When people call me and ask what to get for a laptop, I offer 2 pieces of advice.
1. Go to Best Buy and look. You don't have to buy from there, but they have several laptops on display that you can look at, pick up, see the size and weight of, and compare to the one next to it. Lots of brands to choose from.
2. Avoid Dell. You and others might have Dell's that have worked great, but Dell keeps my shop very busy. I can only judge computer quality by what I see daily, and daily I see more Dell's than any other brand. This is not because Dell outsells all others, it's because Dell has more problems than all others.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."