I am taking in all the advice. Just because I don't reply very often it dosn't mean i'm not reading everything.

Just wanted to point out that if you live near Apple stores, then MacBooks are an even BETTER buy.

Yesterday, one of the power adapters for a work MacBook was shorting out, as well as a DVI->VGA dongle adapter. I went to a Minneapolis Apple store, the Genius checked it out, and replaced both at NO cost. I walked in and out of the store with no hassles.

Not saying that happens with every circumstance, but when buying a MacBook, you know you can get good service and quick service at stores, even if you bought online. You can't say that for Dell, or other online order laptops. And we all know that BestBuy and other retail outlets out source, ship in, or ship out all there replacement part, repair work etc. It's nice to be able to go somewhere and potentially get the problem solved on the spot.

The build quality is also much better frankly. My former Dell wasn't built very solid and you could tell; it had cooling problems and the works. My MBP though is spectacular and has done everything I need without so much as a hitch. I just can't recommend Apple computers enough.

That said, my Dad also just bought a Lenovo, which was also great. If you need a Windows laptop, I'd recommend them.

I went ahead and bought the HP laptop. First thing I did was reformat it to get rid of all the crap on it. Because it didn't come with an XP cd I had to download one that I found didn't have all the hacks, tweaks and whatnot included with it, because I want it to all be legal considering I have a valid key etc. During the installation of XP however it is asking me for a 'volume license' key, which I have no idea what one is. Can anyone give me some advice here? It's XP Pro SP2 by the way.

Additional Spam:
Got it sorted, although for what I thought was a good laptop, i'm getting very poor results in 3dmark of 800 or so. Most other laptop users are getting at least 2k+

Okay...

Can you specifically say why you insisted in getting a laptop for art school, rather than a flash drive and desktop for your home/dorm and transfer data from/to school computers? I just never really see art students, whether they're in 3D animation/modeling, etc., digital design and new media, illustration and so forth bring a laptop to school. >_> G'luck, however, and let us know how well that goes.

It would get very annoying constantly loading new photos etc onto the stick. It would also be useful for presentations, and using MSN when no one is watching.

An update, just tried Half Life 2, it seems to get an average of 25-30fps or so on all high details (models, etc) full HDR, no v-sync and no AA. With AA it drops when I look past the large tower in City 17 at the start of the game however, to around 15-20 average. In my opinion, thats not too bad for a laptop, considering i'd rarely game on it anyway.

Well I've known that instructors have asked for you to drop off your work in a "drop-off" folder within the class folder and then on presentation day he/she just "plays" the work onto the projector for everyone to see from their own seats. Loading photos onto a stick or back into a drive on the computer you're working with is like drag 'n drop. Wouldn't you have to connect your computer to the room's projector in order to present, or have everyone clam heads around your laptop to see your work anyway?

No comments on using MSN >_>

I suppose waiting 15 seconds at the end of whenever you sit down to work on a faster machine with a larger screen is worth the thousand plus dollars you spent on the laptop.