A laptop computer can accommodate a standard 2.5 inch solid state drive. I've replaced several 2.5 inch laptop hard disk drives with solid state drives for clients.
In your price range I would recommend the new Samsung SATA 3 6Gb/s 256GB 840 EVO with the new "Rapid Mode" feature:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248
Last Friday newegg had a special promotion. The ssd was on sale for $129.99. That is the lowest price I have ever seen for that model. If you are patient and don't mind waiting a bit newegg will probably repeat the special promotion.
I maintain the ssd database listed in a sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:
http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html...