If you're not going to game, just get whatever is cheap and looks cool.
Seriously, there just isn't much difference between laptops these days. They all come with the same hardware. HP is making nice looking laptops right now, in my opinion, and the one or two that I've used were pretty nice. I'm not familiar with the Sony stuff, unfortunately.
The most important thing to me is having a decent sized screen. Past that, if it turns on and let's me type stuff, who cares what brand it is?
