General-use laptop: ASUS or Lenovo?

Yep, another "which one?" thread, sorry guys... rolleyes

My wife needs a new laptop (she currently has an old Dell Inspiron 1501). She doesn't do games and it's mostly for browsing, music, making photobooks on Snapfish or MyPublisher, that sort of stuff. Mobility isn't a concern because it mostly stays at her desk or elsewhere around the house. My budget is around $500. It needs to be a 15.6" (or more) screen, Intel processor, and Win7; beyond that I've narrowed the brand down to an ASUS or a Lenovo Thinkpad but have hit a wall after doing some research.

Both brands/models seem to be the "best" these days in terms of reliability and all that, but then I inevitably come across one or two angry vocal posts about how "so-and-so brand is terrible!!" and such, and second-guess which is the "right" way to go. I'm particularly wary given that the Dell has not held up well at all in terms of reliability, and don't want to make a bad decision.

I know it's such a vague, general request, but can anyone share insight into one over the other? I'll happily provide more details on requirements and needs, if that'd help.

Thanks,
m19

 

I couldn't find any reliability ratings for 2012.
I did find reader's choice
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400793,00.asp
Asus earned 8.3 and Lenovo 8.0 but there is no indication of how many responded.
When you scroll down to Laptops - Home, you see both brands are even.

If you know the specific model, google it and read owners comments. This can be a real eye opener because some models are good while others have problems.

 

There is also this one http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=2000043566 which we got for our Son. It is fine with the 4gb RAM it comes with, but really screams once you get 16gb into it. Worth the price and a good machine. Only drawback is that it comes with Windows 8 installed.