dell inspiron, ive had 2 and they work like magic my first one was a pentium 2 and it still works till this day
Look into LG laptops, you get a lot for your money with them and they are a hell of a laptop. HP has recently come out with some nicely priced models, you can get the t5550 centrino processor, 3 GB ram, a good dedicated graphics card and a Blu-ray player for under $1200.00. Do not buy the mac book air, you pay for the looks and not a whole lot more.
Hey i wanna suggest you acer you can buy it and it is not costly and you will happy with this laptop. so buy it now.