Some things to consider:
 
Screen size vs. overall size/weight. I like a big screen, but there is a penalty.
 
Separate numeric keypad? I hate having to use the number keys above the alpha keys and especially f-key combinations for page up/down/home/end.
 
 
Currently I have a nice Toshiba with a 17" screen and numeric keypad and also a cheap little convertible Acer that has a touchscreen and a detachable keyboard that converts to a tablet. 
 
I had a Sony before the Toshiba, but I like the Toshiba much better (except for the built in speakers on it ). It is big and heavy though.
 
The Acer is little and super portable, but I mostly only use it when traveling and I don't particularly like the touchpad on it and miss the full kb. And I don't have any real need for the touchscreen.
 
 
I don't know about currently, but Dell used to install their own SW like network configurators on top of Windows, which just makes it annoying for people who actually know what they are doing. Personally I avoid companies that do that kind of thing, dating back to the Compaq PC days. YMMV.

Cool!  Thanks for the replies.  Kenny might have the answer, I'm their employee now, maybe they have one for me.
 

drewfx1
I don't know about currently, but Dell used to install their own SW like network configurators on top of Windows, which just makes it annoying for people who actually know what they are doing. Personally I avoid companies that do that kind of thing, dating back to the Compaq PC days. YMMV.

HP used to be infamous for bloatware as well!  But, as long as you have the licenses (I do), can't you just format the hard drive and install the OS of your choice from scratch?  (Thus wiping out the bloatware?)

craigb

drewfx1
I don't know about currently, but Dell used to install their own SW like network configurators on top of Windows, which just makes it annoying for people who actually know what they are doing. Personally I avoid companies that do that kind of thing, dating back to the Compaq PC days. YMMV.

HP used to be infamous for bloatware as well!  But, as long as you have the licenses (I do), can't you just format the hard drive and install the OS of your choice from scratch?  (Thus wiping out the bloatware?)

Of course you can almost always disable it one way or another. You probably don't want to contact their support under that scenario, but if you know enough about computers to be annoyed by such things then you probably already do everything possible to avoid contacting support anyway. 
 
Personally I just choose to avoid those companies. But again, YMMV as it's not exactly a deal breaker for most people - I'm just easily annoyed by certain things, so I pointed it out.

Calling support can be fun though!  I mean, I get to talk to a "real" Indian! 

My little Acer Apsire has proven to be robust. travelled with it, and its in and out of my bag as I mive from classroom to classroom. My Music laptop is an Touchscreen HP Envy. I'm really happy with it, the touch screen on a HD res screen would probably work better with a stylus, the resolution and laptop sized screen make fingers impractical

Like everything else, whatever you get comes down to the luck of the draw. I have worked in an IT service company almost 20 years and have seen issues arise with every makers laptops. They all have issues with getting bad batches of this or that.
 
In that vein, I have had good luck with a Lenovo which was bought from IBM. I can't speak to using it specifically as a DAW as I just use it for web surfing and development work.
 
As MS was mentioned, I would check into what it takes to get one serviced. Hopefully you won't need service but it might best to explore now than to run into a month+ long ordeal later. I can't help but think of all the issues they had with their XBox and the hoops some people had to go through getting those fixed.

List what you are willing to spend.  With Windows you get what you pay for.  With Macs you over pay but since they are proprietary that means they are stable. They use far better batteries which I assume is why they also cost more.
I've read where Asus laptops have a great service record.

craigb
HP used to be infamous for bloatware as well!  But, as long as you have the licenses (I do), can't you just format the hard drive and install the OS of your choice from scratch?  (Thus wiping out the bloatware?)

Again I will point out I should not be listened to when it comes to such things BUT...
 
I actually tried this with my laptop (Acer Aspire). I wiped the main partition of the drive (but left the factory recovery partition intact so I could use it later if I wanted). The problem comes in with all the specific drivers and mini programs required for Windows to properly work with the laptop hardware.
 
So after I installed the clean copy of Windows7 (which I downloaded from Microsoft's "Digital River" download thingie... so it was a totally legit MS ISO) and applied the Win7 (Home Edition) license on the bottom of the lappy to register it it did indeed boot up into a totally clean version of Windows (sans Acer bloatware).
 
Unfortunately though it was very sluggish and quirky because instead of having the preloaded factory drivers/programs from Acer Windows seemed to be using generic drivers and the OS in general wasn't communicating with the hardware the way it was supposed to.
 
That sent me on an epic journey to hunt down all the drivers and necessary programs specific to my laptop. There was indeed a bunch of necessary downloads on the Acer site but lumped in with a bunch of unnecessary crud as well. I had to sort out what was what, download, install, etc.
 
The clean install (although much better) STILL was acting like a turd. I tried all sorts of things for about a month to see if I coulld get performance up but alas the factory config was simply better, faster and more reliable. I suspect there were little programs and special configs to make Windows work smoothly that weren't accessible on the site.
 
Soooooooo I just went back to my usual method of crushing bloatware. I reinstalled the original factory image and armed with a general knowledge (based on my previous foibles) used CCleaner to remove everything that didn't/doesn't have anything to do with the operation of the computer. CCleaner removes stubborn bloatware that refuses to uninstall using usual methods. Some people use RevoUninstaller (or whatever it's called) or a combination of both programs (and I'm sure others).
 
It takes time and patience to sort through all that crap and get rid of it (while creating restore points along the way in case you yank something that's actually needed) but once it's widdled down all the crap is gone, the system works better and you don't have to go hunting for system specific driver crap. Also going into system settings to stop any automated launching nonsense and disabling "power saver" features helps things along as well (laptops are tweaked for the casual user... not hardcore loonies like us).
 
tl;dr...
 
Hunting down the drivers for a laptop is more time consuming with crappier results than using a good uninstaller/scrubber program to remove the bloatware and leaving the critical factory stuff in place.
 
After the bloatware removal/registry cleaning is done you just create an image of your spanky clean system and use that instead of the factory recovery partition/disc(s).
 
Again... I should not be listened to because I'm not a computer tech and I'm sure all this varies from system to system but I spent a BUTTLOAD of time screwing around with this type of thing in my attempts to create a "virgin" system.
 
Cheers.

Good info!

What do you need the laptop to do? Will it have to handle stuff like wi-fi networked MIDI for example? Be used at gigs? Have wi-fi running at all at the same time as the DAW?

Generally any of the solid (=less cheap) "office" type laptops with an adequate cpu/disk spec should do the job OK, no need for fancy graphics on a DAW after all. HP seem generally regarded as solid. Mrs TLW's employers provide their staff with a few thousand laptops every year, with a premium placed on reliability and surviving being hauled around in the real world and they're used mostly HP for a few years now.