Well altho dell might be your style, you should still look in to it. I recently got a dell Inspiron 9300 Notebook. I customized it the way I wanted and it got here in about 2 days ground UPS. its got good specs, but I need a biger battery because with the processor and g-card it drains wayyyy to quick. Its got: Windows xp Media Center Edition SVP2 Intel Centrino Mobile 2.0 ghz 1.0 gb of ram Hitachi 51.1gb hard Drive Samsung(I belive) dvd+rw Came with a internal wirless card Ethernet and modem digital video out 6 usb ports 17.4 inch wide screen lcd 256mb Nvidia geforce 6800 go graphics card (I belive) .... All in all, a very nice computer, and i got if for $1700 with the rebates and things dell offers and I'm sure you can get a student discount. Also if you want gaming, Acer and http://www.monarchcomputer.com might have something