Dell can be ok, but they can also be pretty awful.
The other day I found this laptop while looking for someone else on here (very quickly). I've not done any real searching, but from the looks of it it seems to be good.
What to look for:
- XP ideally, not Vista.
- 1GB RAM minimum, the more the better
- 80GB hard drive minimum, the more the better
- ideally a dual core processor
anything else is a bonus.
Lenovo (who bought the Thinkpad business from IBM a few years ago) make some very good laptops. Acer and Toshiba I've also heard to be good. Stay away from Sony, they often have issues.
This is the laptop that I'd reommend (note it also has a webcam):
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132277
I'd also recommend buying from ebuyer. I've bought a lot in the past from them and never had any trouble at all.
(Full specifications here:
http://www5.pc.ibm.com/uk/products.nsf/$wwwPar tNumLookup/_TY2BLUK?open&OpenDocument&epi=web_ express)