eh steve ole chap! Good to "see" ya!

yes, Compaq and HP merged BUT...

they have let Compaq run its own low end production of puter while HP started to restructure.

5 years ago, I would not even consider an HP, today, at least the last I checked, their puter is the current king when compared to the big brands like Sony, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba.

4 years ago, Toshiba was the tops then they went downhill. And Dell was on top before that and Gateway before them.

But, in each company's own spectrum, they offer high end/low end and such and Dell's high ends are pretty good still. Their XPS system is still top notch. I rarely get clients with XPS systems. It is their business class that I get most often.

I recommend HP to my current clients when they want a low-mid grade laptop. I always try to recommend MACs but I might go out of business.

I wouldn't touch the following currently as of 07-24-08. LOL please remember that these are my personal list, doesn't reflect other views(always feel like I have to make disclaimers now...)

Sony, (yuck all over)
Gateway (their high end desktop is decent from what I've heard)
Dell's low ends to about mid end and their business class ones I'd steer away from....their high ends I would consider but for that money, I'd get a MAC...maybe Mike Dell can save the company. Whenever a retired CEO has to come back and restructure the company, it isn't good thing at first...but might turn out to be something better later...

COMPAC, NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! unless they do something very serious, but I highly doubt it...

Toshiba, maybe in a couple of years, heard they are trying something...we'll see...

but currently for the price, quality, bang for the buck PC laptops, I personally have been recommending HP and my clients have been happy and I am OK with it. (I fix puters on the side for extra pocket dough to take da wife out once in awhile)

well, there are just so many products on the market and with technology, it's always changing, so who knows what'll happen tomorrow??

And Murry's law no longer applies about every 16 month the speed doubles, they are saying it is about 1/4 of that time now...scary...I am already looking at terabyte stuff for upgrading....