Dol, thanks!

Lisa, thanks for those comments, very enlightening.

I'm pretty much ready to pay $1500, and I would totally buy from Best Buy but they don't have the specs Mr SK wants and although some of the models you can have them change it for more harddrive space, I couldn't find any models where we could increase the ram.

I'll try to get a human on the phone at Best Buy's customer service and see if there are some options I've missed.

But we really don't want to pay upwards of $2000 or more...

I also don't know if I can change Mr. SK's mind about the LG laptops (like those WTG recommended)...

Sigh. Low inventory and bad customer service seems to be the standard for everything these days.