Looking for a solid multipurpose laptop 500-700 dollars

[metrico]

Hey, my current laptop after three years is on the fritz. Am in need of a replacement but I'm getting overwhelmed at how many laptops are out there.

Was looking for a good solid laptop in the 500-700 dollar range, hopefully somewhere in the middle around 600ish. Looking for about 4-6 gigs memory and 500-750 hardrive, dedicated graphics and decent sound.

I'm a writer so I'm often on computer doing scripts, listening to music or watching media at once. I also dapple in graphics so have photoshop type programs open a bit. Really just want a well balanced multi-media machine that won't kill my wallet and is high quality/sturdy so I don't have to replace it so soon. I saw a laptop that fit everything I wanted at Best Buy with Beats Audio, it was an HP but I know HP is renowned for their pretty design but shoddy materials (ie they blow quick/prone to breakage) so I didn't buy it.

I'm not a huge gamer but I'll play some games from time to time if something comes out and it looks cool. My current laptop struggled running 'From Dust' and others as well, so a bump up would be nice.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

 

[americanbrian]

i can't recommend this enough:

http/www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-RC512-S02-15-6-Laptop-i7-2GHz-6GB-RAM-750GB-HD-Blu-Ray-NVIDIA-GT-525M-/200795909868?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item2ec05e6eec

Or in fact any of the ones on with the sandy bridge i series and a geforce gt 525m. It is a solid GPU, with essentially an identical GPU to the 550m with (artificially) lowered clocks. I overclock my 525m to match the 550m with no issues.

This particular one stands out as having blu-ray, larger HDD, and more RAM and a better CPU than others in the same price range.

I upgraded my dell n5110 to have a 2720qm (with MX-3 TIM), 8gb (2x4Gb for dual channel) and a 240GB sata3 ssd. It is superior to my desktop in many ways.