Well, if ALL you will be using it for is internet browsing only, along with the usual word, excel, and windows media player for mp3's, then you don't need anything that impressive.

I would still get a PENTIUM machine, Pentium 4 are currently good chips...

as far as ghz goes - the higher the better really. My machine is a 2.8ghz P4 cpu, and I mainly use it for internet, along with the usual windows stuff, and also for photoshop type stuff, and CPU raping programmes like making DVD's and CD's. So far it has coped perfectly, and I usually have around 6 or 7 programmes running in the backround while I am online and it's been trouble free.

Not sure if you can get CPU's as high as 2.8 etc in a lappy tho, 1.5, 1/7 is "norm" for lappy's (I may be wrong) That said, a P3, 750mhz cpu would be fine for what you want it to do.... If you want new, Intel Celeron or Intrino would also be fine for you... (My downstairs PC is a Celeron D, and copes fine with pretty much everything I or my family throw at it)

RAM is where you want to pay attention tho. 256mb should be your MINIMUM. 512mb is better (naturally) specially if you intend to run XP for whaich a lot of applications etc recommend you have min 512k ram anyway...

Since you aren't likely to be doing gaming or whatever, onboard sound and graffics will do you fine, and most lappys have this as standard....

Depending on your internet connection you might have to upgrade the PCMCIA card. That said, most new lappy's have 10/100 network ports (broadband cat 5 cable from a router/modem built in, along with dial up (normal phone cable) ports, and most decent new ones have wifi. If you use Wifi and the lappy you are looking at doesn't have wifi, don't worry - you can buy a simple wifi USB plug in stick or a wireless PCMCIA card for it;



most lappy's come with USB ports on them, and some with PS2 ports, so you can connect a seperate mouse if you want to, other than that, they usually have the correct host of connectors like serial etc, but you probably won't use em anyway. USB, Firewire, PCMCIA and PS2 are the most usefull and cover pretty much most things you might need to attach...

HTH