New laptop advice

Hi,

I'm considering getting a new laptop, as my current one isn't getting any younger and I'm soon to get several newish games that will probably be too much for my system. As I've only ever had HP's I have very little knowledge of what other OEMS offer.

So I was wondering what sort of specs I should be looking at for the kind of stuff ill be doing with it. I'll be doing occasional gaming, some graphically intense some not so much, web browsing (5 or more tabs at at time in chrome), heavy multitasking like music, word processing and file browsing (and copying/moving)

As a result I was looking at sort of intel i5 stuff so around £450 ($715, at current exchange rate). But my thinking was that if I can get a fairly cheap i5 laptop then upgrade the he'd to an ssd, and the ram up to 6gb or more.

Just how I thought I could do it.
I'm open to all opinions and suggestions.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

Additional: could anyone who suggests a laptop find it one amazon.co.uk I consider it somewhat more trustworthy that other sites, but thats just me. Thanks.

Good well this went soooo well......