IBM's may be durable, but I think they're ergonomics are crap. I personally really like Toshiba, I have been very happy with the quality of their notebooks. Dell is a great way to go as well, especially if you look at
www.fatwallet.com they have some great prices on refurbed laptops etc. I would look at the d600 or 600m with the Centrino processor. Further, I would ignore Alienware (yes blasphemer I know) but in reality their notebooks are made by Sager and you are paying an inflated price for the name and the color. Additionally, look at the keyboard layouts, I personally loathe having the 'fn' key where the 'ctrl' key should be. I mention this because both Sager and as such Alienware are perpetraitors of this. Don't buy a Compaq or a Gateway, and be careful with Sony. My issue with Sony is that they integrate so many things into their laptops that if one thing breaks, it all breaks.