Hi,

I've recently moved to NZ and I'm looking to buy some good laptops, but I'm not sure where to get one from (in Auckland). I mean, I have heard of DSE, Bond+Bond, Noel Leemings, etc but they don't seem to have a wide range of choices.

Basically I'm looking either for:

a) Netbooks that are good for the usual office stuff AND a workstation suitable for webdev and gfx. My budget for the Netbook + Workstation is NZ$ 3500.

-or-

b) Full fledged workstation replacement laptop that people wouldn't mind working on for long hours (~8 hrs) AND wouldn't mind carrying them around. Once again, my budget for this is $3500.


Now I've no doubts as to what hardware to go for (thats my area of work), but the problem is that I'm specifically looking for comps without an OS (or with FreeDOS/*nix etc installed). In other countries, Dell offers comps with FreeDOS or Ubuntu preloaded but I'm not able to find any such option on the Dell website. When I spoke to one of their customer rep, they said that they don't have any such laptops :(


So can you guys please recommend me some good places to buy from? I'd prefer shopping online, but wouldn't mind driving down if I have to.

Thanks.

-dex