gle2011..this question has been asked countless times with many different suggestions..rather than going thru all that again, could you please do a search at the bottom of the green section on the top of this page..just put in "best laptop" and press GO..there are many good suggestions and will give you a good idea of what is out there..Hope this helps

fwiw
I bought a Lenovo thats works excellent a few months ago .. really nice nice..except the low end ones have plastic cases. So ... dont know how long before a bang or drop breaks the case, its thin plastic too. ... Sale was 180 dollars off = 400 dollars at Office Depot. 4gb ram, 500gb hard drive, 15 inch wide screen.

Office Depot, Staples, BestBuy.. all have specials every month or two. They seem to alternate. And the Advertised special is often just a come on and lower quality cpu/smaller hard drive/less memory and a few ports missing on the sale laptop - but the others in the line will be on sale too it seems, just not advertised.

I've had 2 Toshiba's.. they're nice too. Lasted about 4 years each.. with lots of use. Then they die.., and probably not worth cost of returning for repairs because the labor is so high. Very sturdy cases.. only dropped a couple times but both survived as is nothing.

4gb ram is nice, might be actually a necessity if a 64bit computer.. or more... more is always better. I'm an Intel lover on cpu's i3 / i5 / i7 cpu's are the better ones. Ram is cheap to buy and simple to change .. 8gb of ram i just priced was $36, free delivery from Crucial.

Keep in mind the stores probably will start selling Win8 notebooks about a month from now. One of the newer things is a smallish mSata/SDD memory drive with 2nd normal hard drive. Thats really nice!

You should have plenty of good choices at $450 or less. My personal suggestion is to stay away from HP/Compaq (same company) and Dell, their products have slipped in quality in recent years.

Ram is cheap, I agree, and 4gb is getting to be standard on most machines. But if there's a choice, there's no advantage to loading up with more than is necessary for light web browsing and email use.

Posted by genes Mon, Sep 24, 12 at 10:11 ... gle2011..this question has been asked countless times with many different suggestions..rather than going thru all that again, could you please do a search at the bottom of the green section on the top of this page..just put in "best laptop" and press GO..there are many good suggestions and will give you a good idea of what is out there.

Curiously, "genes" does not seem to grasp that the best laptop purchase may change weekly, yea, even daily. Today, on different sides of the same street, within walking distance, there may be two different ''best'' laptops. Friday, Sept 21st, the best laptop I could find was a Gateway at Best Buy. The day before it was an HP at Walmart. gle2011, I apologize for "genes" flaming attack. Please continue to share your needs with us.

And don't forget Costco. You can check their online store at Costco.com.

It was not a flaming attack only to show that some like this brand, some that, while others like Windows some like the Apple OS..then there are those who prefer AMD processors while still others like Intel..I appreciate that cost wise the prices change, not normally the order of models/brands prefered..Whatever gave you the idea it was flaming...you are either over sensitive or read it wrong..

Bought 2 toshibas a few years ago for $500 each and have been very happy with them and not one problem and they get a lot of use. Mary

genes I saw nothing flaming in any way it must have been misread. We have had several discussions recently which explained the things asked such as how much ram and hard drive space etc which would still be relevant even if the price of the various items discussed were not.
I know I have personally done some of those posts.

As to brand preferences I personally do recommend HP and have had excellent experiences with them and in fact just bought a new HP pc this month.
I purchased mine at Staples online they had some excellent prices on some of their computers and laptops I would take a look there for some options.

I prefer AMD processors over Intel again a personal preference.
The more Ram the better for what ever your price range.
Hard drive size depends on how much you store on it, probably 500GB up would work fine for you.

You will run into dual core or quad core that has to do with how many processors it has and how fast it will process the tasks. Most newer ones will be quad cores but there are still some dual cores around.

All will come loaded with a bunch of junk you will need to clear out and it will have a trial version of some type of antivirus program, I never activate those just use a remover like pc decrapifier to clear all of those trail versions and junk from the pc and install MSE for antivirus.

