Buying a new Notebook?

Well this forum "Hardware" I thought was more linear for what I needed help with. (I'm finally coming to MajorGeeks without Maleware problems! WooHoo!) Anyway my dad and I were discussing the chance of buying a new notebook for me because the original Gateway MX6438 we bought back in April 2006 for me for school has been nothing but a money pit.

Gateway's warrenty is horrible, you can only have up to a 2 year warrenty and that's it, you can't buy anymore you can't extend it, nothing. I've had nothing but problems with their motherboards. Motherboards have a lifespan of 10 years, I have gone through 4 motherboards in 3 years. How in the holy hell did I magically go through 40 years worth of motherboards in 3 years? Doesn't make logical sense at all

So my dad and I have been going through different types of notebooks I should buy. Obviously Gateway is out of the question, I hate Dell and their exploding notebooks, I've never been a fan of HP after buying 2 lousy desktops and a horrible Printer/Scanner combo that forces me to REINSTALL the damn software every time I use it (no matter what computer it is on). Every Compaq computer I've had a run in with has always had some type of defect, so that's a no.

My family has a 1995 SONY Vaio which hasn't been too bad, and my mom bought and Acer mini pocketbook notebook which has been okay. I also grew up w/ Mac computers at my schools so I can navigate the user friendly interface. The only products I haven't tried are Toshiba and LaNova.

So basically what I'm asking is can somebody help me determine between those companies at which is the better notebook? I need something with an obvious lifespan, that could possibly be turned into a gaming laptop but I might want to save that for a desktop. Between SONY, Toshiba, Acer, Mac, and LaNova? If there are any better companies or notebooks please suggest them! Thank you

 

I have had nothing but great experiences with Toshiba laptops as well. We have 3 in my house, 5 at work, and have advised friends to purchase them.

However, the only problem that I ever had with one was user fault. I was frustrated one day and accidentally hit the lower right hand side of the laptop... The hard drive went back after that.

 

Well my dad was talking about Toshiba and how I should of gotten one of those but I wasn't too big of a fan because I didn't hear that much about them. He said LaNova is used by the government. But I was also thinking that I might repair my Gateway so why get another PC and get a MAC this time. But my friend said if I was to ever get a MAC, get a desktop because the notebooks slowly die and became incredibly slow no matter what you do to them