Any recommendations for a new laptop?

When I purchased my current laptop, I checked around a lot before buying it, and asked my uncle (who designs systems in Silicon valley) what brand he recommended. He told me that basically every major brand has their laptops manufactured in the same plants in Taiwan, so no matter if you go with HP, Gateway, Dell or Toshiba (who used to make their own, but not anymore), it's basically the same thing. What you pay for is the amount of testing they do after they ship them back over to the US, and the quality of support they offer.

That said, I've had my Dell Inspiron 6000 for two years now, and I haven't had a single problem with it aside from having to switch the battery -- and not because mine was one of the exploding ones, it was just old. That was probably partially my fault as well, for not unplugging it for a whole semester. It cost me $950, and that was completely customized. Just Google "Dell laptop coupon" and you can get all sorts of crazy $600 off discounts.
(like this)

Jam it back in, in the dark.