I've sort of gone off Novatech over the last couple of years. I had their low-end laptop a few years ago and it had a cheap and nasty case that caused heat issues, as well as a flimsy AC socket that broke and took the motherboard with it within a year. The next MoBo they put in was better though. Their recent laptop range /looks/ better, but it's hard to tell from a picture (illustrative purposes only...) and I'd be interested to hear how anyone is getting on with them.
I still recommend them for desktops.
If you're still looking for a laptop /anyway/ because they're always a good thing to have -- I *highly* recommend Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk) for laptops. My girlfriend just bought their cheapest model, sans operating system (what a bonus!). Specs are something like 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, DVD-RW, Widescreen etc etc. and *everything* works out of the box (including with the lovely Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. It was only around £350...