Help with choosing Laptop ~$600

1_What is your budget? ~$600

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15-17"

3_What screen resolution do you want? Doesn't really matter higher the better

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? doesn't matter prolly will just sit on a desk maybe some usage on long trips

5_How much battery life do you need? as much as I can get would be nice

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? I'm not playing any games right now but would like to keep it an option just incase one comes out that I like. Medium settings is fine

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) maybe some photo editing with gimp, watching movies, homework, net you know basic college stuff.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? doesn't matter higher the better ( I have 640gb ext so I have storage.)

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them. http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/365238/Toshiba-Sa...

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? as long as I can


11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? dvdrw is fine would like bluray but prolly out of price range

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. Don't know much about laptop brands hence why I'm here.

13_What country do you live in? USA


So how is this model of Toshiba? How is the 230M gpu. Notebookchecker shows it as pretty decent gpu but I don't know a whole lot about benchmarking. Does anyone know a cheap place to get maybe a 2ndary battery at? I'm open to suggestions. Also is there new tech around the corner (gpu, cpu from amd) or is it far off? Thanks for your time