[LAU] buying a new laptop

Hi My laptop was dropped, and if it's beyond repair, I need a new one quickly. I would appreciate a few (preferrably hands-on experiences or) advices to this end, here are a few thoughts: 1) It should of course work as flawless with linux as possible (I run arch) 2) I have an edirol fa66 firewire soundcard that I'm quite happy with. Problem is, it seems laptops with firewire are hard to find. I could get an usb soundcard, but I have the feeling that it's not gonna perform as well (low latency, stability) as firewire, it that correct? Plus it's annoying to throw away (or sell) a perfectly good, stable soundcard that suits my needs, just because of the port type... 3) I would prefer a small (<= 13") light-weight, long-battery-life laptop. 4) I actually don't really need that much cpu power. I have a 2Ghz dual-core intel (T7250, whatever that means) now, that's more than enough. It's the first dual core I owned, and I had the feeling the two cores provides a snappier feeling, would others agree? Besides that I don't need the speed I have now. Options (I can think of): I saw a secondhand ThinkPad X61s (dual-core 1.6Ghz, 3Gb ram, 12" display) from a well known online shop I trust and used many times (bought my current laptop there). There's 6 months warrenty, and my general impression with ThinkPads is that they have good build quality, it's the only laptop I would consider buying used. It has firewire so... Go the netbook route. I'm at a loss here, all these new processors, both the i-series and the atom (N-series), I have no idea how well they perform. I tried a few from friends, and they seem fast enough. Anyone here making music on a netbook? This would most certainly mean I would have to get a usb soundcard, hmmm :-( Any inputs would be greatly appreciated :-) -- Atte http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk