Personally, I'd recommend a mac, but as that seems to be a little out of your price range, HP pavillion's are great but if you're looking for a step above an HP check out Lenovo.
Well if you are not into gaming I would say laptop as it just makes more sense. I use to be into gaming a lot so I had a desktop but I dont do that as much anymore. However if I still want to, my laptop is powerful enough to handle it.