Laravel Checking If a Record Exists

I am new to Laravel. How do I find if a record exists?

$user = User::where('email', '=', Input::get('email'));

What can I do here to see if $user has a record?

It depends if you want to work with the user afterwards or only check if one exists.

If you want to use the user object if it exists:

$user = User::where('email', '=', Input::get('email'))->first();
if ($user === null) {
   // user doesn't exist
}

And if you only want to check

if (User::where('email', '=', Input::get('email'))->count() > 0) {
   // user found
}

Or even nicer

if (User::where('email', '=', Input::get('email'))->exists()) {
   // user found
}