Dell, HP, Compaq and IBM. As reliability goes they are all about equal. These are what I recommend for most of my clientele. They also offer a good amount of customer support. Another consideration in a purchase. I've not seen much downtime lately in any of these units.
Poor quality early in their history has continued to dog them. They still don't hold up well to extensive travel. Customer service was very crappy also.
dell's laptop repair service has a 1-2day turnaround. i've had to use it twice for my 600m on the lcd. both RMA service was done via email, no phone call was made. they mail you a box first with prepaid 2-day shipping service (DHL in my case) the first time, i sent it on friday afternoon, and received it on the following tuesday. i dont remember the second trip, but it was just as quick.
Just got my laptop seem preety ok to me connected it to the DSL service and already chatting on it hope it work,s preety good