So my motherboard on my dell laptop fried last week.

which sucks except for the fact that i have a Personal Article Policy on it, so i went to my insurance agent today and he cut me a check for 1500 (what i paid for the dell 4 years ago)

anyway i haven't followed the market much for laptops (my wife uses it) so i don't know what is good value anymore. brand or processor, video card etc.

I was hoping y'all might have a suggestion as to what i should look for or more importantly avoid.

My wife mainly uses adobe photo shop and surfs the internet. photoshop is pretty ram intensive so i plan on getting 1 or 2 GB. other than that i have no real criteria

obviously i have access to internet plus live near a frys, bestbuy, circuit city etc.

I'd avoid ACER, the kid won one and has sent it back 3 times. For laptop I like Dells, you can get a Windows CD and format the hdd and reinstall to get rid of the crapware, although I read where Dell gives you option to get a machine without it but I'd still get the Windows CD. Dell's online chat support is good. My wife has a 1505 and we've had no problems. Keep in mind that it is expensive to upgrade laptop to best to get what you want when you purchase it, e.g., RAM, hdd, video card. Lenovo has a good reputation but are more expensive