I bought a Sony vaio a few years ago (Sony don't make laptops now though) after a compaq I had for few years was too slow.

HP and Compaq are the same manufacturer and along with Dell are the only laptops I would buy as I feel they give you more value for money than an apple laptop.

I would not buy the Chinese brands like lenovo etc because of the security risks linked to them as it is alleged they put spy ware on them.

Having said that I wish I hadn't even bought the Sony as I use my phone for everything and the Sony only comes out of it's case very rarely.

In any event soulman I would decide what you want, I always stick to Intel because in all honesty I don't like change and I have always had Intel chips from my university days when we bought a British manufactured desktop made by Apricot.

I would just try and get as much ram (8gb is very good) and memory as you can get. Decide what you want and see how much it is and then wait until the January sales when they will invariably go down in price.

Technology changes very quickly so prices on older products goes down too.

I would try to get it from John Lewis, who price match any company which has a physical store, because they give you a 2 year warranty on their laptops.