[autotravis]

Hmm... that's a tough price range. The two laptops I bought in that range (Gateway MT6729 and HP dv6700, i think) were bought in 2008 and are long gone. They lasted all of 2 years max, so I would consider them to be of low quality. And that's the problem with ~$500 machines.

I don't use MacBooks anymore because they make it difficult for me to get a Linux distro on them, but I have had two and they lasted considerably longer. Unfortunately, there seems to be a high correlation with increase in price and increase in quality.

So it's not pretty, but I have had good luck with a thinkpad once upon a time (at a higher price point). So in the end, here is my tangible recommendation: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834310...

[BenWhit]

The laptop I have now..or had..is an HP Dv7. I missed the recall date on the Motherboard problems and it just recently died on me. It lasted about 2 years but I'd like to avoid HP's if I can. I added the last part about linux distro because its why I tend to avoid Macs (the price too), but what about running a VM instead of dual-boot?

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions!

[autotravis]

VMs are always an option, but I'm also an efficiency maniac, so running two OS's and the decrease in battery life that comes with that bothers me.

[rman666]

Pretty impressive! What if the needs were the same but the price point was increased to say $750 max?