What are some great laptops for students?

Toshiba Satellite. It is very durable. I have had mine for four years now and it still works.

I absolutely love my asus – check out asus’s collection. Very – ultra long battery life. 12 hours. You forget about the battery until you get home, to charge it daily. Very quiet, very convenient. Very light – sometimes I forget I have it in the pack <3.
For under 600, you could get similar models refurbished. I’d check tigerdirect.ca but for you – I’d say check your equivalents. Also, your university may have a computer store with discounts.

The models change constantly.

Here’s how I chose. I listed all the available models in a spreadsheet, with these figures:
RAM
Hard drive size
Battery life
Screen size
Weight
Keyboard quality (you have to actually type on them, it’s subjective)
Processor power (see http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php)
Price

Then I eliminated possibilities one-by-one.

Personally, I love my Toshiba T135, though it has recently been superceded by a newer model. I paid $500 for mine with 3GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. It weighs under 4 pounds and lasts over 6 hours with all of teh doo-dads turned on. (It’s rated for “up to” 8–½.)

Tip: spend the extra $ for a dual-core Intel CPU; avoid the single-core or AMD chips as they are considerably slower and such down the battery quicker.

@jaytkay I also factor in the manufacturer’s reputation for quality, durability, and reliability. Accordingly, I lean towards Toshiba and Acer and avoid HP.

My first college computer was a mac desktop, though if I were a student today, a $900 macbook would work just wonderfully. You won’t have to replace it until you graduate (or even after), which is a bonus.

@Megan64 True, they do last a while. I have a Powerbook 180 that runs fine aside from the fact that the NiCad battery died over 10 years ago; the computer itself is still rock solid. Just hope that none of your classes require Windows-only software (It’s unlikely, but it does happen.). Sure, Macs can dual-boot with Boot Camp, but spending a few hundred more dollars to get a legal copy of Windows to do so runs into more money than many college kids I know can afford.

I’ve never run into the problem of Windows-only software, but if you must go PC, then I’d say Asus.

@Megan64 AutoCAD was missing from the Mac side for quite a few years. As it’s something rather common in my industry, I personally regard such an absence to be a problem.