My vote is IBM(Lenovo).  Tons of community support, very good to excellent hardware support, very good documentation and support from Lenovo.  Replaced my Toughbook with a Thinkpad (shh...don't tell Dell, I like my continued stream of paychecks), and haven't regretted it one bit.  Stands up to a hell of a lot of abuse. 

 

As far as the M$ tax, like others have said, it's extremely difficult to get away from it now.  I figured paying a few extra bucks was just part of getting a top-notch box, as well as the support from Lenovo. 

 

eric