My wife has had a bad run with laptops in the past six or so years - what it amounts to is that we're never getting a Dell again if we can help it.

Here is what we're looking for:

1. A good manufacturer's warranty. This shit is crucial.

2. Excellent hardware reliability.

3. Good battery life, preferably excellent battery life to make it easier for her to take notes when she's at school.

4. Has to be available in Canada.

5. Smallish form factor - 15" is the upper limit, here.

6. Preferably at about $1000 or less.

7. Very optional this last one, but the possibility of a Solid State Drive being built in would be fantastic.

My wife's computer uses are primarily down to writing, taking notes, watching HD videos, and storing years and years worth of information and pictures and music grabbed off the internet. Mild gaming is a perk, not a necessity.

I'm looking at the Toshiba Portege, maybe in the R800 series. Is that good? Somebody help me, I've only had one laptop for the past five years and I can't offer her solid advice.

Okay from looking at what you want, my guess would to get a Netbook, they are petty cheap, have long battery life and are not bad. But instead of getting the cheapo netbooks aim higher to get the extra screen real estate. Asus has good laptops with global warranty.

But you can always get a macbook, apple are expensive but they have good hardware reliability, battery life and i am sure there warranty is good as well.

screw her buy your self a cheap hooker jks :) get a toshiba there the ultimate laptop for a cheap price

A netbook, eh? And ASUS?

Well, what comes recommended for ASUS netbooks?

does she play games? if not, go for this one http://www.compuplus.com/ACER-AO722-BZ197WIN7-HOME-PREMIUM64BMICROSOFT-1192082.html $315 after shipping and can handle simple games at least. If she wants to play new games, wait 'til next year when the new APU machines come out. Remember to uninstall any bullshit she doesn't need on there though. wait, canada, gimme a bit. nope, not on newegg.ca.

ps: pretty sure they got the model in canada though, you just gotta search for it. don't know much about canada sites etc, just know tax is still a whopping 13% after going down like 2%.

Did some research, grabbed her a 1215N. Looks like it should suit her needs at a reasonable price. Thanks, guys!

dood, atom is not the way to go right now, you wanna hit up the c50, it does 1080p video better and is very low power consumption while offering better overall performance.

Elaborate, if you don't mind - I don't know what the c50 is.

The C50 is one of the names of a new CPU/GPU configuration that AMD just came out with, they just call it APU now, it's a single chip solution that would offer the same performance of a CPU with discrete GPU setup at the same price volume or better, which results in lower power draw and price while maintaining a very respectable performance. The 1215n is an atom with nvidia ion at a much higher price % vs performance compared to the one I linked. you are basically paying 150+ more for roughly the same performance and a screen that's not even one inch bigger. Also, they can go up to 4GB of ram if you feel the need to go that high while the Atom is maxed at 2GB, and with the money you'd save, you can get something better sooner in the next few years too. The netbook I linked can run for 6 hours on balanced power profile and 8+ hours on power saver on a 6-cell battery. Of course, next year they'll come up with something even better, and I'm waiting on that one hehe.

Shouldn't you be getting her new cleaning supplies instead?

Actually with those specifications you have a ton of choices.

I had good luck with HP laptops at work as well as the one Toshiba I owned. I'd probably go with those brands (as they all have the same warranty) and just look for best setup for $800 (considering tax and other extra costs bring you up to $1000).