Portable PC for 20 something niece - need recommendations - time is of the essence

Ladies, Help me out here

I have an early twenty something niece who wants a portable computer. She believes she is willing to spend up to $500 for the ideal machine.

My challenge is that ideal means it caught here eye as unique, or different, combined with meeting an acceptable level of her idea of attractive.

Without guidance she will spend the money without asking about basic specs, doing a minimum of comparing the chosen device against its competition, or shopping for the best deal or time to buy. Needless to say that scenario freaks me out.

She called asking about the Dell Inspiron Duo and as the first to be on the market with its flip "nablet" design and coming before the new amd brazos hardware I looked it up and was influenced by the engadget review enough to think that it didn't offer enough performance for more than a little too much money.

She plans on taking "it" everywhere, classes, online homework, any traveling, business documents, etc. She wants something very portable that will let her get her work done.

She has had the bad experience of getting one the the HPs with the bad nvidia chips which failed twice within 18 months or so and disposed of when HP shamed both Hewlett and Packard with their customer no service policy so NO HPs PERIOD.

I like reliable, powerful, and great design (to my mind), with a utilitarian,portable is good as long as reasonable performance comes with it, cuteness comes last kinda thing. So I would go shopping for a used core duo or core2duo thinkpad with a $200 - $350 budget.

If anyone has recently purchased a very portable machine, $200-500, new or used, that you think I should recommend to her I would appreciate your input.

I'm trying to prevent another HP incident and get her to think beyond first impressions, "cuteness", a genuine desire to "do this on her own", and hopefully encourage her to become a little more tech savvy.

The clocks a tickin - please help me out here.

Yes.

Had I not asked her if she had enough info on the dell it would be on its way now.

She appreciates portability and lightness.

The HP she used day to day was a dual core AMD/3gb/. She may be thinking that similar cost means similar processor power. The HP was @ $675 after discounts.

She just doesn't understand that the "homework" of decision making really yeilds the best result( my opinion from my perspective).