I am looking for an affordable, quality laptop that will last me for 4 years. Please specify the laptop you would recommend and why. Also, I'm on a budget so a laptop under $1000 would be nice. Remember, I'm also asking what websites you would recommend to buy quality laptops at a cheaper price. (Much like when you buy furniture from a warehouse) Thank you for your help!

Spending a little more would be the way to go -- for publishing and graphics $1000 isn't quite enough. Will you be using it with an external monitor or relying on its screen for color accuracy? Definitely get as much Ram as it will hold (though this too is limited still to 2 GB compared to workstations which now typically have twice that or more.) And get as fast a hard drive as possible even though you trade some battery life. Soon the SSD drives will provide the best of both, but currently the sustained transfer for dealing with large files is still slow on SSD.