just build one so you don't need all that proprietary crap in case something fails in the long run, like power supplies and other stuff.. HP/COMPAQ and DELL ect all use proprietary hardware, if something breaks you gotta buy the part form them only.. and that means more expensive

Personally, I like HP laptops but a Mac desktop is my favorite.

well, it depends. they all have there own specialization.. When it comes to motherboard: ASUS and GIGABYTE.for ram: Corsair. for Harddsik: WD(raptor). for LCD monitor: SONY, NEC. and for cdrom/cdrw/dvdrw, i choose ASUS(coz i have it for 7 years now!).my LG cdrw only lasted 2 years and Sony dvdrw sucks,(according to my friends)..

If your talking about HP and Dell.. they dont have thier own products. what i mean is..er.. for example, the HP BlackBird2. if you peep inside, the parts are not HP's. the motherboard is from ASUS, the ram is from corsair,,etc.. same goes to DELL.. i have a friend who works at Dell and he told me that DELL LCD monitors are really SONY monitors.

my the most like is HP brand

personally i think is HP

DELL Computers for me is the BEST.

i'm not really good in those stuff...but i heard that toshiba is really good....my laptob is toshiba but i'm not sure i didn't know it was considered a really good brand. I just heard it somewhere

HP is better with international warranty .
With acceptable price and style.

Custom>Factory.

there's no best brand really. it's up to the requirement of the laptop itself (i.e warranty period vs performance vs reliability) all those big companies does a good job on these aspect and it'll be differentiate by their laptop packages and design.