I love Dell notebooks. I bought one for my wife over 3 years ago, a Dell Inspiron 8200, and it is still going strong today without any previous issues. She uses it a total of 9 hours a day and leaves it on 24/7 and has never had any problems other than having to replace a battery and add another as a secondary.
It is a shame, however, that there isn't anywhere that you can buy parts to build your own Notebook, at least none that I know of.
But, to answer your question, Dell's are an excellent PC and offer top of the line Customer support.