Toshiba Satellite L355-S7835 17-Inch Laptop (2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

After shopping around a bit, and reading some reviews, this is the laptop that I purchased as my Christmas gift from my husband. I have never worked on a laptop before, didn't have any idea what it would be like, and have no other laptop experience with which to compare. I am a teacher and we just got a wireless router, so I started thinking how great it would be to have another computer in the house. My primary use for my laptop is to input grades, surf the web, search for lessons, create and manipulate Word and Excel documents/lessons, work on my new hobby - digital scrapbooking, and play a few games. I wanted to be able to do all this from my comfy chair in the living room or anywhere else around our house. My main requirements were for a large screen, easy to type keyboard and ten key pad, and powerful enough to do anything I can do on my 4 yr old basic HP desktop could do...at the same speed. I wasn't going to spend a ton of $$ since I had no idea if I would use/like it, or how much.
Well, I don't just like it, I love it!! It does everything I wanted and is, in actuality, faster than my desktop. I have used it for a minimum of 2 to 3 hours everyday since we bought it. I did purchase a wireless mouse because I am still uncomfortable using the touch pad...it works fine...I'm just more comfortable with my mouse. It is a bit heavy and is a very large laptop, but I am comfortable using on my lap and plan to order an "airdesk" so that I can get it off my lap for times when I will be on the computer for longer amounts of time. The laptop has been everything as advertised, and has done everything I wanted it to do.

I picked up this laptop from Wal-Mart on 12-10-08 for $598 in store. I love the 17" screen, and the speed of laptop. The only downside I have found is that it does not have a firewire port. But other than that, this was a great fit for me.