costco is actually really good. I bought an HP laptp with 4 gigs of ram, blu-ray disc player, geforce 9600M, 17 inch screen, 2.26 GHz dual core CPU and a 500 GB HDD fpr $1000. Just look around theyre prices are very good

Well i have the Sony Vaio AW11S/B and it is a fantastic laptop

I'd never get a Vaio. I hate them, they're awful, especially when it needs any repairs.

I hate them, hate them, hate them.

I wish you luck :P

@ Naraku_Diabolos: The stats you have given say that it doesn't support Bluetooth, yet mine does... (unless that's due to slight differences in the model or a typo on their behalf)

I have 3 Pavilion laptops (4 in total with the first being a stupid Toshiba Qosmio that can barely boot up without freezing). The first Pavilion was destroyed in a carwreck I was in last summer (we still have it; the screen is shattered and so is the backside), so the second Pavilion was the replacement. However, that second Pavilion had a lot of faulty manufactured drivers (I read about my model online being discontinued 4 weeks after being manufactured due to faulty drivers; not the software kind, physical) and the hard drive, webcam and extension port (that's used for overhead projections for projects for classes) were faulty and it had to be replaced, so we sent it into repairs in the beginning of January.

The second Pavilion also got VERY hot. My parents disliked that one after we sent it into HP for repairs (we have it now, but there are some numerous conflictions with the driver to driver software on it still, or just a lot of software errors), so I got a third Pavilion which is the one in the link. It runs A LOT quieter than the second Pavilion and it doesn't produce much heat thanks to the Nvidia card with PureVideo HD. I just felt the backside right now and it's not even hot, and I just got off my online game. Hopefully with Vista SP2 coming along, the second laptop will not heat up as much due to processing and run more quietly, and I bet my third laptop will run more efficiently.

That's weird, because under my Control Panel, there's an icon for Bluetooth Devices O_O 

Using the wireless touch button at the top right turns both wireless and Bluetooth off, does it not on yours?

I work at a computer shop, and what I would recommend for you is something that is lightweight, has a long battery life and doesn't generate much heat.  To that end, I would recommend a EEE PC

It may not play games, but it works great for college.  Plus, it is made by ASUS, which is tops when pertaining to electronics.  I don't know if the store you mentioned would have it however.  This particular model is priced at $429.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220452