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The major brands often just tag stuff that they bought from other suppliers... So brand name may be less meaningful than you expect. Additionally, in IT a product is brought out, refined once or twice (over 1.5yrs say) then retired. There is not that much incremental refinement. The initial design may be a total dud - even the big brands regularly produce duds, and a brand that is travelling well at the moment may be "on the ropes" tomorrow.
By the sound of it, you are looking at laptops yes?
I believe (AU anyways) that laptop prices depend a lot on the particular deal, discounts etc that apply at a particular time, from vendor to distributor to reseller. Plus they are all dumping old stock (due to core 2 being a relative success).
Speaking personally, I like ASUS designs. Acer seem a 'value' brand. Not flash... Dell is unexciting - and the guys at work have contintual support problems with Inspirons (mind you they have problems with most technologies).
I've had a HP before. Support was crap, but it was rugged.
The brands that I'd consider most favourably are HP, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba and ASUS. But that's probably only personal preference. Laptop performance is usually only average - I'd not bother to spend on a high performance model.
Sony... they're pretty. I'm not sure about them... Check the support websites of each manufacturer perhaps, before you buy. How long do they support old models?
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