Laptop buying advice forum: Which laptop for college?

and most will be about the same. If you have a Costco membership they have a 2 year warranty on their electronics and most other have the 30 day return and 1 year manufacturers warranty.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19680_102-350349/cnet-laptop-chooser-college-too/?tag=contentBody;threadListing

It's been updated with a link to Amazon.com's top 100 laptops. See the first 3 units for under 500 bucks and see if you like those.
Bob

After careful consideration of every brand, came across the latest iterations of AMD's new accelerated 4-core CPU's and was impressed with their abilities, particularly with the A8 and the A10, Not only do they have a video accelerated 4 core CPU with great caching, but they each have capable and decent Radeon video cards.
Here the specs on the above that we bought:
A8-4500M 4 Core APU 1.9GHZ idle, ramp to 2.8GHZ
128KB L1 cache on each core 1024KB L2 cache on each core
8 GHZ DDR3 1600 speed memory !!!
Radeon HD7640G video card
Optical Drive 8X CD R-RW w/DVD
750GB 5400rpm SATA (the weakest component)
802.11w/g/n WiFi
Headphone Output,Microphone Input, 3 ports USB 3.0 and 2.0, Kensington Lock, USB charger, Flash Memory Slot, Power Input, HDMI Port, 15-pin D-sub monitor port VGA compatible, LAN Port
6-cell Lithium Ion battery 8-10 hr capable when not gaming.
Windows Home Premium 64-bit
No bloatware and a few usable ASUS utilities.
Battery charger with port for running off the charger and charge at the same time.
Windows Hardware Assessment: 6.7 That is above middle range desktop speed.
Price: $499.00 That's right, $499 at BJ's and its not a typo.
My rating: Outstanding. For the money: Superb.Compares favorably with $700-800 laptops.
Our last laptop was a Toshiba 15.6" 655D series with dual core Athon II. Good unit but the ASUS pays middle level games at full settings and high level at moderate settings while the Toshiba juddered and slowed.

You owe it to yourself to check out the AMD A8 and A10 laptops. Most Bang for the Buck and ASUS makes a great motherboard. This laptop is FAST! I would have bought the A10 if I could have found it. Its a little faster but not worth a regional search.

I uninstalled just McAfee AV and downloaded AVAST Free, Firefox, Advanced System Care, Revo Uninstaller, and Ausilogics Defragmenter.

This may help you decide: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html

All work and no play makes Jack a dull student.