Seeking laptop w/ decent performance and good audio

[elibertylewis]

I've had a Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6075 for five to six years and was very, very happy with it. My favorite parts about it were the excellent harman/kardon speakers and the comfortably bulky build. When it started to malfunction about six months ago, I bought a L55-C5340 and hated it. It was flimsy, uncomfortable to use, and the lack of bass in the speakers made me cry. I eventually replaced the hard drive and RAM in my old Satellite and continued to use it until last week, when the motherboard gave out.

After a brief affair with a refurbished Satellite A665-S6094 that crashed and refused to boot 24 hours after I received it, I suppose I am now looking for a new laptop.

I would be fine with an older model if I can have the specifications I want. I'll use the laptop for writing, web surfing, watching movies, and digital painting, but good speakers are an absolute must, and I really don't want to have to carry external speakers around. The AMD processor on the A665D seemed a little slow for my purposes, so a quad-core Intel would be an improvement. Otherwise, I'd like a decent display and graphics card, nothing too fancy, and I'd rather not have one of the weird new tablet/laptop combo deals. My budget is somewhere around $600. A decent-sized hard drive (500GB to 1TB) would be welcome.

Is there anything close to what I want available? Please don't tell me there's no hope.

 

[naturesninja]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9RF4RC0066&cm_re=960m-_-9SIA9RF4RC0066-_-Product Pretty good sound for a laptop, refurb unit. i7 will help with digital painting. 1TB hybrid ssd/hdd. 960m if you want to play some games.

 

[elibertylewis]

That doesn't look very highly rated for durability, especially with the screen hinges...but thank you for your suggestion! It looks at least somewhat close to what I'm looking for.