I have always bought the professional line of Toshiba laptops because of my line of work (before I retired). I have probably owned 7 or 8 of them over the years and never had to have one repaired. The drawback is that they do cost more than the consumer models that you find in the stores.

To be honest with you, I have never owned an Apple product until this Christmas when the wife and I got an iPad 2. However, I will say that if you aren't going to use it for business, they do make great products. They cost a bit more than a Windows based PC and you may not find as much free or shareware software for a MAC, but they are very good machines.

If you are looking for a Windows based laptop, it's like buying a bike. Find the one with the most bang for the bucks and go with it. If you do some homework, you can do some searching (if you want to spend the time) finding out who makes the motherboards for the laptops you are interested in and then see how they are rated. If you went out today and bought it today, this is all moot.