I am not going to suggest any laptops for you as I only have used the Gateway laptop I recently purchased for my girlfriend.
My suggestion is to look into Cisco & Nortel certifications. Specifically the CCNA certification will be very helpful to you when you go out to get a job. Cisco isn't the ONLY vendor that offers cert's though. I know that at my place of work, MOST of our customer's use Cisco hardware, but we do have other's that use Nortel, Extreme Networks, Atran, etc. etc..... In my workplace, EVERYONE is REQUIRED to be at LEAST a CCNA. Very few people have Nortel certifications.
Are you looking into getting into VOIP? Then again, look into Cisco, Avaya, etc. etc.
Good Luck man... (if you have extra time in high school, try taking a programing class if it fits into your schedule.)... I took 3 years of programming in High School (I graduataed in 2001), and it helped to understand logic & whatnot).