I'm after a new laptop to replace my wife's work one that she's shortly handing back as she's leaving.

Budget is £300 to £400 and requirements-wise it's going to be used mainly for home stuff (browsing, looking at pics, vids, etc) with a requirement for it to be used for work where necessary (Excel, Word, Powerpoint eg MS Office).

15" or so screen (eg I don't need a 17" screen but also don't really want a 12" one or a netbook since that's a pain when doing work)

I don't really want anything with Vista on even if it's got free Win7 upgrade – ideally I guess I'd like Win7 but I'd certainly consider XP as I'm still happily using that on my other computers.

So, any suggestions of good deals out there at the moment?

Or do I just get a netbook and then plug in keyboard/mouse and the spare 15" or 19" LCD screens that I have in the attic when I need to do work?

As a starter, how about this?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172305

Or do I just get a netbook and then plug in keyboard/mouse and the spare 15" or 19" LCD screens that I have in the attic when I need to do work?

Yup – Samsung NC10 with XP and bung in another gig of memory, job done.

well if you were going the netbook route the Samsung NC20 (12 inch screen so a bit easier to live with) is silly cheap at £300 on Amazon at the moment

Not what you asked for on a few accounts but an awesome deal all the same – http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167375