I have vista on my laptop and it's fine. It's a newer laptop with 2.2 C2D, 4gig ram and it runs fine. It came preinstalled on my machine and haven't had any complaints at all. The only real annoyance was the UAC but it can be turned off.
I still run XP on my home box but I can't complain first hand about Vista. If you go with an XP laptop I would suggest keeping it that way. A lot of laptops have specialty drivers for things like volume controls, touch buttons, etc and it can be a pain to get those working when "upgrading" from one OS to another.
More OT: I would shop around if you're on no hurry. People hate on Dell but you can get a good machine with a decent warranty right in that price range. I've owned many machines first hand from Alienware, Sony, HP, Sager, Toshiba, and Dell. Some I probably paid a little too much for. Honestly if you're not going to game I wouldn't spend more then that. Technology changes so rapidly that spending so much on a machine is a waste IMO.
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Completed X360:  |
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| High Def Movie Collection |
