My Dell Studio 17 is awesome, and in general I've heard that Dell laptops are better in quality that their desktops, though I have no idea how and whether these rumours are any true. I haven't had much experience with HP save for a Presario laptop and desktop but they're really Compaqs and I don't know if the Compaq-branded machines are actually made by HP (since they own Compaq), and even though they both were really good while they lasted, they both suddenly died (the dekstop after 3 years of use, my laptop after 2).