It all depends on what you want to use it for. There is more choice than ever these days. Screen sizes vary from 10" to 17"+.

Golden rule is whatever you buy, dump as much memory as you can into the thing, as much HD as well.

Dual core is the thing. When speccing Servers I always try for the best balance between cost and performance.

As for Manufacturers, I have always been a fan of Dell and Toshiba, both at home and professionally, they have been the best built, and most reliable.

We recently bought a Dell dual core 15" screen Inspiron with 4GB RAM and 500Gb of hard disk for £399, and up-specced the battery, doubling it's capacity for another tenner, and in normal use with Windows 7 home premium pre-loaded, it's blisteringly quick to my eyes.