Help choosing a Laptop and where to buy in NYC

Hey all long time no post but I'm in New York on holiday at the moment and looking to buy a laptop while I am here. Any suggestions where to look. I had a quick browse in Staples and Best Buy.

Should I go for Copre2Duo or AMD X2 or whatever it is. I'm so out the loop of what's going on in computers it's unbelievable I feel like such a noob again haha

Edit: Any brands I shoud go with or any I should avoid?

Best buy does not have the model that I was going to recommend but they do carry some Asus laptops.

I love them because the 8 sec boot up feature. It does not fully boot into the OS but you can still do word processing, watch movies, lesson to music and browse on the web.

If you are not looking for a power house check out these. The battery life on them are just beyond belief.

I have the ASUS UL30A-X5 and I can get 10 hours out of them with the wireless off.

What's your budget?

About $600. So is Core2Duo the way to go?