Budget Sandy Bridge for Non-Gaming College Student

1. What is your budget?
$550-600

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 14 or 15.6

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Not important

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable

5. How much battery life do you need?
3 hours minimum under light i.e. microsoft word usage

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No games period

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Playing DVDs / Streaming Video

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
250gb minimum

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?oi=E9CED&...$549.00
or Newegg, I'm an unofficial valued customer

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I've owned only Dell Laptops so far. Good computers but their power adapters are cheap.

13. What country do you live in?
U.S.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
This laptop is a graduation gift for a female going to college away from home. She doesn't play games and pretty much owns no electronics minus a blackberry so I don't want to give her something that is going to be a hassle to maintain like my yearly purchases of Dell power adapters. I'm rough on them but they are still flimsy. I'm looking for something entry level, performance wise, with the asthetics (no plastic look), portability, and weight ideal for her uses. I've searched all over the place for the 2nd gen i3 laptop models but have mostly come up short. The HP Probook 4430s fits what I need perfectly. Dell has a similar latitude for a few bucks less but only 2 gigs of ram.
My main concern with the HP Probook 4430s is its usability as I haven't owned one. The big thing being quality, useability of mousepad, and useability of the keyboard for typing documents. If anyone has owned one of this line or has run across a similar product that I have missed in my search your insight would be appreciated.