[Tfug] New laptop recommendations

[Adrian]

Looking for recommendations on buying a new laptop... My current Inspiron 4150 
motherboard has died again... I could replace it again (which would be the 
third) for about $280, but I'm rather fed up with it at the moment. It worked 
well, when it worked, but the original battery is getting old, the case is 
cracked in multiple places, battery life so-so, etc, etc, etc.

So what do people recommend? My are:
1) MUST have a serial port... 
2) WSXGA (1400x1050) or equiv, 14" or 15" doesnt matter (why is it every 
low/mid range laptop has a XGA 1024x768 display, even with a 17" LCD???).
3) Midrange processor, nothing high end, prefer power savings to a small 
horsepower difference.
4) Good battery life. Should have ability to swap/use a 2nd battery, 
preferrably the main battery and second should be the same, 2nd battery in 
the media bay, but this option seems non-existant these days?!?...
5) Standard CD/DVD, writable would be nice.
6) I don;t care about media/video/wireless frills. This is for a working 
laptop, not a game platform, to go into the field and work/debug 
networks/program/etc.
7) Preferably something I don;t have to pay the windows tax on.
8) ~$1500 range

So far I've found:
HP nc6120 and nc6220 -
~$1550-1650 1.6GHz P-M 512MB 40GB DVD/CDRW or DVD+-RW 14" or 15" WSXGA, 
possibly less with FreeDOS, but the website doesn;t let you choose it (though 
it says its an option).

HP nx6125 -
~$1400 1.8GHz AMD Turion64 M34, 1GB 60GB 15" DVD+-RW WSXGA, seems like a heck 
of a deal. Battery performance is said to be good, has a nifty fingerprint 
scanner builtin, but it doesn;t have a serial port.......

Misc Dells... but I'm rather unhappy with the motherboard overheating problems 
many Dells have.

IBM... couldn;t find anything with a serial port...

Acer... unable to find any real specs on their website, can;t order direct 
from them anyways.

Anything else I should be considering?

Adrian