Best Laptop Computer:  "Best is highly subjective. Laptop computers usually give up a lot of speed to get into a small package and run longer on batteries, but you can still get excellet performance if you are willing to pay for it.  People love Apple for its ease of use but you pay more for the brand.

For example, the February 2010 issue of  "Consumer Reports" rated the "Apple MacBook Pro MC118LL/A " as the overall best 15 to 16-inch laptop, but it doesn't run Windows 7.  It comes with the "Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard" Operating System and is powered by the the 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which has a 1066 MHz front-side bus (FSB), a 3 MB L2 cache and a 250 GB Serial-ATA (SATA) hard drive (5400 RPM).  At $1,700, this is quite a premium over our favorite HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720 which has faster hard drive and front side bus plus more and faster memory plus a larger display! 

For some, especilly office workers who have to to take their work home, "best" may mean it is powerful enough to use every day instead of desktop computer.  They will carry a heavier, more expensive computer when they travel so they can have the power and speed of their every-day computer nomatter where they go.

A laptop we like for the performance oriented is the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720.  It comes with a 1.6GHz  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M video card and an 18.4" HD (high definition) display and a Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer! 

For others, best might mean it is light weight and has enough power to do things better than their smartphone's limited keyboard at a low cost.

We believe it is an absolute minimum for a new Windows-7 PC to have a dual core and it is much better if you can run 4 threads at once with a Core i3, i5 or i7.  Consumer Reports Magazine agrees as reported by CTV News:

"Some computer makers are using single-core processors instead of dual-core to save money. But if you buy one of these so-called bargains, you might end up with a slower computer... We found several laptops with dual-core processors that offered solid performance for $600 dollars, or even less.  One of the least expensive is the Toshiba Satellite L-505 -- a Consumer Reports Best Buy at $530.”

Here are several other Windows 7 equiped laptops with dual core processors selling for about the same price.

To select the best Windows 7 laptop for YOUR needs, we suggest you follow our simple steps:

Start with this "Intel Roadmap" to get an idea of how much power you gain by spending more.