shortlist) and it has a sticker on it that says, if you're lucky, what the CPU clock speed is and that it has a 90 day warranty. How do I make a buying decision based on this information? Oh, that and the fact that it's $1250CDN. When you configure a laptop online, there are options that swing the price by around $500 (I know I'm mixing US and Canadian currency, but these numbers are not guaranteed to be anything except round). Of course I could talk to the sales person and would if I thought it was a good deal, but it's too vague to even know if it might be a good deal.

Anyhow, I don't know if I would buy a notebook used. I don't have that kind of money to lose.

Shopping for computer parts around Toronto is a lot of fun. Competition is fierce so prices are low. If you intend to actually buy, though, you'd better know exactly what you want. The stores are packed floor to ceiling with stock that has to move, there are plenty of brands and models to chose from, but you're not going to see very many powered up and ready to show off. Read the product reviews before you go and have a second choice in case everybody else already bought up that DVD burner you're looking for. In my case, I actually did pick up a DVD burner finally. In lieu of research, I trusted my friend who was picking up the same model (and had done her research). I got an NEC 3520A drive, it's been getting some good buzz in forums that I've seen. It writes dual layer media at 16x, from what I've read - I haven't actually installed it yet. Once I get the new burner in, I'm sure I'll get into the whole DVD encoding and burning thing, it's just not exciting me enough yet. All I want to do right now is be able to back up my hard drives. Using Windows software RAID makes me a little nervous, so I want as many backup options as I can get.

Also, I don't know what iriver makes, but I have this feeling that I need one.