I almost went with Dell because of their warranty on the laptops, they cover spills, drops, accidents and things like that which are clearly user fault, another media guy here has made good use of the warranty a couple of times when the laptop just couldn't absorb any more coffee than one fateful morning.

I am reasonably careful with my equipment, rough environment but I remain sensible about hazards when the laptop is open so I decided on a tough IBM/Lenovo T60 this time around.

I also found the Dell's rather pricey once I tried to build them up, the advertised price looked good but once I started adding things and making it more future proof I was over $4000!