Ok, I can't help myself: How in the world does the repair shop justify having a PC for 35 days? Is this a factory warranty repair?

On to the question:

If you're looking for a second PC, I'd recommend a laptop or netbook. I think it's important to understand the distinction between laptop and netbook, though, and I'm not sure that's been touched on.

A netbook is essentially a very under-powered laptop. In general, surfing the web and doing word processing will work fine, as will most games that aren't graphically intensive (board games, older 3d games, etc.) However, no matter what brand you pick, you're going to get an underpowered CPU, vastly underpowered compared to what you can pick up on even a very low-priced laptop. Fortunately, with one major exception, they have plenty of CPU for handling the use you described. That exception is (some) Flash applications. In general, Flash itself is a huge CPU resource hog, and this means most Flash apps run poorly on netbooks. Youtube runs OK, but Hulu stutters quite a bit, for example. All of the Flash games on Facebook/Myspace also run poorly. So, if you frequently play those "little" online board game type things, you'll be surprised to find out that your netbook runs Unreal Tournament better than Facebook Scrabble. Now, on the pro-netbook side, we have: Light weight, super-convenient size, plenty of power for e-mail, (non-flash) surfing, word processing, running simple games, watching most multimedia (I use mine to watch Netflix's online streaming movies, which run through Media Player - they run well), and a good battery life due to the lower powered CPU. Also, due to size constraints, netbooks usually do not have an optical drive. You'll have to use a networked or USB drive if you need to access a DVD or CD, so you may want to factor that into the cost (which isn't too large, but it adds to the overall cost if you need an optical drive)

As for some buying tips: You'll want to get one with Windows XP -- avoid Vista at all costs on a Netbook -- and you may consider getting one with Windows 7 on it when that's released if you don't mind waiting. (I don't think they're doing the free upgrade to Win7 from XP machines bought between now and release like they are Vista machines.) Max your RAM out. (Usually to 2GB, using a 1GB chip. It's a pretty cheap upgrade.) Check the specs on the Netbook you're interested in to make sure it has user-upgradeable RAM. Another thing to consider is the type of screen, and the screen size. Most brands have bright, but glossy, screens. These look great indoors with no direct light sources on them, but if you're out and about, in varying lighting conditions, the glare can make the screen unreadable at times. The bottom line is that the anti-glare coating costs more, and these are budget machines so glossy is more common. Both of the netbooks in our household are from Asus, and have anti-glare screens. The other decision is screen size. Ten inch screens are most common, and it's a good, usable size. The keyboards run about 92% of full size and are pretty easy to get used to typing on. The nine inch size is considerably smaller overall, with a correspondingly more crowded keyboard. It took me about ten minutes to get used to typing on the ten inch, but about three or so days of regular use to get used to typing on the nine inch. I suggest trying out both yourself. The nine inch is a lot more portable, and I don't mind the KB too much, so I love it. My wife much prefers the ten inch for ease of typing and for the additional screen real estate.

As to brand: Most of the more commonly-seen brands are very decent, including Asus (who started the trend), Acer, Dell, and HP. I don't have any direct experience with the Samsung or Toshiba netbooks, but would expect them to be good. I'd avoid Sony and Gateway at all costs, and that's from the POV of selling both brands for a while. Gateway, due to the very high rate of problems with new machines, and Sony for their terrible support and overall poor attitude toward their consumers, not to mention they're priced way out of line for the hardware in a netbook.