possibly a winner, right at the upper end of the price you wanted, good ati radeon card, i3 and 3 hour battery life...so will also have an acceptable life away from the plug
No help in picking a specific laptop, but help in picking a brand:
Avoid HP/Compaq, Gateway, and Acer. They have had the worst record
for reliability for the last 2+ years. Asus, Toshiba, and Sony Vaio
have been the best. See below: http://lifehacker.com/5524704/laptop+reliability-study-highlights-
the acer i think will hold up well, honestly everex is a awful brand too but i managed to get mine manageable with some tweaking.... own an xt5000t which just recently got a tl-60 as a upgrade, made it much nicer than the stock chip