I do a lot of product ordering for work and I've gotten quite a few Sony Vaios and I really like the keyboards on them. They are kind of raised, you should be able to see it in the pictures on their website (~edit, I've included a picture of the Y Series below). The Y Series is very similar to the ones we have at work; they are a good medium between performance, size, price and battery life. You could try going to a best buy to check them out. But overall I really like the laptop. They have great screens, a very nice keyboard and a variety of choices to pick from.
Other than that, I've heard lots of good things about Sager Notebooks (though I'm not sure how the keyboard is). I don't personally have one but I would buy one if I had the money to get a laptop.