Ive been asked to find a new laptop for a friend who works in HR consultancy. The back light on his current Sony Vaio laptop has failed after 3+ years of daily use, hes been quoted repair prices of around £160 - £200 mark. Ive recommended that he puts that towards a new laptop.

Most of his work is office application based but is also carried out on the move; he frequently flies around the world !

His requirements are pretty basic:
Light ! Lighter the better !
14" Screen (can be bigger if it doesnt add too much weight)
Wifi (ideally UK/USA compatible ??)
Rock solid stable

Normally Id have just recommended a Dell but recently Ive been reading about a lot of people having issues with them. This puts me off :/
His last couple of laptops have been Sony Vaios and with the exception of the psu brick and the back light failing after a couple of years, hes had no problems with them until now.

What/where would you look ? Or should I just find whatever Vaio replaces his current one ?

If he wants light then you are limited to 2 brands imo, Sony or Dell.  Sony you will be paying over £1K for any of their light machines.

I recently supplied a Dell Lattitude 13, awesome machine.  But you pay for the weight and size.

This because my acer travelmate 5330 works so well with Ubuntu  2.2 kg
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=597131

or this a bit smaller but same weight and like geforce
also very quiet

http://cdon.se/hemelektronik/samsung_q320_13.4_500gb_hdd_4gb_ram-8366286

Personally I dislike the Vaio range, but one of the S-Series would probably suit him if he likes Vaio machines.  

This because my acer travelmate 5330 works so well with Ubuntu  2.2 kg
http://www.komplett.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=597131

or this a bit smaller but same weight and like geforce
also very quiet

http://cdon.se/hemelektronik/samsung_q320_13.4_500gb_hdd_4gb_ram-8366286

Youre not the first person to mention Samsung. Ill have a look at them.
This Laptop will be 100% Windows 7 with no hint of anything non-Microsoft

Ive just reviewed the Ibm / Lenovo / HP / Compaq / Fujitsu Semeins offerings but (I think) theyre too expensive for what they are !

Going to look into Samsung, Acer and Asus next.

Found a range of laptops on ebuyer (of all places) that fit the bill. Theres even a couple of Vaios in the mix, so I think Ill show him them and see.

If the next day on site extended warranty thing is uber important then he will have to accept that its going to be either a Dell or a very over priced HP / IBM.

Sorry Eagle but since Germany knocked out England I cannot bring myself to respond to you
(Or it could be that hes only interested in buying brand new w/ extended warranty)

Budget is a funny one. Im going to say around the £750 w/o warranty options.

Cypher are you still happy supplying Dell kit given the recent media coverage of all the problems theyve been having with ropey components and recalls ?

Im going to stand by PCBuyit as im about to buy another Dell monitor soon and dont care about faulty bits or recalls cus it comes with a most excellent 3 year zero defect warranty

Brief explanation of my laptop recommendations to other people:

Try to stick to a major brand where possible
As pointed out, buy for the specs and try to find a competitive price
Once the warranty has run out, Ebay said laptop and upgrade to a new one with new warranty

Its a nice idea and one Id suggest if the laptop wasnt his main go to every day machine. Its gotta be right. Im getting away with this delay as he is working from his office for a couple of days on a monitor.

Ive got to get something ordered at lunch today so that I have time on Thursday (night) to get it setup for Friday; when he flies out for a couple of days.

Im thinking perhaps a trip to Comet, spend around £400 and lower his expectations to something thatll last no more than a year before probably having to replace. At least thatll give me time to get it sorted and data ported and should anything be wrong with it I can get it returned and replaced quickly.