What's a good, solid but not expensive laptop?

I’m looking for something small and functional, but with a CD drive so not too small. I have a pretty tricked out Dell laptop that’s a couple of years old and is getting a little slow and uncooperative. Its that time for an upgrade, but since I’ll be paying for this along with a lot of other things, I’m not willing to spend the kind of money I did on that machine for my next computer for surfing the internet, doing work for school, and playing the occasional game.

It needs to be able to support The Sims without an issue. Lol!