maleficent

Speaking from personal experience -- and how much wear and tear your laptop gets...

Sony Vaio's are sweeeet machines, the display quality is best I 've seen anywhere, the keyboard has a nice touch to it, and it's a lightweight machine.
It's not exactly sturdy - travelling every week, forces me to take my laptop out of it's protective case to go thru airline security, they aren't exactly gentle -- the sony didn't last 5 months.

Compaq - decent machine the keyboard is nice, the display is OK, the wear and tear are a little better than the sony's. But their cusomer service and support are the worst I've ever had, and I've been working in and around tech support for more than 10 years -- compaq service I have nothing positive to say about.

that and the display unit would come lose regularly.

Dell - -customer support is improved, though can be a little frustrating, when my power supply died they thought it was the motherboard, until the tech came on site to replace it then finally agreed with me that it was the power supply.
I love the keyboard, and I love the touch pad mouse, I'm just so used to it. the laptop I have now I've had more than 2 years, it goes thru security every week -- twice a week, has been dropped by security more times than I can count - and it's still going.

For sturdiness I'd go with Dell.

IBMs -- I've only use the laptops with the butterfly keyboards and hated them. They just never felt solid to me.

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