What laptop would you suggest for a college student like me?

There is really not a lot of difference any more. A Mac is easy to use and will run all of the PC stuff, but there expensive. I'd go with a Toshiba if your moderatly familiar with PC's.

Dell dun make the lightest laptops, but since u re on a budget, it's XPS M1330 is quite a nice machine too...

for ur requirement, even the basic configuration will be able to handle the job pretty well...

however, some of the upgrades are nice to have:

CPU: i would suggest to get a Core 2 Duo T8000 family, it has an improved architecture compared to the older T7000 family and T5000 family

Graphic: if i remember correctly, the best graphic card u can get is a GeForce 8400M GS, though it's only a low-end card, it still delievers, especially when u want to watch HD video or play some games on the laptop, it's much better than the integrated GMA X3100

RAM: settle for no less than 2GB, but the more the merrier...

Dell Inspiron 1420

I would agree with all of those posters that said (the best) PC.

Why a PC? Because most schools' servers do not support Apple's, and if you decide to write exams using your laptop, Exam4, the primary exam-writing software, does not support anything but PCs.

Best of Luck.

mac book air (but this cannot play DVDs without an external drive)

dell xps m1330 (at moderate settings would cost less)

sony vaio ($$$EXPENSIVE$$$)

DELL Inspiron 1420 is the best because it has all the features and still costs less than all the above laptops. But style is missing by very little amount.

Considering your needs, I would most definitely go with a subnotebook/mini-laptop. The best line on the market right now would be the ASUS Eee.

http://eeepc.asus.com/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...

toshiba are good.. get the 13 inch toshiba.. its nice and light.. and fast too... if you want Dell is cheaper but my experience with them was a nightmare... but the new ones should be pretty good.. check them out. Sony and Apple are way too expensive. Hp are pretty good, but I don't like their keyboard config. Good Luck with everything and hope all works out for you. God bless.

something around 500 dollars, but you can find a good one in the flea market. finally you need the pc like text processor and you can find few very good for 200 or 300 with office included.

You can fry and egg on a dell, get a compaq or if you want a bit more performance, geta asus FTW!

any laptop with followng specification will do for you unless you like graphics and gamings

pentium processor

100gb harddisk

1 gb ram

dats it

it will cost you around 1000$