Looking for a laptop...Any things I should look out for?

I could speak only from experience. Thus, I can review only the Gateway NV53. To be honest, I love it. There seems to be a stigma with Gateway over product failure/poor customer service, and while the screen had a dead pixel initially, they fixed it for free and shipped it back within a week and a half. The only annoying "feature" is a somewhat loud beep that plays when you plug/unplug the computer, but recently I've been considering it as a security feature. Considering I live in a suite-style dorm, the suite door is often open. If I leave my laptop plugged in (and running) in the common room and walk away, I have no discomfort because if I hear the BEEEEEP!, I know to run like the wind to the common room. Otherwise, good sound, excellent screen, nice keyboard (num pad), good battery life, little preinstalled bloatware. No bluetooth.

tl;dr: Gateway NV53 is good. I would suggest the 4GB model. If Gateway/no bluetooth aren't your cup of tea, the only other type of computer I've had had was a Dell (desktop), which is a good brand to me.

I'd stay away from Toshiba. Every Toshiba laptop I have ever touched had at least 10 Toshiba utility apps installed that, when uninstalled, broke fundamental functions of the laptop. For example, the "keyboard button manager" isn't just a utility that randomly crashes, it's the keyboard driver. Uninstall it and the media buttons on the keyboard stop working in addition to the Fn key, which means no number pad or brightness control for you anymore. It's a shame because when I was last shopping the price of their laptops was pretty competitive.

HP and Dell are two brands I like. I've never owned an HP, but I have friends that do. For some reason I feel like they tend to have the best displays, but it may just be that the case design is pretty sexy. I've used Dell laptops at home and at work, and they seem to be pretty good. Like with Gateway, Dell has a reputation for poor customer service, but I don't think it's *all* their fault. When you buy a Toshiba, you're going to be buying it from Wal-Mart or Best Buy or somewhere. If it stops working, you aren't going to fiddle with Toshiba's phone support; you'll take it back to the store and get some form of service from them. On the other hand, most Dells are purchased direct from Dell (though BB and other retailers sell them.) That means when a lemon gets shipped, you have to deal with phone support. You're already angry because the laptop's busted. Then you have to wait 45 minutes for the person to pick up. Then you have to spend 20 minutes explaining "It's broken". Then you have to spend 30 minutes on hold until someone that can do RMAs is available. It's economically infeasible for Dell to employ enough call staff to decrease the wait significantly, and they get a bad rap because you *have* to deal with the phone staff.

Thanks for confirming that Toshiba is crap. Now I know for sure not to get one (and why they suck)

My friend has a Toshiba, and judging from the feedback I got from him....I wasn't sure if I wanted one like his. Seriously, there's always something wrong with it.

An HP sounds good. I have an HP desktop at home (old as heck , though), and it's rarely let me down. Thanks a bunch Atma!

And Pineconn, I'll check out Gateway as well. Thanks.

HP's tech support was less than stellar for me in the past. One time on an old laptop I managed to step on a PC card that was inserted into the slot...the PC card still works, but the slots mysteriously stopped working after the fact. HP didn't seem to get this one through their heads and had me restore the computer to it's original operating system (which caused me to have to wipe the entire Linux install and restore the original *shudder* Windows ME installation on it...which didn't do a thing).

I own a Lenovo G530. I'm pretty happy with it. The one I linked to is the one I have, but it says it's out of stock. It was ~$380 which is a good deal for what you get. It does come with a fair share of bloatware, unfortunately, but it all went bye-bye with the Windows 7 upgrade (comes with Vista home-basic, if you didn't look at the page.). I did lose touch pad functionality though, and had to get a new driver. This actually isn't an issue since I use a USB mouse anyway. Lenovo includes a factory partition to fall back on if you fuck shit up completely, but it also has some bloatware (Norton, etc). Lenovo's website has a huge amount of drivers and support stuff, and there is even a FAQ for starting clean, and getting only the essential drivers. This is to get around the bloatware.

There is no num-pad, so if you have to to use any "Alt Characters" it's kind of awkward since you have to turn num-lock on via the Fn key, then use Alt plus the numbers up top. It has a good display, very vivid, decent viewing angle (Though if I lay on my side, and watch a movie, it kinda has that effect, but this is because of how my eyes are perceiving the screen). One thing I don't like about the keyboard lay out is that the Fn key is on the far left, and Home/ End share the Page Up/ Page Down keys (on the far right). My point is, you have to use both hands to use End or Home, and I actually use these a lot when typing. It depends on your typing style.

This probably won't be an issue with you as much since you said that you won't be doing a lot of gaming, but the general layout of the keys makes some MMO's a bit tricky. It's nothing that can't be changed in game, but the placement of some shortcut keys may be a bit awkward by default.

As far as performance goes, it runs smoothly. I'm using the 32-bit Windows 7 RC (Build 7100). There's no lag, and everything loads up pretty quickly. Start up is smooth, and it runs Linux just fine too. On Ubuntu's site, this model is listed as one of the laptops it works well with. This was a deciding factor me too, but I actually never use Ubuntu anymore.

Volume control is adjusted by either the buttons up above the keyboard, which are rather slow, or by the Fn key, and either F1, or F2. There is also a brightness mapped to the Fn FX keys, as well as some other stuff. There is a touch pad lock button too, which is nice for typing. In Windows, the default keyboard driver has a delay you can set which makes the touch pad not respond within so many seconds of a key stroke. This is to prevent your thumb accidentally tapping the pad, and messing up your position. The lock disables the touch pad completely (Yes, this includes the mouse buttons on the pad). In Ubuntu, you must use the lock, since the delay does not work. Media playback keys are mapped via Fn to the arrow keys, I never use them though.

All in all, it is a good laptop. It is a solid business laptop. It would work good for programming, and the occasional game. I'm not sure about Mass Effect, since I don't know the system requirements. The graphics chip set has some issues with Project 64, like there is no way to toggle anti-aliasing, which makes some textures not show up. I have not run any high end games (Unless you consider GTA:SA high end, which runs fine) so I'm not really sure how it handles them. EDIT: It runs Dragonica, and other 3D MMO's fine though, on high/ decent settings.

I just bought a laptop from Acer for $800. The Acer Aspire 8735G-6502. I highly recommend it, or probably any other Acer product. (I've also used their monitors, extremely high value) 4 gigs of ram, NVidia GeForce GT 240m, core 2 duo. The screen is 18.4 inches, so its a pretty big laptop. But at the same time, its amazingly light. The laptop I had before this was an Alienware, with a smaller screen that weighed at least 15 lb's more. It will of course easily serve your programming needs, and its damn good for gaming too.

Thanks a lot guys!

I've had an ASUS G1P for the last 3-4 years and it's been great! I use it almost every day and drag it from home to work and to school on the week days.

Sorry I'm a bit late. I'm with Atma on HP. I've only ever owned HP products. I've had one lemon HP, but thats over 5 HP computers I've owned. I still have my first laptop, which I bought in 2004. I still use it and it still runs great for what I need it to do. Yeah, I can't use all the latest software and fun stuff with it just because the tech is old, but it works great for watching Netflix direct to computer movies on my TV and playing older games like Diablo II. My desktop is an HP and I've had it since 2006. Its still the fastest computer in my house and I have a new laptop.

I'm jumping on the HP bandwagon too. I love my HP laptop.

I also like HP. I've had two HP laptops now, both were fairly cheap and both have served me reliably. 😊

I rather enjoy my MacBook. I can do what I need, easily and without hassle. The only problem I have is that the hard drive is a bit small, but that's just cause it's so old.