I am planning on buying a new laptop..What can you guys recommend that I buy?
Laptops with
-built in camera
-lots of memory
-lightweight (I'm tiny so I want to carry something small and handy)
-fast
-not too expensive

My friend recommend this black friday sales: http://blackfriday2009sale.info/inde...aptop&store=10 @ bestbuy

what should I watch out and which one should i choose?

Please help. I am clueless about buying laptops.

I have a new Toshiba(my first NEW laptop), and while it is probably bigger than what you want, and lacks a webcam, it works great. It came with Vista, but that was remedied easily enough.
If mine is representative, their product quality is pretty good, and many of their models do have webcams and whatnot.

My kids have a Dell mini 10v.It has 160gb of hard drive mem.It runs linux mint just remember to install cheese.They love their dells.

I would stay as far away from dell as I could I had a dell mini v10 and could not find a driver for the wifi card
dell would not even tell me the the name of the wifi driver none of the drivers I could find on line would work with nswrapper and the help(less ) line coped an attude for me even asking all I could get out of them was we did not install linux on it we are not supporting linux on it ! the place I got it from would not tack it back just because it would not do what I got it for so I cooked it to death then took it back

I have a toshiba satellite A205-S5000 other than the dial up modem (I can't find the the modem with software)
every thing works with 100% linux drivers
no web cam BUT a usb web cam would be alot more flexible than a built in would be anyway and cheaper to

Thanks, i am not familiar with any brands before!

you have to give a little bit more detail on the specs, how big? or how small?? etc. always cheap doesnt mean anything .... cheap for a some people is expensive for other....price range?

Personally i'd recommend these brands:
1. Toshiba
2. Asus
3. HP

NOT!: DELL nor Acer

but thats just personal experience

I am considering the Toshiba 16" Laptop listed in that link, what do you think?

Anyone??

I'm not sure to which one, exactly, you're referring; I can't tell which one it is on that site. The Satellites all look pretty decent. Mine works great with Slackware; I imagine any of them should work.

Probably work out just fine. I am not sure how Linux friendly toshibas are but I have not heard anything bad either. In reality there are only a few systems out there right now that have some issues and there mostly just netbooks not full laptops. The lenovo s10e has a web cam but its pretty small so I dunno how much usability it would have for you. I use mine so much I sold my laptop and its very very Linux friendly.

You mentioned in your first post that you were looking for something small and handy. I don't really think that a 16" notebook fits the bill.

I'm a college student myself, my first laptop in freshman year was a 17" Acer, and honestly, I deeply regret buying it. 17" is a nice size for your dorm room, but it's just too large to take out on the road (and I think this goes for 16" as well).
Usually notebooks that size are meant to be desktop replacements, and don't last very long on battery power.

My advice: Unless you're primarily going to use it in a dorm room, look for something in the 12-15" segment, with a nice 8-cell battery.
I just ordered a Dell 13z myself, but as it hasn't arrived yet, I can't advise you to get one of those).

If you're looking for something to take notes with in class, the battery and size of the screen/notebook are important.

The Acer Timeline and Dell z series boast battery life of 10 hours+ , so maybe that's worth looking into.

One more thing: I recently came across an interesting chart of laptop malfunctions, ordered by manufacturer (the chart is on page 6):
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/S...ility_1109.pdf
(this is based on information from an independent laptop insurance company)

While I have no personal experience with the other brands, I can attest to the flimsiness of my Acer, it was really cheap, but after only 3 years, it's literally falling apart, and I'd like to think I took good care of it.

I hope I've helped you find the right notebook for you.
Happy shopping!

Don't pay too much attention to brand names. Most of the hardware used is generic.
Look for nvidia graphics and atheros, intel, and ralink wireless. These are well supported in linux.
Do your eyes a favour and buy the biggest machine you are comfortable packing around. 13 inch I consider minimum for extended use.

Nothing wrong with Acer although I will admit some models are more flimsy. I have three. The newest one (aspire 8730g) runs linux wonderfully. They have a strong lineup of netbooks and small laptops with the newer ones sporting led displays and long battery life. They are quite often cheaper than the competition so shopping around is a must.
I have an hp g-60 16 inch which I adore. Runs linux well.

What is the college student's major? I would recommend at least a 12 inch monitor regardless. A webcam is nice, but not really necessary in my opinion. Also, make sure the keyboard feels comfortable. Otherwise, you'll have to purchase a separate keyboard when you do extensive typing.

If the upper extent of the computer use will be word processing, get whatever you want. Brands do not really matter, but I tend to avoid Dell - mainly because they are usually overpriced compared to other brands.

For science, engineering, math, graduate level economics, etc. I would recommend the following regardless of the brand
64 bit CPU
dual core
Max Memory Capacity = 4GB or more
gigabit ethernet (10/100/1000) <--- nice but not necessary
wifi capable
DVD read/write
3 or more USB, try to aim for 4 USB slots