The key word here is "cheap", folks.

I went for a Lenovo ideapad 300 17.2 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-300-17isk-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i3-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-black/5450868.p?id=bb5450868&skuId=5450868) for $379.

The i3 processor isn't perfect, but it's still pretty snappy and provides 4 threads (2 core+2 hyperthread). And the 17.2" screen provides plenty of real estate. The big downsides are the RAM (4GB not nearly enough, but another 4GB stick will only cost you $18 at NewEgg) and the HD (I cannot stand conventional HDs, so I tossed in a 460GB SSD.)

It's a very "old school" notebook in that you get the bare necessities of ports and options, and it's not a touchscreen (a big plus for me).

Whatever you do, stay away from the AMD APU in a laptop -- I speak from hard experience here. While the AMD's much better integrated GPU is better for games, the AMD's CPU performance specs are far below that of Intel's, and the AMD A10 APU I used previously just choked on Poser.