Need advice on a general purpose laptop that wont oveheat on me.

1. What is your budget?

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

3. What screen resolution do you want?

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

5. How much battery life do you need?

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)?

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

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.

13. What country do you live in?

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

1. Don't really have a budget yet as this is something I plan to get regardless. just really want to know what I'm getting first then I'll save up the money.

2. I don't want anything netbook sized. I would like something with a 17 inch screeen though I can probably tolerate a 15 inch.

3. I don't really care about the resolution. that said the laptops I've owned previously have been 1280x800 and I'm pretty satisfied with that.

4. the laptop doesn't need to be a desktop replacement or amazingly portable, but does need to be something I can put in a medium size rucksack and carry from place to place.

5. battery life isn't a big deal as I mostly intend to use it plugged in, but there may be times I'll need to leave it unplugged for about an hour.

6. don't want it for gaming besides maybe flash games.

7. might use it for drawing occasionally, but I would think that any basic on-board graphics would be ok for that.

8. ideally around 250gb or more if it doesn't effect price much.

9. N/a

10. I'd like the laptop to be as reliable as possible for the price, ideally I'd like it to last at least 3 years (without having to send it for repairs constantly; though i understand this probably isn't going to happen).

11. I don't necessarily need one.

12. I don't want to by from sony or dell for ethical reasons. I have worries about the quality/reliability of toshiba and compaq too but can be reassured otherwise.

13. I live in the uk, so acquiring a gateway would probably require importing if it was possible at all.

14. I'd like a uk keyboard layout, as close to that of a desktop as possible. at least usb 2 with at least 3 ports. a button to disengage the trackpad. standard wireless. I've also had a lot of trouble in the past with overheating as i tend to use them on my lap (no way right?), so i either need a laptop that doesn't produce much heat or one with good cooling. i tend to find that netbook processors are under powered so a total processor clock speed of 2ghz or more. memory wise I'm not willing to spend extra on memory upgrades because laptop companies charge huge markups for what you can buy for pennies from elsewhere. for the OS any windows is fine as long as it can be restored to factory settings if things go wrong(not sure if that includes OEM copies or not).

thanks for the help

It's unclear why you think a laptop will overheat on you but there are quite a few laptops from brand name suppliers that will meet all of your requirements which are pretty mainstream.

Depending on when you desire to buy current model Llano APU based laptops are a good value and performance. If you're not buying until '12 then AMD will have the new Trinity APU models out which have more performance and even lower power consumption - which means less heat and longer battery life.

The PC industry is very dynamic so if you're saving for a laptop things could change considerably by the time you are ready to buy.