I agree that you should stay away from E-Machines. They have a bad reputation -- check out the forums and Usenet (do a meta search).
Toshiba are well known for their laptops. They take a lot of abuse well, have a good, clicky keyboard with the CTRL key in the proper place (bottom left -- a lot of stupid laptops have the Fn key there) -- BTW Toshiba invented the Fn key...
On what you have asked, I would say go with the Toshiba.
However, you would probably get more for your money with Dell (Dell also have the CTRL key in the right place) -- but you would have to buy on-line of over the telephone (and it is not easy nor user-friendly). I can completely understand why you want to buy from a store -- and Wally has a great returns policy -- which is really important with this sort of stuff.
What are you doing at College? If CAD or graphics/web design/ games etc - you will need more than the popular RAM for laptops of 256MB, you'll need a minimum of 512MB, but more is better.
Burning a CD/DVD might be a good way to backup/store or transfer data -- and you can make compilations audio CDs, or get major amounts of songs onto a CD or DVD blank by ripping them first into MP3s (a lot of players now can handle MP3 files on discs). Memory sticks are cheap -- or you can use iPOD or Zen Nanos (etc) -- they are like a small light Walkman that cannot skip or jump, that hold music as MP3, as well as pictures and doc files etc -- so you will need lots of USB ports (or get a hub).
You won't get a floppy anymore, and you won't get a printer socket (the 25 pin thingy) or even a mouse socket in PS/2. It's all USB these days.
You might need at least an SD reader for camera cards or a multicard reader in the USB again. (Big load on USBs)
Dell have better battery life than Toshiba, it runs quieter and does not get as hot as the Tosh laptops.
If you are thinking of transferring video camera movies onto DVDs, then you might need 80GB for safety over time. If you are planning to rip all you music and sell off all your CDs at a car boot sale, then you will want 80GB minimum.
Try for a clock speed as high as possible -- as well as fast HDD revs. Two HDDs with a RAID array or front side bus etc -- all the latest techy terms! Do not worry about them...
Think more about what you need it to do, and what you might want it to do -- surf, wireless surfing on battery, printing, using a mouse, sound card, graphics card, lightweight or desktop replacement and sturdy...
Wishing you all the best!