help with notebooks

Need some feedback on the type of notebook/laptop to purchase.
My laptop died (RIP) - sigh… I need one for traveling to client sights, BUT I am no longer able to get a laptop with xp.
All notebook/laptop PC’s are now standard with Vista, I have heard some fairly bad things about the OS but need to know from some of you what you really think of the Vista OS?
I know that my printer does not have a driver available for running with vista, and I have heard there are various other hardware issues, but what about software. Has anyone ran into issues loading software with Vista. Please let me know what you think of this OS.
As well, what I am looking for is a 14.1 in 2gb ram with a good videocard, for gameplay (not online gameplay with my laptop usually), and as much mem as possible. what would you recommend?

Thanks
Kat

I personally have not had any problems with vista, mainly because I rarely use it. On the other hand, those that I have talk too that use it ((% of the time say they can’t stand it. Bugs and hard to navigate are the big complaints.
Is price a big issue?
If not try a Macbook

I’ve had loads of trouble with vista, and some of my games (like morrowind) won’t play correctly on it. Other people have it and have had very few problems with it. Basically, you’ll love it or hate it.

Thanks for the comments - I also have heard some not so great things about the Vista, so took the plunge today & went with a Mac adding in the bootcamp to reload XP on a virtual drive. I think this should work for what I need as I can shift between Mac & XP depending on what I am using the laptop for.

Thank you again for letting me know what you think -

I have a MacBook Pro at work and I find that using parallels works great and I’ve heard good things about VMware Fusion (it’s cheaper for one). I never get into my bootcamp partition since I can run OS X and XP at the same time.

i don’t get it… i’ve had no notable problems with Vista Home Premium that came preinstalled on my Compaq desktop… I suspect more of the problems have come on computers people have tried upgrading (as i know Fen did). My brother’s upgraded his Toshiba laptop, though, and had no problems…

Mr. Qubed,
PEBKAC.

Not in my case…laptop came with vista, runs slow, crashes from time to time and a couple of peripherals refuse to work. I have few problems with any of the other computers in my house, most of which have XP, and one even has Windows ME on it, with no issues whatsoever. I doubt that it is my fault the dang thing stinks. Maybe it’s the laptop itself, but it ain’t me.

My real question is, XP was their greatest accomplishment in a long time, so who is the genious that thought “hey let’s screw up the code to make it look pretty?”