Okay.
Battery life will average between 2-4 hours depending on your processor and how many cells it has. Intel's Centrino processor line is power efficient, so they will last a long while. Pentium 4 chips or Athlon 64x chips are a lot more powerful, but they eat up battery life quickly. There are external battery packs and larger batteries to be purchased, but that's more money to spend. The Centrino Duo processor is the best you can get for a laptop since it has dual core capacity and the same power efficiency.
Screen size has an average of 15.4 inches, which is fine. A 17 inch screen is only really useful if you game, watch movies, or want a desktop replacement laptop. It also adds a lot to the total cost.
HDD speed is at an average of 5400 RPM in laptops, so those will be cheaper to get. There are 7200 RPM drives available, but they are still expensive-ish. 5400 drives aren't going to be terribly slow, so it isn't an absolutely necessary item.
Go for a gig of RAM, DDR2 if you can get it. It will benefit you now and later as programs get more and more demanding on your system. Wireless, too, will help so you can get online most anywhere. Bluetooth is iffy unless you want it for a wireless mouse or PDA.
Go to Toshiba's website and play around with the different models so you get an idea as to the rough cost of a laptop you want. Any laptop you customize will be a little more expensive than a pre-built model, so shop around and see if there is one you like. You can sacrifice on RAM and the HDD and upgrade them later if it's necessary.
Jam it back in, in the dark.
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