As a student, unless my parents are willing to pay masses (which they usually aren't) I can't afford to get the most expensive gadgets and I needed a laptop that would be reliable and cheap at the same. A friend recommended I get a HP, as you aren't paying a premium price and you get a reasonably good laptop.
I decided on the HP 620 as it had everything I needed in a laptop and more, the webcam allows me to take pictures, although not the best quality, but you can't expect much from a webcam! And also have video calls with my friends that live far away. The Intel Pentium t440 processor is a lot faster than my previous computer, and works extremely well for what I use my laptop for, which is basically, surfing the internet, using Microsoft office, iTunes, etc.

Another feature that I really like and use quite often is the integrated Bluetooth, I can transfer my pictures and images that I take on my phone without using a cable which is really convenient for me as I am always misplacing my cables, and it takes me ages to find them, so not having to use one is great!
There are 3 USB ports and I have never been short of one so far, I can charge my iPod while having a memory stick that contains the work that I'm doing at the same time and I still have one spare. I don't even think I have needed the three USB ports at the same time, so I don't think you will have any trouble with that.

The laptop weighs around 2.5kg, which is probably around the standard laptop weight, but I can carry it in its case, which you will have to buy separately as it doesn't come with one, or put it in my backpack no problem and it isn't too heavy at all. The screen is 15.6 inches which is a good size, you can watch a film on your laptop without the screen being too small and it isn't too big and bulky to carry around, although if you did take your laptop everywhere, you might want to consider getting a slightly smaller or lighter laptop.

The battery will last around 3 hours, depending on what you are doing and what "power plan" you are using. I don't tend to use my laptop without the charger, but it's nice to be able to if you need to. I have had a couple of problems with the charger, after a while, the connection seemed to be really loose between the two parts that connect the laptop and the plug, even the slightest movement would cause the charger to stop working, this was really really annoying but at the minute it seems to be working fine, but be careful, don't bash your charger around too much!

The other problem that I have had, is with the keyboard, quite a few keys have come loose and I have been able to fix most of them, but while trying to fix the "L" key back on I managed to break the little parts that fix it back on and haven't repaired it since, but apart from that, it is a good laptop that works well for a good price.