Came across this laptop, the
Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 15.6-Inch LaptopBasic Specs:
# 15.6-inch CineCrystal LED-backlit widescreen display with native 720p resolution
# 2.20 GHz AMD V Series V120 single-core processor with 512 KB L2 cache 1066 MHz front-side bus
# 250 GB SATA hard drive (5400 RPM)
# 3 GB of installed DDR3 RAM (1066 MHz; expandable to 8 GB)
# ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics (with 256 MB of discrete video memory)
# 8x SuperMulti DVD±R/RW drive
# Multi-Gesture Touchpad
# Crystal Eye webcam with a built-in digital microphone. Acer Video Conference Manager software supports 640 x 480 resolution online video calls.
# Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking capability
# Fast Ethernet (10/100/1000)
# Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader compatible with Secure Digital (SD), MultiMediaCard (MMC), Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO (MS PRO), xD-Picture Card (xD)
# Three USB 2.0 ports
# HDMI high-definition audio/video output
# Windows 7 Home Premium
# 6-cell battery (4400 mAh)
For $379 US you get some reasonable specs, it has gotten
some decent reviews as well. While the processor is only single core I could see this as a good alternative for someone wanting a cheap laptop that has a bigger screen/dvdwriter instead of
smaller popular netbooks. Of course a netbook will tend be lighter with better battery life but that is the tradeoff here.