Basic Rules

I'm often asked for advice on buying computers. This was a recent response by me to such a request and it sums up my philosophy pretty succinctly (applicable for most folks who don't have special computing needs):

Basic rules.

Computers are "disposable." By limiting yourself to $500-$600, you can replace them every three years or so and get a new much better one each time (as opposed to spending $1500 and realizing it's outdated in a year or two).

With laptops, bigger is usually cheaper. 15 inch is cheaper than 14 inch which are cheaper than 13 inch. I'd shoot for a 15 incher to get the best deal unless you'll be travelling a lot and need more portability.

Stick to Intel Pentium processors (vs AMD). There's an entry level Intel processor called "Celeron" but avoid that. It's old and slow.

In the Pentium hierarchy, the one to shoot for is "Core 2 Duo" - don't be confused by the "Dual Core" which is one step below the Core 2 Duo. The speed will range from 2ghz to 2.5 ghz. As long as its a Core 2 Duo, you can go for the cheapest one (ie, the slowest ghz).

You should have at least 2 gigs of ram, and 250 gig hard drive.

I personally would upgrade to N speed wireless. Most cheap laptops come with G speed wireless cards but since you live in a multi story house the N will give you much better performance. This is about a $30-$50 upgrade. Well worth it. To use the wireless in your laptop you'll need a wireless router. N routers are now on sale for between $50 and $75. The router is a one time purchase that should last you through your next several computers.

All other specs are pretty much irrelevant (meaning the minimum ones are fine).