My bro got this HP laptop for around 1100 USD, with 3 year warranty.
Specs
250 GB Disk Drive
2GB RAM
2.2 GHz Centrino Mobile
Windows Vista
512Mb Nvidia graphics
I did some research and I too found out that Sony had their prices jacked up.
If i were you I would trust HP, or even the Dell XPS seems to have a good reputation.
2GB of RAM is plenty and 3 or 4 wouldn't make that much of a difference.
The major things i would look for in a laptop would be
The processor, dedicated video memory, at least 2GBs of RAM, at least 200GB Hard drive, and warranty