Question is asked here about once a week ..... but fact is every brand you are likely to recognize actually doesn't make a laptop. The buy it from someone else, slap a logo on it and sell it to you.
* Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and Lenovo/IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world.
* Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell.
* Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, Acer, and Lenovo/IBM.
* Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell.
* ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell.
* Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung.
* Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ.
* Uniwill sells to Lenovo/IBM and Fujitsu.
To my mind the best laptop is :
Budget Laptop - The one with the features you need that is cheapest this week
Performance Laptop - The one that is built to order for you saving you money in the process as the "big name markup" is omitted.
Check out custom builders who use Clevo chassis ....more about Clevo here:
http/forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91510