I would not recommend a Dell laptop. Every single person I know that's got one has had the same problem within the first year: the computer overheats and shuts off. Now, my computer does this b/c it's 4 years old and its previous owner had it infected w/ so much spyware and junk, lord knows how much care she was giving it....but a computer that's a year old should not have that problem. If you call Dell about this problem, they will check your fans. But see, the fans work fine and they turn on when the comp heats up, but that's simply not enough. But since the fans work and there's nothing wrong with the hard drive, you're stuck with a laptop that will shut off when it heats to a certain degree.
You don't really need the latest and greatest super fast processor if you're not doing serious stuff like music, video, or image editing with software that is stressful for the computer. If you're only doing online stuff, playing music, and word processing, 1.5 Ghz should be plenty and even a lower end new laptop will probably come with something that fast or faster.
My co-worker just bought a new Dell laptop, a very high-end one (probably cost around $2000) and on the second day he had it, the motherboard died and he had to start from scratch.