Quote Originally Posted by masamuneehs
true, Bill. I was very vague...

My price range is, all told 1.5K (including a good carry case and probably a virus protection).
You're looking at a mid-range laptop then, from my price-lookup. Midrange is subjective term though, I should add.

I have an external HD that fits about 220GB on it, and I figure I can always burn DVDs too. But I really have no idea how large the files I'd be downloading would be.(I've seen single episodes almost 2 GBs big!) I would store videos of the anime I'm watching, of course... I figure it would be cheaper to buy another external further down the road.
Most laptops in that price range have a decent sized disk at worst. I'd expect 128GB to be the minimum for that price tag. If you're given the option of lower HDD space for a better CPU or vice versa, I'd take the CPU. Space can be made (or bought later), processing power will haunt you for the life of the comp.
I would like a Blu-Ray Drive, I think.
At that price, I think a bluray drive would be really hard to find. It's considered a luxury item, generally reserved for full-on laptops with 19" screens or something, tons of processing power etc. (not that it necessitates those things to use bluray, but that's the trend.) Maybe you could customise it?

Basically, though, I just want to get an idea about what brands out there are good, which ones to avoid, stuff like that. If there are any specific features that have come out in the past 4-5 years that I should look at. Thanks for the help
I'm no good with brands. All I remember is some article (I think it was a Yahoo! tech one), and according their info, Asus and Toshiba laptops had the lowest hardware problems (disregarding warranty status at time of notification). All I can say is to read some reviews about this.

Features....well things like webcams and mic may be convenient, depending on how often you use them.

More useful would be wireless N if you've got a home setup with a w/less n router for higher speeds. If you've got one (wireless router with n or draft-n specs, I'm sure you already know about w/less n stuff.)

The only other thing worth mentioning that comes to mind is bluetooth connectivity. If you like using a wireless mouse with your laptops, then this may be something to consider. Advantage over traditional w/less USB mouse is that it frees up a USB port. In some cases, these ports may not be very numerous. Your external HDD would use up one already, for example.

Have you ever considered a mac?