I am temporarily back from the land of silence to get your opinion on a laptop I'm looking at. Those fuckers at Geek Squad couldn't fix my computer and scratched the hell out of my case, so I'm taking it to some real professionals, IT people who work at my parent's workplace. In the meantime, I have college to consider, and looking around, I've seen a laptop that looks like the perfect system; the Alienware m11x. With 8.5 hours of battery life and a powerful NVIDIA card inside, along with a great price, it looks pretty sweet, but I still want to go over the specs of the custom build I would choose, were I to buy it, and see whether it is worth it.
Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 1.3 GHz (3MB Cache)
4GB RAM
250 GB HD
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
11.6 inch WLED screen
Internal High-Definition Surround Sound Audio (5.1)
1.3 MP Web Cam
Integrated 10/100 Network Interface Card
One thing of note is that Bluetooth is an extra $20. Would Bluetooth be worth it, and is this laptop a good buy?

Your even better bet is to haunt Dell's Outlet website until a laptop config you want shows up for a discount.

That is a very good way of finding a bargain but the odds of the exact config you want are pretty remote. It'd be ideal for a business/study PC though

i'm looking to get a portable, lightweight laptop that i can carry around all day (heavy walking involved), use for travel, is fairly cheap (prefer sub $500 usd), and has at least an 11" screen. so far i've been doing some research and looks like the acer aspire 1410 fits the bill pretty well. the 1810t is basically also the same comp with better specs for about $200 more, but it seems a little pricey for the size. anyone know of any other laptops/netbooks that would be similar to the 1410? also, is there anything coming out in the near future i should keep an eye out for? i did also take a look at the dell inspiron 11z and the asus 1201n, but the 1201n didn't have the best battery life and the 11z got fairly bad reviews in regards to the keyboard/touchpad and its battery life was also fairly mediocre.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115658
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115670&Tpk=1810t