After a week of looking at laptops, I've narrowed it down to Toshiba and Dell. But I'm thinking more Dell...prettier to look at, nice design, good feel under my fingertips, nice specs, reasonable price, etc.

But, would you believe, I called Dell to inquire about having a custom laptop built, and the communication with them sucks......I don't know how else to say it. The salespeople are all in India, they speak "Ind-glish" (a nice way of saying their English leaves a lot to be desired), don't know anything about computers except for how to take down an order, are not interested in your inquiries if you tell them you're not buying now, and are generally rude and probably bored out of their minds over there. I had to call three times. On the third call, I made up something like this. "I want to speak to a supervisor. I just called Dell corporate headquarters here in the United States and they told me to to get the names and ID #'s and note the time of the call for each instance you have trouble." Of course, it wasn't true, but it certainly got me a little more respect. So what happens......they give me a supervisor and she was just a "blah" as the rest of them.

That's putting me off Dell somewhat because if that's how they talk to you when your "buying," imagine what you'll have to go through if you need warranty service.