Okay, so now I have gotten the go ahead from my parents to look for laptops. I am looking at the core configuration for the Dell Inspiron 1525 for $549. Would that be good for Mozilla Firefox, iTunes or Limewire and MS Word? Oh, and a little bit of gaming? Nothing big, just free stuff. To what extent could I push the onboard graphics? Also, should I get the one for $549 with 2GB of RAM, bigger hard drive, and faster processor for the stuff I need? Or is there something else? Since it is the recession my dad said $550 right now, he is waiting on something for work, so he could even boost it up to past 1k depending, but most likely he won't, so could someone help me pick a good budget laptop? He might push it to $700 max, because he can't justify spending much money on a computer (yet he pays lots to get the house painted)
(usually=key word). I say go with the most you are allowed to spend. If you are also looking for other choices, there's the HP Pavilion dv5t series in approx. that price range.