Laptops or externals? (hdmi,blueray,bluetoot tv) for an hdmi projector

[damnemperess]

So I wanted a sweet portable setup, and I really don't know much about quality and setups with hdmi but I picked up this awesome epson moviemate 72 projector with hdmi input.

http/www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63072140

But I wanted to pair it with a laptop so that I can watch netflix, occasionally blue ray movies, maybe use a tv tuner, have bluetooth capacity, and as a side note I listen to a lot of music so it should probably perform pretty well at that. But as I started looking around that put me in the 1000-2000 range (sony vaios for example) which is ok but I would like try to see if I can do something a little cheaper. In addition, I find that most of these features are on "entertainment laptop" with huge screens that I'm not really interested in, since it will be hooked up to a projector. My question is are there any laptops out there that have the features I want at a cheaper price, or is it possible to get a cheap laptop and hook up many of these features externally to the laptop. Would this change quality....Any suggesions.

 

[montyuk]

try a western digital hd tv box (which has a hdmi / composite out), you pair it with a usb hard drive with all your stuff on it, and then it reads that and outputs it like the ps3/xbox interface, plus its cheap.

theres plenty of reviews on the net so just google it.

 

[frozenlead]

You'll be hard pressed to find a notebook under $1000 with HDMI out support, but I think many of HP's units carry them now. I think some of them carry the tv-tuner option. But for under 1k, I'm not sure. I wouldn't consider a Sony notebook for any purpose - they're cheaply made and expensively sold.

Here's two HPs that carry TV tuner capabilities:
http/www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Entertainment+powerhouse&series_name=dv7t_series

http/www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Entertainment+powerhouse&series_name=HDX16t_series

Anyway, I should note that while you've got a projector with an HDMI input, the projector itself can't actually output video in full HD. Only 720p there.