I alway bought HP notebook computers until they aquired Compaq. After that, I decided upon a Toshiba. [edit] Not that anything bad happened when HP bought Compaq, I just wasn't sure at the time and decided to try Toshiba [end edit] I've worked the living daylights out of the Toshiba notebook that I have and it is still kicking. Lets see...its about 3 and a half year old now. Not the fastest, but still going. At work, our salesmen all use Acers. Out of about 18 Acer notebook computers, over the last 3 years, one has died, from being dropped on a hard surface. The rest look beat up, they are used in the field, but are still working fine.
As to which is best, I'll second Atomic Roosters opinion...it depends upon what you want and how good a deal you get purchasing it.