Picking a laptop is almost as bad as doing your 1040.

But it doesn’t have to be if you know what you want vs. what you need.

So here’s a checkoff list you can use when trying to determine what you want out of the laptop with what you need.

Lowend Ideal Highend
CPU i3 i5 i7
RAM 2GB 4GB 8GB
DVD/BluRay DL DVD-RW DL DVD-RW+BluRay DL DVD-RW+BluRay
HDD 80GB 250GB 128 SSD
USB (2) 2.0 (4) 2.0 (3) 2.0 + (1) 3.0
Display Size 13″ 15″ 15-17″
Display Resolution 1024×600 1366×768 1600×1200
BackLight CCFL LED sidelit LED backlit
Battery Life 4hrs 6hrs 10hrs+
OS Win7 or Mac Win7 64bit / Mac Win7 64bit / Mac

In Conclusion: yes.