I think it depends on what your job is. A couple of jobs I had in the squadron, a laptop came along with it, with the proliferation and roll out of NMCI, these were "deployable" dell laptops. Personally, I am glad I didn't have one of them, because I purchased my own laptop prior to my last deployment. On a P3 deployment, you would be crazy not to have one, since you have access to internet most of the time, and can use that in your room. Plus of course, the DVD and games aspect. On the ship, it still comes in handy for at least the DVD and games.
As for which one to get, that basically depends on what you are going to do with it. I own a Dell Inspiron 8200, and have been quite happy with it. Last deployment near the end, my motherboard died, and had a video card problem, Dell apologized for it, and complimentary upgraded me from a 8100 to an 8200, and upgraded the CPU, memory, harddrive and added a CDRW... for me, with something like a laptop, customer service support goes a long way. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase another one, just my thoughts.
