Having destroyed three laptops in school, I can tell you that gateway and dell laptops are total and complete crap. my first gateway overheated at the drop of a hat. my dell lost its key sensitivity almost immediately - nothing like standing on the "e" key to get it to work. my second gateway lasted longer, but then the motherboard fried itself somehow and I almost lost all my data.

I now have an Asus brand laptop, which I adore. I bought it gently used (like three days of use while the person waited for their i-Book to be fixed) from someone I know. It's got great web compatibility, video has been crisp and clear so far, and doesn't seem so determined to be a pain in the ass with cutesey computing crap.