I could use a laptop for my travels. What do you recommend?

Cmon, details man, details, no-one pulls names out of a hat here.
How many ins, what functionality do you need?

check out the two zoom units
H2 and H4

when on special ... these things seem to offer good value and good versitility

If you are looking or a flash recorder I've found my Edirol R-09 to be an extremely useful and well made gadget. I haven't tried enough other products to make any claims relative to it's competitors. In fact this seems like one of the fastest moving segments of the recording market. I think Tascam put a new one outa few weeks ago. Fortunately most of them seem to be pretty good - at least I haven't heard a lot of buyers remorse on this forum or others. I think you are going to have to figure out how to do your own test to settle this one (or wait for someone to do a shootout - shouldn't be too long.)