I've bought 3 HP and never any serious issues, great machine and the Dell's don't come close in the same price range when it comes to performance ($1100-$2000)
the nice thing about the HP's is they have many input ports that the other manufacturers tend to leave out, and the laptop's with dedicated graphic cards are usually set up with much better overall horsepower than the others in the same price
this machine is sweet, was looking pretty seriously of getting one but I think I am going to hold off for Win7 to come out:
http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-HDX18...79519&sr =8-1