Best cheap laptop for running Second Life & SAM 4?

[johnlee]

I have a budget of $500 USD. I want something that will play phoenix viewer and V2 of secondlife, and also be able to handle my classwork (I'm a web design major in college) and SAM 4. I need a long battery life, preferably a long life in general. I also HAVE something with good customer service. I don't care if it's plain, or big or small as long as it has space to also handle my secondlife photography things (I use picnik, photoscape and gimp). I am aware that the secondlife specifications aren't that demanding but it's important to me to be able to run it AND sam since I DJ there. I would prefer not having to have a compaq or HP, as those brands I've had awful experience with, as well as Dell and gateway. I've heard good and bad about ASUS and Toshiba, but I'm still unsure and i don't trust the salespeople to tell me the truth since the last place i went sold me a laptop that started failing the day after i bought it and burned out a year later when the motherboard melted (HP).

[DaveLembke]

Last person who had a tight budget and specific application needs I sent to bestbuy. Bestbuy has a 14 day return policy. So you can try out a model at home, and if it doesnt perform to your likings, you can bring it back and trade it in at full value towards the next better and have another 14 days. When it comes to gaming or intense graphics, your battery life will dive no matter what laptop you have. For gaming and graphics you will want to be plugged in and expect to have lots of heat pumping out of vent. Otherwise you might have 1 hour of gaming or intense animated graphics off the battery. Just make sure you dont leave any important data on the laptop if you return it as the geek squad isnt very good and cleaning up your returned systems before selling it as a discount to the next person. Check with sales associate to make sure this is still their policy of return to trade in for next better if not satisfied. They give you a slip that says you have 14 days, vs word of mouth!!