Barney:
The best laptops on the market for price/dependability/service and warranty have to be Toshiba - bar none! Not only that but you can buy a full extended warranty - called accidental which will cover your laptop even if you drop it in the pond! I am not aware of anyone else doing that except maybe Panasonic's ToughBook series -- but to buy one of them you will break the bank
If you got to Toshiba.com which is the US site, you should be able to find some pretty good deals. Look under accessories/extras for the extended warranty.
I have been servicing Dell, IBM, HP and Toshiba laptops for years and the only laptops that I buy now are Toshiba's. At this moment we have 2 Toshiba Satellite P300's, an M-60, 20 Satellite A-100's that we use all the time. One of my daughters has an Acer - nice .. reasonable. I have 3 Dell Latitude's left but they are strictly to use in the pole barn.
I no longer buy Dell's mostly because of quaility/service issues. HP is overpriced and under serviced and well IBM no longer really exists it is now Lenovo and they are all made in China ..... so I don't buy those at all, even used ones.
If you can get the largest screen you can afford. They are worth it. Figure out what you need it for, what type of add-ons and what you can live with/without or can't live without. It should not be a snap decision but one based on a bit of research.