[darkpuppet]

^-- complete care is handy, and you can usually get that kind of support for any laptop if you go through a proper distributor.

Now, technology-price wise, I find the Toshiba's a very good value. They used to be the top of the heap, but still maintain a marginal lead IMO. That and the construction quality is much better than compaq and some of the cheaper Dells.

it's a trade-off really... the complete care costs a bit more, but you get that piece of mind. But if you're good with your stuff, and want to save a few sheckels, other manufacturers offer better deals.

But then again, remember that there are tradeoffs for going cheap too... my compaq laptop has a crappy glidepad, is finickey with some software drivers, and if you pick it up with one hand, you risk accidentally hitting the battery release button and having it land on your foot. not to mention the cheesy plastic construction.

then you get to my IBM (now lenovo) laptop, and sure, it's about $500 more for the same hardware, but it's smaller, lighter, longer battery life, better pointer device, and it's been dropped several times without any issue. After having owned and having to live with both, I would rather save up a couple extra pennies and buy a mid-range thinkpad over the cheaper "high end" features of their competitors..

same applies to apple laptops...and if they're using intel processors now, you could even get windows running on them to be able to play with all your friends... in fact, I'd love a mac notebook myself... they are beautiful machines.