I Need Help Selecting A Laptop For College.

The Acer TM 4500 is a good choice. Good company, nice performance. I'm not a fan of Sony or HP...Sony because of the quality issues, and HP because...well...long story.

However, you said that you're basically going to want to watch movies, surf the internet, music junk, and basic office productivity, with the occasional light game on the side. WIth this in mind, you have to know that there is no computer than an Apple for these things, and that the best notebook for you, IMHO is the Apple Powerbook 15" or Apple iBook 14". The processor clock speed is slower, however, performance-wise, both of these notebooks perform VERY well, espeically for multimedia and productivity. For gaming, they're less adept, however, like you said, you're only into some light gaming, which is ok. The iBook runs at MOST, $1500, while the Powerbook will be a little out of your price range ($2000-ish).

Some other nice notebooks to consider that are in your price range:
Dell- look for a good deal...they often have 50% off sales, you you might have hte chance to get a REALLY nice deal on one of these.
Take a look at a few of the notebooks in the Acer Aspire series, as well as possibly some other Acer notebooks. They're relatively cheap, and get the job done.
Asus makes really nice notebooks too, but they may be out of your price range.

Hey, If I were you I would look at an HP. If you want more of a desktop replacement go for the HP ZD8000(it comes with a huge 17in. screen, good for watching movies)but it's a heavy. If you want something that you can travel around with go with the HP ZV6000. That is a great notebook and you get get it loaded for under $1500. Hope this was helpful.

Would you mind saying a bit more about what you want in the laptop such as basic size and weight, screen size, widescreen? The choices you listed indicate some kind of desktop replacement type laptopm just wanted to know if that's what you're aiming for.

the ibook is a good lappy. it really is fast and has a lot of good features. its alo portable and the only small lappy with ACTUAL graphics not run on ram see my sig lol