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The m305-s4835.

It is obviously superior.
C2D aside, it has a gig more ram and a decent IGP while still coming in at just over 5lbs?

Sold.
 
My laptop brand of choice is Lenovo. For your budget, you could fit quite a nice Thinkpad R61 or T61 that does all that stuff. "Pretty" is not a word generally applied to Thinkpads, but I think it's a good, simple design that wears well, which is probably why the general theme hasn't changed in fifteen years.
 
For looks I really like the LG laptops but they are hard to find in the US (Must buy in Canada and bring into the US). They feel good and usually get good reviews from sites that can get a hold of them and win "Red Dot" design award more often then Apple does for their machines it seems so "Pretty" I believe works for them. You can look at them here. In the US I prefer Lenovo or Fujitsu but the Lenovo keyboards I think are better to use and I like the black business look.
 
j-dawg said:
My laptop brand of choice is Lenovo. For your budget, you could fit quite a nice Thinkpad R61 or T61 that does all that stuff. "Pretty" is not a word generally applied to Thinkpads, but I think it's a good, simple design that wears well, which is probably why the general theme hasn't changed in fifteen years.
Click to expand...

Another vote for lenovo, just picked up an R61 for ~$550 decently equipped that was in the outlet. The unit was never shipped out to a customer so was brand new.
 
1.8 C2D is still darn fast, remember C2D is not comparable to past generations of processors.

I love my T61, I think is pretty in its simplicity, but I guess to each their own!
 
Get the Toshiba Satellite M305-S4835 because it has a Intel cpu, 1GB more of ram, it is faster, runs cooler and i wouldn't be surprised if the battery was better then the AMD's. I have a laptop with a 2Ghz Turion (Single Core) with 1GB and its slow and runs hot (50C idle, 65C Load), my friends Intel laptop at idle is a bit over room temp and load is under 50C.
 
Another vote for the Toshiba Satellite M305-S4835. Turions... ugh, they suck, plain and simple. I'd take a Celeron powered laptop before one of those nowadays, they truly are so weak it's not even worth the bother - even in x2 editions with dual cores.

But of the 3 choices shown, the M305 is so obviously the choice it's not even funny.

As for laptop brands of choice, if I could have any laptop I wanted, it would more than likely be a ThinkPad. I know Lenovo is the general name used, but realize that Lenovo makes their own branded Lenovo products now, as well as the continuing ThinkPad line. I prefer them for being solid and stable machines, and I'm a strong proponent of function over form, always. People hate their basic black look but, for those of us that have been using ThinkPads since they first appeared so long ago (yes I'm old), there's nothing like a ThinkPad.

Secondary choice would be Dell, believe it or not. They just have so much to offer, they're almost a clone of IBM/Lenovo in some respects meaning the support options online. I'd never waste my time calling for phone support, I do all that stuff myself, and the sheer amount of information that's available at the Dell support website rivals what IBM/Lenovo offers. Service manuals with very detailed step by step instructions for each product they have, the regular user guides as well and all of it offered in multiple formats like HTML, text, PDF, etc. Simply amazing stuff.
 
I like the design of HP laptops, my dad has one. But the keyboard is horrible! I especially hate the small shift keys, who thought that one up? I have employee purchase plan through HP so I could get a really good deal on a custom configured laptop on HP's web site but because I hated the keyboard it was not to be.

My new laptop is a Toshiba A205-S7442. Yes it's only a T5250 1.5 C2D, but then again I only paid $524 for it. I upgraded the ram to 4GB for $74.99 from NewEgg. I have Vista Home Premium 32 bit and Ubunutu 8.04 64 bit dual booted. Did I mention that I really liked the keyboard? :D

I agree with the posts above about the Turion. I had originally purchased a Turion with a 2.0 dual core. It ran super hot, and then, it started hardlocking for some reason. I was going to take it back but then I had put my MSMoney on there so I felt the need to wipe the hard drive first. I bought one of those USB 2.0 dongles that will work with any kind of hard drive, and brought it home prepared to extract the hard drive from the Turion. Just then, the machine decided to start working again so I ran DBAN to do a military grade wipe and then was able to do a recovery install of Vista. Once I got it going I took the POS back and bought the cheapest Centrino Duo I could find (the above mentioned machine).
 
HPs look good, come loaded with good hardware for the price. Although, between a co-worker and a buddy of mine, they've gone through three HP laptops in maybe two to three years. All with dead or dying backlights / lcds. Friend of mine was able to get his going couple times but it eventually died for good. Another co-worker of mine has his 17" HP with a bad power plug. So, that's just my 2c worth, would I still buy one, yea maybe, just might need that extra warranty.
 
Looks are really a matter of preference. I also highly recommend Lenovo, and I think the ThinkPad style is a true classic. It has a kind of refined elegance that you don't see anywhere else. No tackiness whatsoever.

Toshiba's technical support is virtually nonexistent. They don't have a depot where you can send your laptop for repair. By comparison, when my ThinkPad had some sound issues, I sent it to the depot on Wednesday and got it back on Friday with the issue resolved.
 
I like my toshiba.. cosmetically nice looking and have never had a problem with it great customer support I would've bought a thinkpad but they were out of stock definately go IBM if not Toshiba.
 
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