I have had no problems whatsoever with the dell inspiron laptop. I bought one for my wife last Christmas and it has performed perfectly.
Dell is running some pretty good deals on their laptops over the next several days.
Dell has an Inspiron 15for only $499 through tomorrow only, and can be customized with extra features if you want. This is what I did for my wife last year, but upgraded it to a faster processor, added a bit of ram and up graded the screen to glossy 1440x900
link to dells deal page here:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/days_of_deals?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhsThey did re-design their inspiron laptops last year.
