I've never had a personal laptop, and had a limited experience with the office ones.
Now that I am going to buy one for myself, I have a question as to what (a) manufacturer and (b) configuration, to choose.

By (a) I mean, HP, Fujitsu-Siemens, Dell, Asus, LG - those are available in my town and I can obtain support for.

By (b) I mean the following:

1. CPU - Centrino - mandatory
2. RAM - at least 512MB
3. HDD - at least 60 MG
4. Screen - at least 15"
5. Connectivity - WiFi (although it is still to come in my home country, maybe not soon), Bluetooth (not mandatory but preferable), USB2 and NIC
6. Drive - combo, DVD-CDRW - built-in
7. Card reader (MMC, SD) - built-in
8. At least 3.5 hours between battery charges

Considering the available options, which (a) manufacturer, (b) model would you recommend?

I need to know which brands ranks as first best, second best, etc. - in terms of durability, solidity, customer support, quality of assembly, etc.

Objective, as well as personal and biased, opinions, are welcome.

Not many replies, probably because it's a bit of a subjective question - everyone loves their own laptop/PC 'til it goes wrong. Only advice I can give is: go for a decent branded make - Compaq/HP, Sony., or one of the bespoke brands where you can choose your own configuration - Evesham, Dell & Mesh in the UK. Avoid the likes of Packard Bell & EMachine. Read up in decent PC magazines which do comparison tests - the market's changing all of the time so someone's opinion of a decent spec system will be out of date in a month. Happy shopping!

"I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."