AMD makes solid chips...they're just not keeping pace with Intel. If you look at hardware comparisons and bench tests, newer AMD processors often fall
behind older Core Quad and Core 2 Extreme processors by Intel. For your applications, AMD would work fine and save you a few dollars. If price is a factor though, you still get slightly better performance out of a slightly lower tier Intel processor that costs the same as the higher tier AMD. Simply said, AMD is not currently competitive enough in the desktop marketplace.
As far as brands go, I believe Lenovo (previously the old IBM ThinkPad) holds the best reliability overall. That being said, almost all major brands are very reliable, and
very few lemons make it to the consumers. They all use essentially the same internal parts.
Most people will dislike a brand more out of ignorance to the true problem or simple impatience than because a brand is better or worse.
The biggest offering I can give you is to know what you need exactly, and what you're buying. You really get what you pay for in laptops (cheap is not always good), but there's no reason to pay for more than you need.
Also, remember that in two years you have an expensive typewriter and paperweight
