[DubaiSis]

I have a Dell (it was the 2nd from the top of the line at the time) that I think I paid $600 for. I've been very happy with it so far and it's 2 1/2 years old now. I did have to rebuild it once, but dropping it more than once isn't the laptop's fault!

I would check Best Buy (or similar) online and get down to 2 or 3 choices, then do as I did and ask your favorite geek for a final opinion. I didn't ask my husband because he would ALWAYS say buy the more expensive one. My favorite geek said the 2nd one was perfectly fine for my needs and it was/is.

If you're torn between Mac and PC, one thing I would keep in mind is laptops by their very nature have a shorter shelf life (see above about dropping mine more than once) so the durability of a Mac may not be worth it. In a desktop I think the Mac is a very good choice because you don't have to replace them every 3 years or so like you do with PCs. On the other hand, I don't own a Mac and Mac owners are militantly loyal. There must be a reason! I was strongly considering the big switch, but the travel agent software I have isn't very gui so I thought it unwise to test its limits on a different OS.