[ATannahill]

I use a Toshiba Satellite for my work in high school and as a home computer. I find it to be a good computer. It runs Labview and Autodesk Inventor with no issue. The bad things about it are that the cd drive makes an ungodly mount of noise while reading a cd and the power supply has a tendency to heat up.

I use it regularly in school, much more than most high school students. I don't know how the experience would compare to college classes.

I would advice you to stay away from the netbooks. They are not good as a main computer or something you would actually do work with. I wouldn't try Inventor or Labview on one.