It's that time of year again. Across the country young men and women are entering or returning to institutions of higher learning in hopes of becoming stand-up, well-rounded, contributing members of society-with a little help from you, of course.

 

Joe and Jane need notebooks for grinding out those essays and research papers, but you simply can't buy any notebook; you need one that will suit their individual needs and personality.

 

With Microsoft's Vista (hopefully) being launched in Q1 2007, there are some minimum specs we have compiled to ensure that your investment will be able to make full use of the OS: a dual-core processor from ATI or Intel), 1GB of RAM, a DVD burner, and a graphics processor with a minimum of 64MB of video memory (to support Vista's Aero graphics interface). Once those basics are covered, your little bundle of tuition will be ready for gaming, multimedia entertainment, portability, or whatever suits their fancy.

 

Of course, style and bells and whistles matter too. To make sure you don't buy a dud, LAPTOP has the low down on what the kids need to help them survive many semesters to come.