Mac's 'Click of Death'

After a 3rd rescue from 'the click of death' yesterday, I don't think I'll be able to resuscitate this Mac many more times, if any. It's holding on but we're both suffering. She's been a great machine and best part was she cost me $0, having won it in an competition. So now how do I go about choosing this Macs replacement? I'm not a techie, but I know where to find it specs so I'm using that as a baseline. But looking at info online doesn't help as it's not real, I need to get in there and play with a machine, speak to people and then get online to find the best deals.

Setting up the new machine won't be fun as I'll be assuming this one will go, so what do I move over? Photos of course, some applications but is anything else really that important? Not that I can think of.

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I've been to the Apple store today and settled on a 13' Apple Macbook Pro.
Cheaper than I thought it would be but being the haggler I am, I won't pay the asking price of $1349. HarvNorms beat it by $100, so will be going back to Apple tomorrow to get a better deal.