Help with Laptop Selection

[Actuary]

My girlfriend is back at school pursuing her Master's degree and decided she needs to get a new laptop. Right now, she has a Toshiba Satellite a75, which hasn't held up as well as it should have (plus it's bloated with all of Toshiba's software). So, she asked me to help her pick a new one. Being out of school now, I haven't really kept up with laptops, so I need some help here.

Her current laptop is a 15.4" widescreen, and she mentioned she'd like to go a little smaller (13 or 14). Budget is about $700-800. She does do some light gaming occasionally (e.g. the Sims) and will use it to watch movies sometimes as well.

Normally, I'd be hesitant to do this, but I feel like the white macbook would be a solid choice here. It's a little higher priced than she wanted ($1,000), but I feel like it would meet her need pretty well.

I took a look at the Lenovo T400 with the ATI 3470 and 2gb of memory, which comes out to a little more at $1,019 (I took out the mobile broadband as well). I also don't know how she'd feel about using Vista.

She casually mentioned she was thinking about HP, but I don't know how their reputation is lately.

Does anyone have any other suggestions or thoughts? Thanks for the help.

 

[AMD_Man]

My sister uses a Dell XPS M1330, and it's very light (about 4 pounds) and runs really well. You can configure it for under $1000 on Dell's website. For even light gaming, I'd recommend the Geforce 8400 GS over the integrated graphics.

 

[TheLordsServant]

I have to agree, the white Macbook wouldn't be a bad idea. The only question is, is she comfortable with using a Mac? If not, then obviously you'll want to look elsewhere. HPs reputation, IMO, is fantastic. I have not a single complaint at all about them, their quality control is actually superb. I've owned several HP laptops, and only one ever had a problem, which was NOT HPs fault. (I tripped over the power cord and broke the DC in board)