Need labtop for college?

My niece needs advice about purchasing a labtop for college. She needs it for web research & word processing. She will have network access free through her University. She has an Economics class with all her classwork posted online. Her available money is around $1,000. She will be shopping at Best Buy locally as she needs it today . I was going to suggest Windows XP SP2 (home). I am unsure of the brand to suggest, as well as hard drive, memory, etc...and wanted to ask for some quick guidelines from the best -- Major Geeks, of course ! Thanks in advance, Shannon

 

Toshiba I recommend for laptops, esp. for uni people! Very durable, easy to get repaired if anything should go wrong, and cheapish but very good