I usually opt for this:

User::where('first_name', 'simon');    

In fact you are wrong about Eloquent with as it's not working dynamically like where

jarektkaczyk said:

In fact you are wrong about Eloquent with as it's not working dynamically like where

it does work differently, but still has that magic to it. with the eloquent where you can do crazier stuff (thanks to dynamicWhere() method) like this:

User::whereFirstNameAndId('simon', 1);
// same as
User::where('first_name', 'simon')->where('id', 1);

whereas in View you're limited to only one magic parameter.

View::make('base')->withSomeVar($val);
// same as
View::make('base')->with('someVar', $val);

Yes, of course you can do that.

For Eloquent Builder itself scopes are working just the same. And there are more of this magic in L4

What I mean is, that it's Query Builder's feature (dynamic where for queries), and View and RedirectResponse (dynamic with on the View like in your example and return Redirect::to()->withInput()->withSomethingElse()), while there's no dynamic with for Eloquent (whereas with loads relations).