have you looked at netbooks? they tend to be cheaper since they are using lower speed processors and smaller hard drives, meant for people who are mostly interested in web browsing and not running heavy graphic laden applications
you should check out cnet reviews on the subject
http://reviews.cnet.com/4370-3121_7-...tColumnArea1.0
their catch all best of, in different catagories
although i will say , a good number of netbooks don't have dvd drives in them, so they may not be the best for multimedia