No tech snobs please. This is for basic needs, no gaming, no special sound/graphics requirements. Web surfing, email, watching online TV shows, broadcasts of sport broadcasts (English Prem League soccer mostly), bit of wordprocessing etc. Would like DVD RW.
My 4 and a half year old cheapo Dell (paid $799 new) copes with most of the above reasonably well (although starting to show its age battery/bug wise) so by now there should easily be something decent in this price range with better specs.
Whats is around for under $400. I have seen some core i3 systems for this sort of price but not recently. Dual core would probbaly be fine for our needs.
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf
$349 one on the top row. It's performance is very very very close to an i3.