You will have a nice selection in the price range you are considering.

raven,
What differences do you perceive between AMD and Intel processors? Yours is an opinion I've never heard, the only difference I know of is price (AMD is usually cheaper)

Snidely, you are likely right that there is little difference between AMD and Intel but I have only ever built my machines with AMD. This has to do with the court challenge you referred to in a recent thread here where Intel tried to remove AMD from the face of the earth. Practically all geeky forums in the day came to the aid of AMD to ensure they stayed around to offer competition.

So right Owbist, AMD is an excellent company and puts out an excellent quality product for a good price. AMD has never failed me, Intel has.
I base it on the excellent results I have experienced.

Owbist, AMD offers Intel competition the way Dollar Stores gives Nordstrom's competition. The people who know, the PC manufacturers who are AMD's customers, prefer Intel products something like 4 to 1.

AMD has lost the higher value/performance/function part of the market and it admitted so to the press a few months ago. It's given up. What's left for them is the low end, inexpensive computers and big-volume intended servers, where performance doesn't matter but cost does.

ARM's IP-based model has probably become #2 in market influence.

Seriously I am so sick of this bs. If we say the moon is bright yellow you can bet there will be some snidely remark telling us all how wrong we are.
I long for the day's of the past!!!
So much so that I am sorely tempted to give it up. Our time is so valuable and having to waste it this way over and over
again is ridiculous. Truly the worst!

You're upset because I've offered comments that have disagreed with your views?

In a public forum, personal opinions are shared and discussed. I've offered my time to try to provide what I hoped would be useful and helpful information. Are you suggesting your time is more valuable than mine or anyone else's? Or that you own a franchise to provide comments here?

I'd say anyone's time is well spent in learning something new or to hear a different view.

If posters would just stay "on topic" this conflict could be avoided.

NO I do not really care at this point in time at all if you agree or disagree this is not a forum for conversations it is a help forum and needs to stay on TOPIC! If you care so much to pontificate your points of view then please do it on the other side if you have not noticed there is another little link button up there for the conversation side.

Doing what you have done over and over again causes the topic to go off course and it makes it exponentially more difficult to keep track of what we have tried and done to help the person that came here needing help.

If you want to have that type of conversation and discussion then please for the sake of everyone start a NEW thread of your own for that and do not do it on someone elses thread that is in need of help.

On most of the other professional help forums I am on causing a post to go off topic is cause for banning and doing it repeatedly is just absolutely rude.

My time is just as valuable as anyone else including the person that started the post asking for help!
Most of us that are volunteers on help forums are on many many other help forums all over the internet not just one!
Keeping threads on track for the actual problem is essential.

As I said feel free to start your own threads to discuss what ever you feel the need to discuss but please don't do it in the middle of a post of someone else.

Thank you grandms for stating exactly the point.

Some so-called "expert help" forums limit access in any given thread to the original poster and then to a group of people who have been authorized in advance to respond. Other users may not enter such threads.

Is that the rule in this forum? Or, maybe that's intended but the rule hasn't been stated and enforced as such?

Raven, I'm mildly offended by your "pontificating" comment, because it is your very tendency to do so with what I find, at times, to be unusual comments or advice, that sometimes motivate my comments. Such comments of mine are intended to be polite but counter-points none the less.

Please let me know the rules. I thought I was following them but clarification will be useful to me and the many others who post to respond to peoples' questions or topics.

User genes says go to the green section above, put in "best laptop" and press go. I did that and got three hits. One is this thread, one is 2009 and the third may have some information.

The poor OP was in affect, told to search someplace else. I should think that forums need traffic, otherwise, what is the point of having a forum? Bing is more friendly.

Regardless of what you might choose to buy, I would suggest you checking the on line reviews for the particular model. For example...I would steer clear of one with a short battery life or one that reviews say has an 'awkward' keyboard. Poor speakers wouldn't bother me so much.

Here is a link that might be useful: Some Cnet reviews with the good, the bad, and the bottom line

Lurkandkibitz...I just entered "best laptops" into the green "search" box at the top of this page and got 674 hits. You sure you went to the right section?

Regards,
Shax