Honestly, any of the i# processors should suit your intended uses just fine. I personally would look for a laptop in the $450-800 range. Much lower and it won't last as long as you want, and odds are if you spend any higher you either won't use the extra features, or it will end up breaking. I'd rather buy a $500 laptop every 4 years than try to make a $1000 laptop last 8. I personally wouldn't go with a laptop with 3GB of RAM as it probably ships with a 32-bit OS and thus severely limits its upgradability. If this link works, it will take you to a product search that shows what I think are decent choices. So basically here's what I recommend: Processor: Intel i# or AMD Phenom - Both of these have a large cache which is arguably more important than their speed. They both have strong enough integrated graphics for all of the tasks you have listed. If you compile a lot of code on this, you'll want a quad core. The i# will probably have better performance and battery life. Memory: >4GB - Ensure that you get a 64-bit OS. 4GB is the norm right now, so anything less will feel light in years to come Hard drive: This all depends on what you're doing. If you stick with one OS, don't run virtual machines, and don't carry around your entire music and video collection with you, then 320GB is enough. If you do any of the above, you might want at least 500GB. A second hard drive bay is a nice feature to see in laptops The main difference between Win7HP and Win7Pro is that Pro can do XP Mode, HP can't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions[^] Now