The primary advantage of 64-bit Windows is the ability to use more than 3 GB of RAM. However, if you have an older printer, you should check to make sure that a 64-bit compatible driver is available.
As long as you get an Intel Core processor of some kind, you should be okay. Don’t buy any laptop that has an Intel “Atom” processor.
Resolution is a personal choice, and it depends mostly on screen size. A higher resolution will allow you to display more stuff on the screen, but a very high resolution may be hard to read on small screens.
For a typical 15" screen, 1680x1050 is a decent resolution. For a 13", 1440x900 is what you’d want. You might choose a lower resolution if you have bad eyes, which will save you some money as well - e.g. 1440x900 on a 15" screen.
Lenovo has an E520 - something something that sells through Tiger Direct in the range of $460 to $499. It has a few extras that are nice. It has a slightly slower Intel I3 dual core processor but makes up for it with faster memory (1333mhz vs. 1066) and the Hard Drive is a 7200rpm model while most have 5400rpm speeds. The 4mb memory on the laptop also comes on one chip leaving the other memory slot open. Most laptops with 4mb come with 2 x 2mb chips. If you want to expand to 8mb, you have to buy two new 4mb chips and eat (or sell on craigs list) the 2 x 2mb chips you just took out. With the Lenovo, just buy a single new 4mb chip and add it. For external connections, not many <$500 laptops have USB 3.0; usually just 2.0. The Lenovo has an ESATA connector for external hard drives for system backup, much quicker. The Lenovo also comes with Win 7 Professional, a step up from Home Premium. Professional includes the XP compatibility mode that lets a lot of older programs run. Screen resolutions all run about the same. Most laptops in this range have integrated graphic chips from Intel or AMD with the same specs. This Lenovo does miss your desired 500gb hard drive with “only” a 320 unit but it does have the higher speed access. The ESATA backup to an external drive would seem to take care of any space issues (and you will be backing up often, yes??). Also note a battery life of 5+ hours. I always take with a grain of salt and only count on half the time if working the computer hard. That pretty good though.
For what you’re doing, my advice is completely ignore the processor. Anything in a remotely modern laptop will be overkill. Also ignore memory speed, hard drive speed or any other speed statistics thrown at you. You also probably won’t fill up the hard drive in any modern laptop, so even though bigger is theoretically better, it doesn’t matter.
More RAM usually is better, but by 4MB, the extra gains from extra memory aren’t much.
Resolution in itself doesn’t matter that much, either. More is better, but just make sure it’s at least 1000 the long way, and you won’t notice a huge amount of difference.
What you should pay attention to is:
The physical size of the display. Bigger is better but, that reduces…
Portability (weight and size). Lower is better, but sometimes that affects…
The keyboard and pointing device. Most are going to be pretty close, but make sure whatever you pick feels OK to you. And of course there’s always
Battery life, if this is important to you.
Price
There may still be laptops that don’t have built-in WiFi; you should ignore those of course.
So, the good news is, you don’t need to worry about what’s inside. Just try a few laptops, and pick one that has the size screen you want (taking into account portability), feels comfortable to type and mouse on, and has a price you like. Make sure it has built-in WiFi, preferably more than one USB port, and a camera above the screen if you think you want to video-skype or whatever. Good to go.
The one I bought earlier this year is 64 bit, and I have not noticed any problems because of it. Most of my older software (and some of it is pretty old) will still run, and I think that for the few that will not run, it is because of Windows 7 and the fact that it has jettisoned most of the DOS support that earlier versions of Windows had, rather than anything specifically to do with 64 bit.
On the other hand, I am not sure that I have really gained anything of much significance to me by having a 64 bit system. It was not what motivated me to buy this model.
Unless you do anything involving downloading video, in which case you just might fill up the hard drive. Though in that case, the better option might be an external hard drive.
Is there some sort of website or grid I can be linked to that would show if a specific resolution versus screen size is “big” or “small”?
If I’m ever in the market for a new monitor I don’t want to come here (and other places) and be like, “How’s this one? And this one? What about this?” and so on.