For what it's worth, we had poor experience with Dell. Our desktop hard drive died, without warning - which is how I learned the hard way to make sure I always back stuff up on an external hard drive. Himself was unimpressed with his Dell experiences through work, but is very happy with his HP laptop - so much in fact, that we bought one for his sister. His view is, if you're not getting a Mac, then get an HP.

Did you check in the keyboard settings in control panel as was mentioned earlier? If not that is definitely one place to be looking. I might look in device manager for any obvious problems and also in even viewer for red alerts. I still definitely think it is that the keyboard shortcuts are turned on and set up. Try this hold the NUM LOCK key down for several seconds that should toggle the keys on and off. On a laptop often the numlock pad is the problem so try turning it off and on etc to see if you get any results. Some laptops have the action and function keys set up with special actions also. You can check your specific model of laptop online or in the user manual to see if that is what is happening. check these for possible options to try Disabling the Windows Key on Microsoft Natural Keyboard Disabling Windows Keyboard Shortcuts this page has a ton of info for your laptop not sure if it covers this but you may want it as a resource Dell Inspiron 6000

I can see that you already have lots of input but I might as well add our experiences. I had two desktops before I switched to a laptop. I would never go back again. It is great to be able to use it where ever you are. We have our house set up to be wireless. So my daughter and I can both use our laptops. The printer and router are set up in one of the bedrooms, which I rarely see. We could make the printer wireless if we wanted to but we don't use it often enough for it to be an inconvenience to just go to the printer with the laptop and dock it for long enough to print what we need. As for the keyboard, I think they have as you mentioned some extensions that you can add, but you are right, to keep it portable, you have to keep those to a minimum. I don't know if any companies make the natural keyboard. I did want to mention that we bought the extended warranty with our last laptop and then extended it another year to the maximum allowed which expired in March. So we are almost to 5 years on this one laptop. In that time, our warranty has covered everything but a replacement cord or battery. We had the whole motherboard replaced at one time and a new screen in year four. No additional cost beyond what we were paying for the warranty. If you still want a desktop station, you might consider wireless and that would allow you to use a rolling cart and not have all the wires to deal with. pm2

I had a 6 year old Mac Airbook that I loved. However, I spilt some tea and the right shift key stopped working. I loved that computer so much that I kept using it with only a left shift key for over a year. Then the touch pad became wonky and it was getting really slow. Long story short, in January I was just "looking" at Best Buy and went home with a brand new Mac Book Pro. They had zero financing and a long try at home period. Now I don't know why I suffered so long with a malfunctioning Mac Air. To answer your original question I had always been a PC user and for somethings I do prefer a PC. If you are doing any picture editing, or art designing go with the Mac Book. My friend has a 15 inch MacBook and uses it for Photoshop but finds it too heavy to take on photo travel. He may buy a smaller 13 inch just so he can carry it on trips without breaking his back.