"Rafael Caetano" <rcaetano7@yahoo.com> wrote in message

> Seriously, I don't care much for brand names but of course quality
> matters. The cheapest seems to be Sotec.

Most people I know that bought a lemon had sony notebooks.
It depends if you want the computer only for Japan (any brand is the same,
choose the options and colors) or in another country (in that case it's
better to have a brand and model that exists there).

>The processor speed doesn't matter much.

In my experience (of user that understands nothing to technique) the
processor speed is the only thing that matters. When my old notebooks were
getting old, by simply plugging stuff, I could use external memories,
CD/DVDs, micro, loudplayers, mouse, keyboard, screen, projector....but I had
to change them because they were too slow (the first one played the
video-CDs too slow, the second one did the same thing with DVDs...).
Oh no, I also had problems to internet-phone well because the sound card was
not double duplex (no idea what that means but that's not operable on
notebooks, and they still sell some with cheap sound cards.)

CC