The Asus K60I-RBBBR05 is a well-built budget laptop with enough power for most mainstream users. It has a decent battery life, a huge hard drive, and roomy 16-inch display. You get a lot for your money, but buyers will have to wade through a sea of bloatware.

As a budget laptop, there are no glaring miscues with the Dell Inspiron i1545-4266IBU, but competing models offer more features for the same price, and laptops costing only a little more offer a much more current platform.

The entry-level Acer Aspire AS5532-5535 can keep up with neither dual-core laptops that are still moderately priced nor a completing single-core entry-level laptop from Compaq.

Toshiba Satellite L505-ES5018 is about the cheapest dual-core laptop that you'll find, and it provides a predictably basic feature set but competitive performance, respectable battery life, and zero bloatware.