I often get asked "What laptop should I buy". I usually try not to give a techie answer, but I often throw a question back: "What do you want to do with it?"
More often that not people want a general purpose machine that is light, easy to carry around, has good battery life and as much power as they could every need!
Of course, it's not yet possible to build such hardware that is both light and powerful, and has incredible battery life, and a massive hard disc and an amazing display. Personally, I accept this compromise: some machines are better for people who like something for less computationally strenuous tasks like email, word processing, web and form-based applications; other machines are better suited to watching DVDs, playing games and doing PowerPoint presentations, while others fit in the middle.
It's this middle ground that needs the most innovation: design compromises, balancing power, weight and battery life. I have yet to come across a perfect laptop. Today's general purpose machines fail on ergonomics or outright performance. Who wants to carry around 2 KG of laptop every day?
