Looking for a laptop, were to start?

[luciusad2004]

Hey guys.

School starts up soon, and quite frankly my 600 Mhz Ibook isn't going to cut it. I'm going to be looking in to purchasing a laptop and was wondering were i should start. Should i check some of the major tech websites and read reviews, or would it be better to search around at a retailer and see what kind of deals i can find and then check out some reviews?

I guess the best place to start is to figure out what I'm going to use it for.


Web
Office and all your basic school stuff.
Music.
I would like it to be powerful enough to do some basic programming, nothing crazy though.
Definitely want wireless, but that seems standard now a days.
Don't have a huge budget, I'm going to say $700 - $1000 but I'm not sure on the budget yet.


I can't think of anything else I'll be doing at the moment.
So were should i go from here? Any help on what i should look for or were to start looking?

Thanks for any advice.

Edit: Ok, Ive been looking around and was wondering if this would be some decent specs for what i want to do.


AMD Turnion 64 X2 TL-58 1.9G
1 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 Shared memory.
5400 RPM Sata hard disk. (not sure what size i want yet)
15.4 Inch display 1280 x 800 resolution.


If you need more info let me know, Thanks

[D1337]

its good, but like most laptops they shouldn't be used for gaming or lots a streaming video's.

Im guessing your in college to need the laptop, ask the school to see if the loan out laptops, and if you dont go with that route. I would look for the most cpu and ram, rather then graphics, i hate waiting seconds for an application to open.(i avoid laptops like the plague)

theres alot of back to school deals, so it shouldnt be too hard.