I have a gateway laptop and unless you are really going to be mobile I'd reconsider getting one.
I am a writer so I use mine everywhere but I just started using it for scrapping and I wish the screen were much bigger, what I have is 14inches I think. Get more memory than you think you can ever use because it's harder to upgrade laptops. (so I've been told, I'm looking into this.) And above all buy the accident protection plan for a laptop. And because I mentioned the word accident make backing up files the last thing you do before you move that laptop anywhere. Don't ask me how I know.
Diana