<p>I would prefer to get a mac, but I am going somewhere where it is basically 100% pc so I will probably end up getting a pc. From what I have seen feature-wise, the best value is lenovo.</p>
<p>Lenovo T61 customized
2.4 GHz
2 GB RAM
160 GB HD
DVD recordable bay
etc.
$1000</p>
<p>You can change the customization on there website to other specs and see the prices. They have quite a few options and for what I consider very reasonable upgrade prices, especially compared to mac spec upgrade prices.</p>
<p>Dell is another option. The XPS line is fairly high quality but some of the upgrades require a $500 bluray drive upgrade as well. The inspiron line is cheaper than the XPS and the inspiron 1720 with the same upgrades as above is $1200. Not as good of value as lenovo.</p>
<p>I like HP over dell. There are more options to choose from depending on what you need.</p>
<p>Gateway doesn’t let you customize online but the closest to the above stats is th Gateway M-151XL. It is $1300 with 2.4 GHz, 250 GB HD, and 3 GB RAM. It seems like a good value, but I don’t know a lot about gateway.</p>
<p>These examples are just normal laptops with the specs I think I will end up getting. I don’t know if you a concerned about multimedia/gaming one or an ultraportable. I think lenovo is the best value for regular computing but maybe less so on the other fronts. I would avoid sony because they always seem to be overpriced.</p>