For me personally, I just buy the best processor that's in the price range, since I've never actually had a laptop fail on me(touchwood). I'm making this reply with a £200 emachines lappy, I'm using an Asus lappy at work. Prior to the emachines, I had a Toshiba satellite laptop, it's still working now, despite my son spilling a glass of milk over it, it fried the keyboard and CD drive, but I fixed it for 15 quid. I had a Sony Viao before my Asus, but that got stolen during a breakin at work a few years back.