Best new laptop to buy? Sub $500

[CMG]

Donated my old laptop and am looking for a new one. I want to keep it under $500 but i'll pay more if it's worth it. It will be used mainly for internet, photography, and making and playing music. My main questions are regarding processors, hard drives, and memory. Correct me if i'm wrong but i believe processor hierarchy goes: intel pentium<intel celeron<amd quad core<intel i3<intel i5<intel i7. Let me know if it's wrong or missing some.

1. How much of a difference do processors make, should i at least go for intel i3-7?

2. Are most hd the ssd (solid state i think?) nowadays and how important is that?

3. Is there noticeable difference between say 4-8gb ram and is memory an easily upgradable item on a laptop?

[BMWJNKY]

I got a used 15" 2011 MacBook Pro with the i7 processor a couple months ago for $550. Doing my research the i7 processor uses the battery 10-20% faster that the i5 depending on what you are doing but is much better suited for photo/video editing which is what I was looking to do. I upgraded to 8GB of RAM when I got it which made a big difference over the 4GB that it had when I got it. Other than the initial boot up there is no lag now when doing anything. Next upgrade is going to be a SSD as this will make the laptop even quicker and reduce heat. I don't know what you can get brand new in your price range that will do photo editing and music mixing well. For something new similar to my used MacBook Pro was going to be a HP and it was on sale for about $800-900 depending on what options I picked.

[CMG]

I have a mac tower for most things. This will be a computer for watching videos in the house, and for travel. I don't do photo editing just lots of pictures. No video games. Music will mainly be input recorded with some production. The dell inspiron i got in 2008 for $400 and worked great for a long time.

[CMG]

I actually ended up going with a cheaper hp for $400. I figured if my dell from 5 years ago still worked fine then anything may be an upgrade. Has 4gb ram and 500gb hd, intel i3 and all the drives and connections, touchscreen, windows 8, etc. I would have had to go in the $800-$1000 range to get exactly all the things i wanted. I figure this one will ladt me at least two years to figure out what kind of computer i need. So many options for computers it's insane. Every time i thought i figured it out something else would pop up i didn't know. I just wanted to buy something just to get it over with.

[e24mpwr]

Have a look at the ThinkPad E-series. Affordable to start and way tougher than the consumer boxes for similar money.