I have a Dell laptop (700m) that I love. It's name is Shiny
(is anyone really surprised?)
I have a cd/dvdrw drive and an extended battery.
It's 3 years old and I have about an hours worth of battery life when it is unplugged. The battery was a 5 hour battery when I got it.
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I recommend that you buy the extended warranty + accidental coverage. The accidental coverage covers you if you drop it or spill stuff on it and the warranty is for the monitor.
I've played around on the Dell websites recently and their stock computers are nice machines. I would say buy only the memory that comes standard with it and then go to
newegg and buy some to upgrade. All it involves is unscrewing the memory bay on the back (2 small Phillips head) and popping the memory in.