>Hi,
>
>When I see a lot of good deals for notebooks you can buy today (PCConnection, TigerDirect, etc.) most of them come with hard drives working at 5400 rpm. I have always had drives of 7200 rpm. Will I notice the slowdown of things I do on my notebook (mostly developing, testing, introducing more bugs <g>, more testing, building, UT reading, IE browsing) if I go with 5400 rpm?

Most notebooks have 5400 rpm harddrives to keep the heat down. Also, a 7200 rpm will drain the battery faster. Make sure the fan can handle it so you don't have shutdowns due to over heating. 7200rpm does improve speed and performance though in most cases. Check the performance specs though. In some cases, a 5400 rpm drive can actually perform better than a 7200 rpm one or very close. If the system has a 7200 rpm as an option, it should be designed to handle it though.

Did you check out Best Buy? In some cases, the systems built for Best Buy are not available through the manufacturer's website, or if they are by custom configuration, it costs much more to configure it yourself and buy from the manufacturer. You can test out the systems onsite and you can take it directly to Best Buy when you have a problem instead of going through the manufacturer. Check out the ones online that are only sold on the web from Best Buy as well.