Three of the Dell laptops I know encountered problems within 6 months of purchase. I use HP Pavilion and swear by it. This machine has never let me down (touch wood).
For my personal use I choose HP brand. I am not saying that Dell is bad brand. HP is more popular and widely used brand laptop in my city. Most of my friends are using HP brand since last couple of years.
for me dell is good one my brother have a dell he is using it without any problem & my sis got an hp laptop but it is not working smoothly both were purchased around same time.
I would go for Dell because i have owned a computer of dell and maybe i will get a dell laptop, but HP isn't bad too, i have a printer of HP wich always works fine. Dell has more gaming pc's too!