Cant go wrong with some of the new HP's, cons about laptops that put me off were:
1.Annoying to upgrade
2.You are paying extra cost for something that is not as fast/powerful as a normal pc, But i suppose your paying for it to be small and portable. This is why i just got a shuttle, well a cube.
3.The batterys can tend to die, and have a very poor life span. Often expensive to replace.
The main thing that put me off a laptop was the upgrade part, but thats only because i play alot of high fps games.