I've got a new Lenovo Thinkpad Edge on the way (14" AMD-based model) they retail for about your price range - the Edge series is the first to start moving a bit away from the 'Thinkpad design' - they mixed in a few consumer things - keys changed, the frame isn't totally there, but its still a Thinkpad from the reviews I've read. I'll buy almost anything from a company that makes business models - HP/Compaq, Dell, Lenovo - I can get a repair manual and spare parts from either my distributors, ebay, or direct. Toshiba, Sony? I can't even get a repair manual. (Ended up finding some for two Sonys to replace HDs on a Russian site - took some finagling to find those - 27 screws to get to the HDs!) So yeah, go cheap and expect to replace it, or pay a bit more for a solid case design and have it last - Lenovo's got some deals on Thinkpads almost all the time. Heck, they even have a netbook model in the Thinkpad series! If you DO look at thinkpads - http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki is the Thinkpad-oriented wiki for most things there. They don't have my model up yet, but I'm not terribly concerned - its an AMD/ATI CPU, Chipset, and GPU. I'll get it working :-D