for the past 9 years or so, I have used a dell laptop everyday in an industrial/manufacturing environment...on the floor, not in an office. my company provided me with dell lattitudes because they are robust and reliable (a little more so than the inspiron). I recently purchased an dell inspiron for my realtor wife - well, I spec'd it, she paid for it - for her to drag around. I changed jobs recently and my new company provided me with a...you guessed it...dell lattitude. I wouldn't consider buying anything else.

hell, I didn't even know gateway was still in business.