Durable notebook?

Well, I've been browsing around the laptops for awhile, and let's just say I've been dissappointed with what I've found. My needs for a laptop are:

Must have a 12" screen or larger,
DVD and CD-R playback ablility
60 Gb HDD (Speed doesn't matter)
Video card...meh, 32 Mb VRAM or higher and I'm peachy
512 Mb RAM (Absolute must have)
Durable, so my selections are limited to pretty much the Panasonic Toughbook line, because I haven't been able to find any other rugged notebook companies.

Other than that, I could care less.

What I'll be doing on this thing is mostly watching DVDs, it'l be my helpy-helper when i fly cross country, and I want something that can handle my busy lifestyle, and is extremely tough.

I can't seem to find any retailers for this thing online though, which is starting to bug me.

Help?

- Street

Hi,

I´ve got an IBM T40 and am *very* happy with it. Rock solid and does all you ask for. Now they make T41 and T42s also, which are almost the same... with updated graphic cards and/or processors (including Dothans). My suggestion if you are price concerned is : get the cheapest of those and buy add on memory if it lacks a bit. SODIMMS are pretty standard. In my case I also swapped the disk drive for a 7K60... the ´beast´ of laptop drives.

Regards
FTC

I suggest looking into getting mac laptop. Most of them have excellent battery life, and unless you NEED windows they are the best. If you can liv without windows, check out www.sagernotebooks.com, very nice machines fo the money.

Definitely an IBM they have titanium reinforced ABS plastic shells with air bags on there harddrives it just doesnt get anymore durable

The only real 'durable' notebooks I've seen for sale are the Panasonic Toughbook ones and IBM laptops with the special hard drive protection things (I read an article about it, I think you're supposed to be able to drop then running from something like 8' without the HD getting messed up).