Gotta buy a new lap top....thoughts?

[rawfuls]

Oh boy, well to begin with, everything that TexasSP has said, is pretty much what I was going to say.

The Samsung Series 9's have been really awesome, we sell them quite frequently at work..

The HP's, such as the DV2/6/7/9 series are notorious for their GPU chip soldering jobs.
It's quite pathetic really.
Now that's it's school, I really only work once a week (Saturdays) but even then, I'm seeing at least 2-3 reflow or motherboard replacements just sitting on the shelves waiting to be picked up or waiting for parts.

Toshbia's aren't bad, however they're definitely not my cup of tea.
They feel way too cheap IMO, and we haven't worked on many due to hardware issues, but the amount of crapware they put on is absurd.

Dell XPS laptops are pretty nice really, they're customizable and all that jazz, their warranty is also fantastic.
They're usually pretty good, I'd much rather grab a refurbished laptop over a new laptop, if you can get an extended warranty.

IMO, if I were to get a PC, I kinda of want something nice and thin, like those Samsung Series 9, or the Thinkpads, which seem to take on anything and just keep going.

Overall, either way, whatever you get, I'd recommend wiping it right away, and reinstalling Windows.

This way you don't need to deal with all that crapware manufacturers put on, with all their trials and nonsese.

Just my 2 cents; good luck!