@royal
buddy i would suggest your frien=nd to look at nvidia ion based notebooks since you mentioned some basic activities.
At 30k conventional notebooks have dual core proccys(maybe not c2d based but pentium dual cores)and offer basic intel graphics solution.
The ion platform delivers better performance in this price point for watchin hd movies or even casual gaming.But you may have to sacrifice in computational power i.e may have some atom based solutions.
Anyway have a look at the ion platform before making any decisions.
