I recently helped my dad purchase a B130 for himself.  It's a great little laptop - widescreen, wireless card, reasonably fast processor, 512MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive, good battery life.  It would work great for what you're wanting to do.  I picked it up in the Dell Outlet for under $500.  If you want brand new, be sure to look for coupon codes online which can save you some money.

Before you buy a laptop, please read my post called "Stuck in Tech Support Purgatory."  It's a horror story that may impact your purchase.  My wife and I went to Walmart and bought two Toshiba laptops to replace Dell equipment we sold recently.  I had a problem with the wireless connection.  I called Toshiba support and was on hold for two minutes.  When the tech support picked up, he spoke English!  I was astounded and pleased!  My Dell laptop is still broken because Dell doesn't know how to resolve my problem.  Please read my post.  Thanks, Will