I have bought a DELL Studio XPS just before moving to Qatar , but returned it right away. If you're a picky user, you will be dissapointed with the amount of heat it can generate. XPS is basically a gaming machine. Then I have bought a toshiba and very very unhappy with it, sometime it just stops working. From my previous experience, IBM T series laptops are the best one, then Dell Lattitude series.Never buy Dell inspiron series, my wife got one - very cheap made laptop. Finally if you have the budget go with the Macbook Pro - it generates less heat, battery life is also good and runs on BSD Unix on the background. You can also visit CNet or Amazon.com to see some of the reviews before even choosing one.

Cheers