What laptop is best for my needs?

It is that time.... to buy a new laptop! I am a graduate student, so I need something that is portable to and from school. Plus, I open a lot of browsers at one time when doing research, so the processor needs to be good. I also will be using iTunes for downloading music. I will NOT need one for gaming. Since I am BROKE (I have to buy it with financial aid $, arg!), it needs to be the best for it's price!!! I have looked into HP, and they seem really good. I have also heard amazing things about Mac. They are so different than what I'm used to though. Any suggestions or advice? Thank you!!

id recommend a mac...im personally not too fond of them, but it seems like a macbook or a macbook pro is right up your alley. firefox runs well in os x, itunes runs like **** in windows but runs beautifully on os x, and the games thing...eh. apple does offer educational discounts and stuff and they have an excellent warranty. the operating system may be wierd at first, but you WILL eventually get used to it. Trust me here...i guarantee you that you're more likely to be using that same mac five years from now as opposed to any pc in the same price range.

dont buy a macbook air tho, it's cool, but it's pretty much a gimmick. it's cool being tiny, but it doesnt offer much of external expansion via ports (due to a lack of ports), and it's not a very powerful computer...at least not as powerful as you would expect for the price. a $900 macbook is actually more powerful and cheaper.

my advice is to buy more ram and maybe a larger hard drive (or even better, an external secondary drive) with it when you buy it.