I have just had to buy 2 laptops at work.

I would reccomend looking at the HP 630, I paid under £300, for this you get:

Intel I3 processor 2.53 GHZ
2GB RAM
500GB hdd (I think)
Windows 7 Home edition

AMD chips are always cheaper than the equivlant Intel and IME/IMO better, hence you may be trying to figure out why there is a price difference between otherwise equally specced machines.

PLUS at the moment manufacturer are doing deals where you can trade your old laptop in for cash, T&C apply!

Alot of the problems are user error, i.e. using the laptop on the bed etc leading to overheating.

Martin