Personally, if you want a fantastic laptop for basic editing and not gaming. I'd look at the low end Macbook Pros. I've never been an apple fan, but I use a macbook pro for work and absolutely love it. It's a total beast for pretty much everything (but gaming) and just works.
Having said that, I'm also a big fan of ASUS so I'll +1 on Puppies recommendation. But I didn't see anyone mention the macbook route, but for basic laptop use, I think they are hard to beat other than in price but I believe the low end is in your range. My one friend hounds me every 3 years on which laptop to get because he always buys low end ones that just start breaking down after a couple years. For the last few rounds I was saying to him, spend a little more and stop having issues. He finally this year got a macbook and has so far loved it.
My work laptop has traveled over 100k miles with me, gets carried in a backpack every day, has been dropped off a ladder, you name it... and NO ISSUES. OK, fine, when I dropped it off the latter the screen broke and I had to get a new screen (our internal help desk was able to do that for me), but the guts of the sucker were still fine and I'm dreading the day I have to return it.