Oh, and by the way, dell computers I haven't had such luck with them... I've had a couple break down and the hardware has special drivers that need to be downloaded from dell themselves if you're lucky to find some that are compatible with vista.
IBM laptops. Very solid. I have dropped mine four times & it hasn't broke.
They are very reliable. IBM make mainframes, so robu***ess is their selling point.
If you want an overpriced piece of junk, go to the Apple store.
Dell are OK, but can be akward with drivers. Dells are also fragile.
Toshiba is alright, I had an Acer and had to have it fixed a few times. From my experience, Tigerdirect.com gives pretty good deals on laptops, but I see better deals from time to time.