I have heard good and bad from Dell, I guess it just depended on what lot you got.
The HP, mine died, my dads died twice but of course he still got another, and my better half's mouse buttons are stuck....
Toshiba is also like the Dell, my friends last him years (also with the help of me a little) but still was a pretty good laptop.

That business oriented comment reminded me of IBM that I didn't look into but then again hard to get and there customer service is a little harder as well since they are more business oriented, I would love to get a Panasonic tough book which the techstream program was designed for but thats just way to much for me at this time in my life...