Laptop recommendations

I'm in the market for laptop suggestions. The graphics card died in my last laptop and therefore I need a new one to play Guild Wars on and to haul around college with me. Intended usage: playing occasional dvd, listening to music, writing papers, using powerpoint/excel/access/etc,browsing the internet. Stuff of that nature.

I'd like not to spend over $500.

Anyone have any recommendations?


So far Im currently looking at this: (Yes, currently sold out. Havent looked elsewhere yet to see if I can find it yet. Probably will after I post this.) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834115654

here's a really good price at under $400 - just remember you are basically buying specs that were standard 2 yr ago, so don't expect to do anything to intense with it. With that said this laptop should still perform well for what you have said you want to do with it.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...904&CatId=4938

here is a more powerful laptop, better processor and RAM among other things, but it's also $500 and has Intel 4500 graphics, which will run GW, but not as well as the above laptop and won't get as far with other games either... but hey, options are good to have...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...688&CatId=4939

If you can stand to wait a few months, Q1 2010 laptops are expected to incorporate a number of major hardware changes, including the new Arrandale processors (dual-core Nehalem with integrated GPU and AES acceleration) and SDXC readers.

I'd stay away from anything with Intel graphics for now. Intel have improved their integrated graphics, but you're still better off with nVidia or AMD/ATI.