Looking for laptop under $600 for college and light gaming (cheaper=better)

[irongoose99]

I'm looking for some advice on getting a new laptop for college which I'm going to use for coursework and a little bit of gaming (EVE Online and maybe some other games like Company of Heroes 2). I've been looking around a bunch and have actually been able to find laptops for some of my friends and their price ranges/needs but I can't find one in my price range with my needs that I'm completely sure of yet. I AM going to be building a new gaming desktop sometime 4th quarter 2013 with around a $1500 budget so I don't really know what would be the best for what I need. I've been avoiding Intel HD Graphics while searching by the way, which I guess is a good idea in my case but has reduced my options.

Here's an example of one I found:
the new laptop
HERE for $550
and the refurbished
HERE for $400
I've read the reviews and heard that HPs in general are pretty cheaply made but still, these laptops don't have very bad specs for the price: AMD A10 2.3gHz, AMD Radeon 7660m, 6GB RAM, and 750GB HDD. And I'm kind of scared of getting a refurbished laptop but the price... is so appealing. Do I need to worry about it being refurbished? I'm guessing it would be mostly about luck if I get one that was only just opened or something instead of having actually been broken.

There's also THIS but it's a little bit older.

Could anyone give me any suggestions or any links to laptops that could save me some money and/or work better for my needs? Also, I don't actually need the laptop until near the end of August, would it be a good idea to just wait until back to school sales to buy a laptop?

 

[ismaeljrp]

They have pretty good specs, you can try the refurbished if they offer a nice warranty. If not , I'd go for the new one. A quick look on Newegg, and I saw this one from Acer. It has really good specs, it's new and only 450 :
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215663