I figured I'd toss this out there and see what comes back. I'm looking to replace my ancient ThinkPad laptop with something a little newer(old specs: dual Core 2 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, crappy graphics and iffy screen). I'm looking for something on the relatively inexpensive side, but with still decent heft in the performance department. My main uses right now are image manipulation (ImageJ, Photoshop, Illustrator, SigmaPlot), computation (Matlab), statistical analysis (Jmp, R), and a handful of other relatively resource-intensive programs (e.g. Applied Biosystem's StepOne software).

While I do play games, they're mostly old and they're not a high priority, so things like graphics cards and high quality sound aren't as critical. I currently have a ~15" screen of dubious brightness and contrast, and it might be nice to improve upon that, though I doubt I want to increase the size. Weight is relevant but not all-important, and battery life is important but not critical. Price is definitely important - I'd like the total (including OS, though I might be able to buy that on the cheap from my institution) to come in under $1500, ideally closer to $1000.

So... any manufacturers or lines of particularly good repute lately? I've had pretty iffy experiences with Dell in the past, and I'm not sure how excited I am with either Lenovo or HP, but I'll consider anything.