I have a Dell. No complaints here. Did everything online. From building, buying, and tracking the package until it got to my house. i haven't even spoken to a real person because i never had to yet. a biased opinion on my part because dell has never failed me yet.
im selling a little Dell note pad lattitude D400 upgraded it fast as anything! 1gig ram 60gb harddrive £150 or $300 pm if your interested
I dont know why, but i love SONY items. And i am recommend you sony laptops, becouse i had 2 laptops and i have never had problems with them.
i'd personnaly suggest a lenovo thinkpad W500 , they are simply great , and you can even hit a wall with it nothing woud happen to your laptop
Have you though of getting a MacBook? maybe the refurbs from apple? You can run windows on it too if you want.
Go for a netbook, which is a smaller version of a laptop if you need it just for Office / Browsing etc. You could go for the successful Vaio, or the lesser successful HP / Acer etc. P.S. if at all you want to go for it, wait for the Nokia Booklet 3G, which is launching on September the 4th.