buying first laptop

[plumber4578]

I am looking into buying a laptop for the first time. My daughter is going off to college and needs one. Wouldn't be anything special. Just need something to do basic computing and internet. What's my best deal? I was lookin on Newegg and there cheaper models only had 512 RAM. Would that be enough? How easy is it too upgrade RAM on a Laptop? I also looked at DELL's cheaper models and they didn't seem bad. They had a gig or 2 or RAM.

[aaronkupen]

Ram isn't too difficult to replace on most laptops. Most laptops now come with vista, and if she is going to be just doing basic computing get 1 GB of ram and it will be perfectly fine. I'd say 2 gigs of ram would be overkill for your daughter's needs as would a high end system. Look around on newegg and on the dell website like you have been doing.

[Law]

Plus at least 120Gig of hard drive space, I know 60 or 80 isn't really enough giving the amount of music teenagers download.

[jorsoft03]

Something like this should be fine:
Newegg.com - HP Pavilion dv6325us (RV004UA) NoteBook AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52(1.60GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 1GB 120GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 - Retail
or if you want a bit more future proofing, go with a core 2 duo model like this:
Newegg.com - ASUS F3 Series F3F-AP112C NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T5500(1.66GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 1GB DDR2 667 120GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel GMA950 - Retail

Make sure you get at least 1gb of ram. Laptop memory is very easy and cheap to upgrade in the future should you wish too.
If she's going off to college, for reliability purposes, I'd recommend you to stick with the more dependable brands such as Toshiba, Asus, HP, Sony, etc. I'd stay away from value brands such as Acer and Everex as they're generally not as dependable. I can guarantee it'll ave you a few headaches down the road.