I was always a ACER user for many years but gradually moving over to Dell,but over the last year have also been moving away from laptops and home based computers to notepads and i think many people are starting to do this.
Sony is my favorite manufacturer in laptops. Sony design the laptops look like Awesome and eye catchy than any other laptops.
With respect to all others i think HP is best. I had an acer that died after a year and 15 days and it had a 1 year warranty so i grabbed a HP with a 3 year warranty for the same price i paid for my old acer. Warranty is now the most important thing i check for when buying a laptop.