Dont know if this belongs here or not, but I want to buy a new laptop this weekend, and no sales people seem to have the answer.

I have nailed my choices down to an Acer Celeron 2.8 or a Compaq Celeron Mobile 1.4

Both have the same amount of memory etc, the Compaq is $100 more and slightly bigger, but that doesnt worry me, I use it at home and at work, but not in between. Battery life helps but is not the primary factor.

** Which will perform better using apps like Office 2000 / Adobe Reader 6.0.1 (I open this all thoughout the day), IE (Lots, I have to use IE due to all the systems I use at work that require it), Microsoft OneNote. (I use all these apps almost all day)

Also, will 256mb be sufficient, or should I pony up the dough for 512?

Its just a workhorse - no games or anything like that.

Also, the compaq dvd burner is only DVD+RW but the Acer is DVD+/-RW does that really matter? (I would burn very few DVDs, mostly for personal data backup, occasionally for music/movies to play on Phillips home theater.