Given your requirements, I suggest you get an Acer or an HP laptop. I'm not very well versed with Acer but I've seen a few friends with Acer laptops that looked good externally. I don't know about their performance.
The Compaq brand laptops are the budget series from HP. They look good but are generally heavier and less powerful that the HP Pavilion series.
Only the XPS series in Dell is worth considering. Dell and Lenovo have mostly catered to the business community and their attitude in design as well as features reflects in their poor Inspiron and Vostro series laptops i.e. they looks bland and the screen qualilty is just passable for work. You won't enjoy watching movies on these laptops. Plus, Dell does not use stores to sell laptops so I guess you have to order one on the web or over the phone etc..I don't like that if you ask me.
With Sony, you will pay a lot(and I mean a lot) but generally, if you're a girl, you might find it appealing to use. (I don't want to stereotype you but it has been observed that women generally favour the whole package and don't really care for every ounce of performance.) Be aware though that the screen of the Vaios have been reported to be of ok quality only. And the keyboards on some models are weird metallic types that are very difficult to use. Please check the laptop out before buying.