First off dont buy an HP laptop. I work on more HP laptops than any other brand and most of the time something has went bad on the motherboard, the hard drive dies, or the power supply goes bad. If you do get a "cheap" laptop be sure to get an extended warranty because 90% of the time you will have to replace the HDD within the first 14 months of owning it and the cheap laptops tend to overheat alot quicker than a more expensive laptop. Now before saying this let me explain that I hate Dell just as much as every other tech does and will never own one but I find that the Dell laptops do well as do the Acer's and Sony's compared to most HP's, Toshiba's, and eMachine's (also would never buy an eMachine).