Let me make a quick pitch for a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6965, with high reliability ratings (See a recent Consumer Reports) , a dual core intel processor, good battery, 4gigs ram and 500 gigs hard drive, with 16" screen and a 512 MB ATI graphics driver - bright display and plenty of space to size things to your preferences, and lots of I/O. The challenge I've had with laptop upgrade considerations has been "Which OS"?... Vista is a bit of a hog, and Windows 7 is quicker and lighter. Then which OS data pathway - 32 / 64 bits? So few audio device drivers are supported in the 64 bit architecture, and those that are out there seem pricey to me. I went with Windows 7 - 32 bits and have been pleased. This laptop also has a built-in webcam and mic, though I am still trying to figure out how to change the default setting at start up that results in the mic being open.... I think I can thank Scype for that, and will explore its settings to try and alter having the mic open at startup. Anyway, here's another option for you, and also one that's fairly economical - I think I got this for around $700 towards the end of last year. Happy hunting.


DrDuBose
"Gettin' a life."

music at
http://www.bandmix.com/drdubose