Ok, I have two laptops here. One's medium quality, but closer to your price range. The other is the Laptop I use. It's $300 over your price range, but it's well worth it.
The first:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/...ter_-_Dark_Gray_with_Concentric_Circle_Finish
This is very similar to the one I use, aside from a few differences. It uses an i5. It only has 500gb of storage. And it's 2in. smaller.
The one I use:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/...ter_-_Dark_Gray_with_Concentric_Circle_Finish
It has a 1TB storage. 8GB of RAM. 17in screen. And uses an i7 processor.
While the second is a lot more expensive, you'll have a lot easier time in getting the quality of Minecraft that you want.