I suspect that one's opinion of Best Buy may vary with where one is. My BHBLTDBP son claims to have gotten excellent service from our local one. I refuse to do enough business with them to know what their service performance is like.
He claims to have received "expert and helpful sales advice," and I have not found any indications that he's been mislead; but the main reason I don't shop there is because I've been nauseated listening to the predatory hard-sell tactics applied to novice buyers while I couldn't find anyone to answer a simple question like "where the $@#!%! did you move the %@$#^ to this week". (They seem to rearrange everything - moving stuff to opposite ends of the store every (rare) time I stop there.)
Not too long ago the IBM Thinkpad was considered "top of the line" in laptops, but of course it was 3x the price of almost anything else you could buy within ranges with similar specs. IBM is now out of the laptop business, and Lenovo "bought the name." Lenovo is making more reasonably priced models than IBM offered, but the reviews frequently still place them among the more desired - at more modest price differentials.
I'll probably look at Lenovo, along with a few others, when I need to replace; but my last laptop was on a purchase deadline and was cheap(?) and available off-the-shelf locally. That one, a Toshiba Satellite, has been by far the best I've had, if only because it's the first one that's made 3 years and still running.
Since the last one was only available off the shelf with Vista Home, I did buy FRP Vista Premium and Office 2007 Pro, and learned to my surprise that the retail "shrink wrap" version of Office allows you legally to install a single package on two machines (theoretically if they're not both used at the same time).
The OEM versions that come with a new computer can't be sharedlegally so far as I've been able to read the EULAS.)
If one wants a "better" version, and has two machines to use it, taking the "freeby" version that comes with the machine and buying one full retail package (FRP) of an upgrade might be a useful option; but checking the EULA before purchase would be a good idea because the terms do change without notice.