dell is the number 3 laptop behind hp and acer and refurb is as new. you cant go wrong and their customer service is as good or as bad as any other. buy with the knowlege that you are getting a good product.

Just my two cents, but here at work, the IT department got a good dealon HP laptops.
They had so much trouble with them that they refused to buy any more
and have switched back to DELL.
Every laptop I have had has been a DELL and there have been no issues,
I use them till they are off the lease which takes about 5 -7 years.
The only thing I had to do was spec them at the high end of teh tech range so
they do not become outdated too quick.
What the IT department has found is that any of teh laptops that come back to them as DOA,
are usually because of virus downloads by people not being careful
or actual physical damage because of people being careless.
But the HP's always seam to burn themselves up, I used one as a loner one time
and you could smell that distinct aroma of hot electronics and the performace just was not up to par with teh DELL.

i would never say buy a laptop refurbed. you could have bought one on black friday from best buy or walmart for $197 new. as for Dell we had dell and nothing but problems so we went back to IBM thinkpads here at work. Steer clear of HP or Compaq. Asus which was mentioned makes really good mother boards not sure of there Displays but good mother boards. the true leader in laptops is Toshiba.

Thinkpads are in my opinion the holy grail of laptops, in fact the IBM towers are pretty damn impressive as well. The laptops are built like brick houses, heavy, but run hard and run long...I guess that's why they cost more.

-Svence