Mikhailtech has posted a Laptop Buying Guide for Power Users

When choosing a hard drive capacity is just half the story. This is where you can potentially save some money. There's no reason why you'd need massive drive space; anything over 40gb is a waste. Your batteries won't last long enough to play through even 1% of that space in MP3s and external media will take care of the rest. What you should inquire about, however, is the spindle speed. Most laptop drives come with a default 4200rpm drive, while the high performance models ship with 5400rpm HDDs. The latter is quite a bit faster and if it's not offered as an option you might as well find another store. After all, it doesn't matter how fast your CPU is or how much RAM you have; if your HDD blows it'll take the rest of the rig with it.

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