Ah, I went to a lot of stores and looked around and i'm still puzzled.

The Dell Inspiron 8500 is great with a 15.4 screen and is powerful, but the thing looks ugly in pictures. The Compaq EVO1020v or EVO800V are both nice, but for the price of the dell come with a lot less. Toshiba is the best, but the Tecra line I like is like $500 more than a Dell.

No idea what to get....