It sounds like you mainly use your laptop for Internet surfing and word processing. I think you’d be able to get a lot of mileage at a reasonable price with the following:

1. A reasonable processor (nothing fancy, just not an obsolete one that is being cleared out for newer technology)
2. Maximize your RAM
3. An appropriately sized hard drive – if you like to save pictures and music, you’ll probably want to get a larger one

Do some research for a reliable brand, and pick a model at the price that you like.

Here’s a very limited, anecdotal list of brands I know about:

-Sony: I’ve had one die on me, and so have my cousin’s friends
-Dell: I broke 3 of them at work (well, I was working 60+ hrs/wk, maybe they couldn’t handle the overtime?)
-Toshiba: My sister bought one, and it had problems randomly freezing and shutting down
-HP: My father has one (he worked at HP 26 years), and likes it
-Apple: I had an iBook, and it was very reliable – even after I spilled a bottle of ginger ale on the keyboard, a week after I bought it. It dried out in a week and worked fine (disclaimer: DON’T try this at home). But the Mac version of MS Office isn’t as user-friendly as the PC version, so I stopped using it for work. And I switched back to the PC entirely when I started playing free Yahoo games – there’s Internet content that won’t run on Mac OS.
-Gateway: I worked there for 6 months – the one I had at work and the CX210X I bought are both good performance and reliable.
-Lenovo: My most recent 2 companies use Lenovo laptops, the ones I’ve had have been reliable

The laptops they sell in-store (like Best Buy) come with a standard configuration. If you’d like to play around with the price/options configuration, each of the major computer companies has a ‘customizer’ on its website that lets you choose what features you want. You can order your custom computer, and they’ll ship it to you. I don’t think there’s a price difference between the online and in-store prices.

And it can be a fun night of research (well, IMO). 🙂