I bought a Toshiba Satellite 3 years ago with the Toshiba extended 3 year warranty. It came with Win XP. I have since partitioned the hard drive and put FC3 on it. Without a doubt, you can buy parts off of the shelf and make an outstanding desktop computer. But it is usually cheaper to buy one already put together. However, if you put it together your self, you would probably have better parts. And with time and patience, I don't think a laptop is beyond a home builder, either. But the warranty is the kicker. I've dropped my laptop pushing a PCMCIA card right through the Motherboard which was replaced. I've had the mounting hardware holding the screen replaced. And I've had the BIOS battery replaced. All at no cost to me because of that warranty. I travel all over the country and it doesn't matter where I am, the warranty has covered the computer. That is why you go with major brands... Also, FC3 works flawlessly on this laptop. (I recently reported this to Toshiba, who had inquired about it.) I have a card reader for the PCMCIA slot. I plug it in and use the card just like any other external drive. I also have external hard drives, CD-ROMs, scanners, printers, cameras, WiFi cards, USB2 cards, etc. I've only run into 2 problems. I have a Sony voice recorder with a USB connection that it doesn't like, and FC3 doesn't like my scanner. I'm told that there is a work-around for both of these problems. I just haven't had time to deal with it. Lloyd
