I have an HP laptop. I've had it for about 10 months and it's working amazingly. Even when it stopped working last week, it repaired itself! (Only error it's ever had.) I was surprised. I was so scared that I would have to go to get it fixed, like with another one of my laptops which I couldn't fix myself. But I didn't.
I have the HP Pavillion dv6000. They probably have better models out now, but I love this laptop! It even has a remote control and now their laptops come in an environmentally friendly laptop carrier instead of cardboard and styrofoam packaging
I'm not sure about Dells, but we had those at school and they weren't anything special. They had errors a few time too.