She is leaving this fall to go attend school at the School for Visual Arts in NYC in the Illustration program. So she wants a laptop that is recommended by the school. I was astonished that an art school was not requiring their students to buy Macs; I thought that all the visual arts people used Macs these days. The dorm rooms are absolutely tiny, and with the 3x2 foot desk available for each resident, the school recommends against desktops, and of course the students want to take a laptop to class for notes and doing actual work during the labs. A netbook would not be able to handle the sort of graphics design and illustration programs she will be using.
My usual 'go to' place for computer stuff is NewEgg, but I will be interested to see any other vendor recommendations.