I have always had good luck with HP, I've owned a couple and the one I have now I had problems with when I first got it. they fed exed me a box (overnight) so I could ship it back to them. Within a week I got my computer back, delivered to my door, and two years no problems.
My buddy has bought a couple of emachines(made by IBM as I understand it) the first was their giveaway 299 all in one which wasn't bad except it came with the bare minimum of everything and it was hard to expand.
This time he bought the next model up from the bottom and got a much nicer more full featured machine.And by the way emachine had almost as much prioritized software as HP.
The way I understand lightscribe is it etches on special cd's, not in full color, but no ink to buy.
I could be wrong but thats my impression from talking to the kids at best buy.