If you go ibm, go through a reseller and you'll save a ton, btw. I like Dell's in general, just not their laptops. They are ok, but, at least when I bought mine (and i bought my wife a Dell at the same time), for the same price I got better everything with the IBM (video, sound, onboard ethernet, etc), and it's pretty indestructable. Also, the dell has had to be reloaded a couple times, and is just flakey with it's power management and stuff.