Too much wisdom in those paragraphs! Will certainly have an eye out for the refurbished options. Usually I'm also a very happy with Dells, and one of the most powerfull laptops I've had the chance of working with was an old Latitude (those with a purple finish) and boy it was a beast.

The chrome books seem like a nice path as well.

I'd love to lear more about the nomenclature/model codes that the main manufacturers use. I had no idea "7"s were the reliable ones :D