looking to buy a new laptop. could use your help.

I have an HP G60 with maxed out ram and the best sound card and graphic card available with a 250 GB harddrive. It's got a 16in screen [widescreen]. It's durable [dropped it six times and it still works perfect] and always runs at optimum speed. I got a twelve cell battery so battery life is about 5.5 hours. I never have to worry about heating issues [always stays cool] so I never had to buy a cooling pad. Without my discounts I think it was about 500USD. Love my computer. I recommend HPs, but really recommend the G60.

I know people with 5400 rpm harddrives in their computers and they are okay with it, you should just be aware that it will then be the hard drive which is single most limiting factor regarding how fast you computer is. So it is quite possible that you will not care about the increase in speed since you are buying a cheap laptop anyway and therefor probably do not expect to get the fastest laptop.

It is simple just important to *me* that you know this, so you do not ignore it like most other people I know.

righto thankyou

I've got a Studio XPS 13 which has DDR3 and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive (you can probably find one refurbished on ebay or overstock), and well, I say it isn't really that much faster. Yeah, give or take, it might cut the boot time by a quarter and certain programs load up faster, but really don't let the 7200RPM hard drive determine which laptop you are going to get. Get the best one overall, and that is what I regret with my purchase. Although mine's a super fast laptop, the cosmetics are well... not holding up too well. High gloss = huge fingerprint magnet.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Studio-XPS-13-1340-P8600-2-4GHz-4GB-320GB-Warranty_W0QQitemZ260549472286QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item3ca9f5701e
If the Studio XPS 13 interests you..

Looks like your price range is around ~$650, and for a budget speed machine, I would recommend this:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=211467354&listingid=67621374

Granted the battery life isn't spectacular, refurbished, and the RAM is a little slow, but overall a very fast computer. Might be overkill if you don't play games ;)

Good luck with your search!