I worked tech at best buy for 2 years, hps and compaqs poured in broken, hard drives fry all the time due to shitty engineering on the cooling, boards go bad, modems and network jacks crack off inside. I just ran into far to many problems with them.
Dell - decent product, decent components, decent design, decent service, decent price.
IBM - excellent product, decent service, excellent components, Great design. OSU is currently giving their discount on these to students let me know if you interested in the price list.
Toshiba - decent components, excellent design, great features.
i would tend to shy away from the winbooks, but they are pretty good pricewise so if you got a good warranty on it thats debatable.