Just to update:

I ended up buying an HP Mini 110-3538TU for under $370.

Specs include a dual-core N550 Atom, 1GB RAM, 250GB HD, Win7 Starter.

First impressions are good, the UI seems responsive enough for opening apps, web surfing, emails etc. and battery life shows over 5hrs even after a couple of hours use - although I have not run it flat yet to test the accuracy of this.

Build is solid overall but I don't think that the small cover over the Ethernet port will have a long life expectancy! Speaking of ports, the SD card slot is a very useful inclusion which comes in handy for downloading photos when travelling with a digital camera.

The screen seems sharp to me but with only 600px vertical resolution there is always going to be a lot of scrolling. The keyboard is fine for my 'hunt and peck' typing too.

Naturally, I trashed the HP 'crapware' and Norton AV trial, and am using MSE. It comes with a 'lite' version of MS Office which is adequate for anything I may want to do in terms of document/spreadsheet creation. I have installed Firefox for browsing.

Overall I am quite happy with it and could recommend it.