Bought an HP laptop about 6 months ago for $800 after rebates. I suppose that might be UKP500. AMD processor, nice 15" screen, 40 Gby HD, CD-RW/DVD read, Ethernet, 802.11b/g, FireWire, two USB 1.1 (probably 2.0 in current versions), PS2 mouse/keyboard port, phone modem,serial and parallel ports, & 512 Mby RAM. IMO one should get 512 Mby Ram these days, especially since this model shares RAM with screen refresh, as cheap machines do.
The thing is fairly heavy, but the battery lasts 3 or 4 hours.
After I had bought a $30 USB floppy drive I discovered a chit in the computer documentation which would have paid for an HP USB floppy drive. sigh
I've bought a Microsoft optical mouse $10, keyboard $8, and case.
HP machines are also sold as Compaq. Cheap machines economize on screen refresh speed, so they aren't well suited for fast action games ... but I've played a computer game only once in my life.
After getting over the hump of XP & networking, I'm happy with it. I have no idea concerning its playing DVDs from various regions.
sc