PLEASE help me pick a laptop SOON!!

I've yet to find all three qualities for that price. But you did make some OK choices.

Can you tell us more about durable? Some need those TOUGHBOOKS since they are too rough on these machines.
Bob

You can find some laptops that will fit the bill, but you most likely won't find them in that price range - not going to say you won't absolutely, but probably not.

You might want to give this new Windows tool a try, though. It's called PC Scout and it lets you use sliders and whatnot to change the search criteria and then spits out the laptops that are in that range. It's kinda cool.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pc-scout/laptop-set-criteria.aspx?mode=landing

Cheers,

Ron

You going to have trouble with the price range when it comes to speed and reliability. My advice is, go to Best Buy, and try out all the machines there. Even the desktops. Then, take home the one that fits your needs best.

Reason I said desktops is that you'll very likely find that they happen to be a good deal cheaper and include much better components than the laptops. In a laptop, your paying for a battery and an ultra thin LCD panel. I also suspect they charge more because laptops are so popular. For you, however, it looks like you don't really need one.

buy the Asus because of the battery life. Everything else is about the same on those laptops. I would go test them out at Best Buy to see if there are things you like. I was torn between Asus and Hp and going to play with the HP i discovered I like the sound better and that wasn't listed in the specs.