You should be able to get a laptop for under a grand. Look at the warranty on it...depending on cost of laptop might be working upgrading to 3 yr option.
Have a laptop here and the motherboard went on it last wk...just a wk before the warranty ran out. Wouldn't have been worth replacing if it wasn't covered by the warranty.
What type of kitchen design package have you looked at? Can you get an evaluation to see if it meets your needs...most companies do this...esp with software that costs 3K. Make sure you get at least 512Mb RAM on the laptop. A 1Gb if you can stretch to it...depending on the type of processing the kitchen design package requires. The minimum and recommended amount of RAM should be specified for the software. Ask the provider what they recommend.
Won't you be able to write off the cost of this hardware and software over the next couple of years?
PDF writer: check out
http://www.pdf995.com/
You'll usually get Microsoft Works with the laptop. You'll probably need Excel and Access but this depends on what you are doing...evaluate the alternative opensource versions. See if this will meet your needs. I'm not sure what the compatability issues are with the open source products when you send files to other customers. At the moment you can get Microsoft Office 2003 Basic when purchasing a laptop for €169 with Dell. This will give you Excel. Check out the comparisons of different versions of Office at
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/topics/products/windows/ms_web_files?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~lt=popup
Good free basic graphics tool:
www.ifranview.com
Another option would be to have a look at what's available in PC world...will give you some ideas of what's avail...software and hardware tends to be a bit pricier there...buying online can be considerably cheaper. They do offer a 12 month interest free option on some items but the items tend to be pricier there so it's not always the best option.
A printer will set you back €129 or so if you go for the inkjet multifunction (printer / scanner / photocopier) option. I'd recommend going for the single colour cartridges...more cost effective...as if you use up all the blue ink all you have to do is replace the blue cartridge & not the whole colour cartridge even tho the magenta and yellow parts of it haven't been used. Always look at the cost of the cartridges for the printer in question and see if compatibles are available.
The cost of the hardware has come down a lot in the last 5 years...so it's really the design package that's the issue here. Start off with what you need and you can add as you go on.
Best of luck.