MArcomage

I'm buying a laptop for my other half, and I've had a very limited experience with those.
I've done a ton of research, but Christmas time is coming, and coming fast.
We're on tight budget here, somewhat under 850$.

I'm looking for a good screen(!), and at lest 1 usb 3.0 port. Touchpad is irrelevant, sound is partly irrelevant.

I think it will be Intel i3 2310m-2330m or i5 2410m-2430m with 4G of ram, running original or maybe pirated home premium. No dedicated gfx card, only integrated HD 3000.

Any negative votes, like "don't but Toshiba" or "my Dell inspiron died in a month" will help too.
I'm very savvy when it comes to desktop PCs so technical characteristics are not a concern.
Too bad you can't just bild your own laptop like pc. No barebones available at the market now.

Will it be for gaming? I'm not up-to-speed on current laptop tech, but I will tell you from my wife buying one every few years that the most important thing for a gaming laptop is the graphics system specifics. If it's an integrated Intel chipset (as most inexpensive ones seem to be), then you have slim to no options of improving or upgrading the graphics.

I'd have to ask her for more specifics later. If it's not intended for (modern) gaming, then I have nothing to offer.

No gaming, no. But aside from the gaming thing - which one of your wife's laptops was superior in terms of feel and display?

(Wife steals the keyboard)

The one I'm actually most pleased with is an Acer. Granted, that's partly because it's a gaming laptop, but it's also both a good price and hasn't, y'know, exploded or anything. Previous laptops included a refurbished Compaq which has a problem somewhere in the sound connection (more likely attributable to the fact that it's refurbished) and, way back in the day, a Fujitsu that served me very well for many a year.

I currently also have a Dell work laptop. I've never been a big fan of Dell personally, but if you're not looking for gaming, they're fairly good price. My favorite professor also loves them, because they do have a fairly nice support system--they'll do things like remote desktop into your computer to fix it if need be, and they're fairly easy to upgrade hard drives and the like.

I have a soft spot in my heart for HPs, but they do have a habit of loading all sorts of unnecessary stuff on the machine and they're quite expensive. I'm heartened by their new dedication to actually producing and supporting their machines, though. Still, I had two desktops from them die within two years, so you can take that into consideration.

In summary:
Acer-top rating
Dell-meh, not bad
HP - ehhhhh
Fujitsu - was fantastic a decade ago, I'll give it that!

Thank for such a detailed post, you've reinforced some of my insights.

One more thing maybe? What's the screen size which works best for you? Thanks.

(More keyboard theft)

Since I game on my laptops, the bigger the better. But if you're not doing any modern gaming on it, 15" is a pretty reasonable size. If it's leaning toward mostly word processing or the like, 13" would be sufficient, but if it's more along the lines of web surfing, a screen that small makes some web pages uncomfortable.

Good luck in your search!

Christmas is behind us, but no laptop yet :)

Well, her birthday is on new year's actually (31/12)

And the final pick (in case if someone's interested) is:

Dell Xps 17 for 805$
i5 2430m
4gb ram
500gb hdd

I hope to shake down some 60$ from the price at the store tomorrow. :)

After some time I have to say it was an appropriate present
works fine , has good sound and an ok 17'screen

also it had Geforce550M on board, so gaming is possible, although not initially intended