JG,

In the past I have purchased a number of different brands, for a company and more recently for myself.

At present I use a HP laptop, a large one with a very large screen. Quite few years old now. Still works quite reasonably, well I think the DVD drive doesn't work anymore, some buttons have fallen off, and it can be slow, so should replace it, but $$$ are needed for other stuff.

I more recently purchased a Sony Ultrabook for travelling, smallish and thin. It does not have enough USB ports, only two. To use a "wireless" mouse I need to use blue-ray and it is not that reliable. It doesn't have an integral DVD drive, one must be plugged in to it to use. Hard disk is only 500 Mb but OK as a email machine and for travelling. Battery time is really good, about eleven or twelve hours. It works really well. I don't think you would want one like this though. Was the same price range you specified though.

I have been buying mine from Harvey Norman as they have a good range. Also sometimes you can get a long term replacement warranty of three or four years if something goes wrong with it. Costs a bit but sometimes worth it. HN is probably not the cheapest place to buy and maybe not the most current models.

I find Sony's quite reliable. Had one before the HP and also bought some for the winery I used to buy for.

A key thing with PCs is to make sure the brand or selling company has a repairs and maintenance service. Some brands sold by the internet or mail order, in the past had ZERO backup if anything went wrong.

PCs, laptops etc change so much that info on models probably changes at least every six months. One always has to research what is current, in terms of features and performance, ram, chips, etc and competitive prices everytime one buys. The stuff from USA is also not available in Australia for a year or more, and Japan is ahead of the USA, so research needs to be limited to what we have in Oz.

PS One doesn't see Toshibas much these days. I used to buy some top of the range models for work. Then had trouble and found out Toshiba used to recondition used laptops from Japan and resell them in Australia as new. Had trouble time and time again with my bosses Toshiba, and asked in the end for supplier to replace it. They refused. I found out why. Threw his one year laptop away and bought an IBM to replace it. Never purchased any from Toshiba again. For a small company probably ten to twenty laptops missed out for them over the years.