Recommended Laptop and/or Laptop Brand?

So I'm gonna go off to college next year and I believe a laptop would help me greatly, so I'm gonna get one sometime this summer.

Now I'm not buying a gaming laptop or anything like that, no not at all. The max. amount I'll spend on a laptop is $500.

I DO want the best bang for my buck, though. So I obv. want a dual core processor and at least 2gb of ram. Would prefer it to come with its own gpu rather than integrated if that's possible for that price.

So, before I start hardcore looking around, are there any recommendations or suggestions one may have? Such suggestions may be helpful as maybe a certain type of keyboard sucks dick, or maybe a certain brand's touchpad blows, etc.

This dumb bitch recently paid my brother to reformat her Dell laptop for her cause she got good ol' malware on it, and good lord was the Dell software on it horrendous! I was blown away that you have to install the Dell software JUST to be able to use the CD drive! wtf how hard is it to wire the button directly to the drive itself???? I won't be buying a Dell anyway though

I don't know much about mobile parts ATM so it's hard for me to tell w/o looking it up if, say, an intel celeron t3100 is good or not. But after doing just a quick 15 min look on newegg, I thought this one looks pretty good for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... geSize=100

Ty for inputs

I will assume you will be taking your desktop with you. Your desktop will stay in your room as the power rig that does all the heavy work including gaming. The laptop will me mobile for class not taking and research.

HP tm2t
You will not get it for 500 but the extra will be well worth it.
M$ office + one note. No more folders and papers and books to haul around you just take your laptop with you. If you need more power I think you need to spring for a fujitsu lifebook tablet.

Outside of that I really do not believe you should limit yourself to a brand. Just know what specs you are looking for and comb the deal sites. Eventually a real good deal will bring a laptop way down in price and you will spring for it. So just be patient and wait for a 30- 40% coupon at dell or HP. Or a real good deal on another laptop.

HP generally has the best stuff in their stock laptops compared to other commercial companies

Regardless, you will nearly always get a better deal if you customize a computer online with, say, ibuypower or dell (although lately I hate dell)

Oh wait, ibuypower has no laptops under 800$. Scratch that.

I have a little ACER One I bought for @$300 a couple of years ago. You prob want something a bit bigger but I thought it was a pretty good little puter for the price. Maybe one of their larger models would be good for what you want?

Agree with Fearsome, have in mind what you want for specs and look from there

Avoid Vista like the plague. Win 7 is the way to go IMO, if only for the fact that we dont know how much longer MS will support XP.

Paradox wrote:I have a little ACER One I bought for @$300 a couple of years ago. You prob want something a bit bigger but I thought it was a pretty good little puter for the price. Maybe one of their larger models would be good for what you want?

Yeahhh, this. I got the little acer last summer for college. I never even realize that I'm carrying it to all my classes.