Noni,
Here's my two cents worth. DON'T buy a laptop from a small dealer in town. They usually charge more and you get less for your money. And don't buy a laptop that you have to upgrade in any way.
I have a laptop that is serving me beyond my wildest dreams. I have a desktop that I hardly ever use anymore because the laptop does everything it does and more. It's faster too, even though it's a Celeron (which I don't recommend if you can afford something faster). I'm not complaining about the Celeron speed. Because I regularly run my antivirus and some utility tools, my little machine is plenty fast. I use it mostly for building church websites.
What I have added is a desktop keyboard and mouse, so I run my laptop as though it were a desktop machine.
Now, I would recommend getting a laptop from a store like Sears. I'm in Canada, so I don't know if you also have Staples, another excellent source. You might also get a good deal at Radio Shack when they're having a sale. Here in the Toronto area, I've looked around and found that Sears generally has the best for your money. They only recently started selling computer here, so maybe they don't sell computers where you are. I've been disappointed in the inferior quality machines sold by Wal-mart. They don't have much memory compared to Sears and some others.
As I said, just my 2-cents worth. I hope you enjoy your laptop as much as I'm enjoying mine.
Frank
I'm making this suggestion because you are likely going to get a much larger hard drive and far more memory if you buy from the larger stores.
