no gaming....just internet, ms office and other regular softwares should work properly....and sony vaio is pretty expensive si guess it out of options...
for your requirements.
i think acer and toshiba both are good , for the price you are mentioning and your purpose meets the criteria with toshiba and acer,
acer is good and cheap too plus very good looking laptops
toshiba is very good , best battery time plus most of toshiba models can be use for dual booting while other machine are not able to do so one more thing toshiba is also a little bit expensive too
dell is also good in look but its reported to be a buggy one hardware wise
i think go for toshiba or acer.......they are good for normal use........!
rgds
nayyar