Mossberg's Mailbox

Walter S. Mossberg answers readers' questions about technology

Nov. 13, 2012 9:06 p.m. ET

Q: I am a college student in the market for a non-clunky laptop. I have a pretty limited budget, $500 or less. I will be using it primarily for research and writing Word documents for school. I'm not into editing videos or pictures or downloading games and such but I do want one that can play DVDs, and don't want something with too small or too large of a screen.

A: Your price range eliminates Macs and the least...

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