What's a good laptop brand and what do I need to look for when purchasing one ?

Dell. Get one with Windows 8 and 8GB Ram

I would recommend a Dell, Acer, or Lenovo. Lenovo tends to look better and be more expensive but its still pretty good balanced, Dell is the inbetween guy, and Acer is the budget laptop that does the job and doesn't look bad.

Here are some specs that I recommend to look for:

1. Windows 7 as an Operating System. Windows 8 could work, but Service Pack 1 isn't out yet and Microsoft was thinking to charge for updates so I don't recommend that over Win 7.

2. 4GB of ram - You will not use more than this unless you do some heavy rendering. Ram is quite cheap though so don't let yourself be fooled by 8 12 16 gb of ram in some laptops.

3. I'd say a 500gb HDD or 750gb HDD should be very good for a hard drive, unless you believe you need more space. I would not recommend getting a laptop with an SDD since they are expensive and they don't do that much.

4. Depending whether you intend to play games on that computer, you might look that your laptop has Intel Graphics 4000 or better, an AMD or NVIDIA dedicated card.

5. Processor, in these days, you should not buy any laptop that does not have an i5 or above. It will not perform too well. Buy a laptop with an i5 or i7 processor performing at about 2.3 ghz or above. It will be future proof for a while and it will run better than an i3. ( make sure it's not a DUAL CORE but a QUAD CORE )

6. Don't buy an Apple. They have limited functionality, they are very strict on their crappy warranty, and you will pay $500 more for a CASE, not for performance. You have been warned, feel free to compare the specs with a Dell on the same price.

Acer / Gateway

Apple

ASUS

Dell / Alienware

HP

Lenovo

Samsung

Sony

Toshiba

These are top brands.

You should look for:

Warranty

RAM

Processor speed

Space

and of cousre....

How much they cost compared to their quality.