General Laptop Advice From An Old Pro.

Thank you very much for your time spent with this thread. I will look forward to receiving your advice.

I currently have a Dell Inspiron 1525 that I purchased in Jan 09 with the following:
Intel Core 2 Duo T5800, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 2M L2 Cache
4GB, DDR2 SDRAM, 2 DIMM
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
320G 5400RPM Samsung Hard Drive
It is a 32 bit system

I recently checked in Task Manager and even with my accounting program open, two browsers open and a graphics program open it was showing CPU usage at around 43% with 74% of physical memory used. I am still showing about 160GB free of memory on my hard drive.

I run Peachtree Manufacturing and do quite a bit of web use as I run my website, my blog and do my materials purchasing online. (I have a small business where I make handmade soap.) Oftentimes I will have multiple tabs and even browsers open at the same time. I also do a fair amount photo editing for my website, blog and printed materials, a small amount of video editing and frequently use graphics programs such as Print Artist and Windows Publisher to produce my product labels. I also use my computer for MS Outlook and do some social networking with programs such as Seesmic as well as Facebook online, etc.

I have started considering purchasing a new laptop because it seems that the programs and/or internet pages will either run very slowly or even often "hang" where the system says the program or the page is "not responding" and I have just to sit there and wait for it to catch up.

I have read the reviews of the Toshiba Portege R835-P70 which I thought were very positive and Best Buy now has it for $729.99 (I apologize, I was going to put a link here to that page but can't get it to insert for some reason.)

Some of the other reasons I was considering the Toshiba is because if I am going to get a new laptop I would like to get one as light as possible that will still "run" everything I need at a good speed and that has good battery life. I attend market on a regular basis and my Dell gets to feeling pretty heavy, particularly when hauling other stuff up to the showroom at the same time. In addition it seems to have pretty much zilch battery life and I would like to be able have a laptop that is not so tied to an electrical outlet.

I am not a gamer but do depend on my computer to run and manage my business so the speed issue has gotten extremely frustrating.

Do you agree that upgrading to a new laptop is my answer to a smooth operating experience with the programs on my computer? And if so do think the Toshiba would fit the bill or would you make another recommendation. As a small business owner price is very important as well and I would like to keep it no more than the $729. Less would be great!

I hope I have given you enough information to offer me some direction.

I appreciate your time and assistance!

Sincerely,

Susan