Shoutbox

Not necessarily from personal experience, but my understanding is Toshiba Satellites are some of the best business grade laptops, or at least they were, I would assume that they still are.

If you're looking for durability, you're probably better off with a slightly more expensive business grade laptop without all the flashy features than a cheaper consumer grade laptop. I believe the Satellites are still meant to be business class.

I personally use a Thinkpad t510i, and compared to my last Thinkpad, a T61p, I'd have to say that that it seems like quality is dropping a little bit, But I would still highly recommend them if they fall within your budget. I think laptops are one of those places where the old adage stands, "they just don't make 'em like they used to." But we just bought my sister a Thinkpad t410i with the intention of not replacing it for 4 years. So I think it's still possible.

I also believe in what Cookie says, it's not slow hardware it's bloated software that makes the user experience miserable. If you're buying a laptop with a bunch of bloat, I'd recommend cleaning out the trial software or, as cliche as it sounds, re-installing the os from scratch. Most recovery media also includes that nasty trial software, so it may not help.

I'd also recommend avoiding the Dell Vostro series, and lower End dell E series business laptops. We have a bunch at work and nobody really likes them. Vostros are re-badged consumer laptops for most purposes, and the new E series the quality just doesn't seem to be there. We used to use Dell D-series and we loved them but not the same with the E. I know this doesn't help your Satellite decision, but I figured I'd throw that in there. 

I also have a personal grudge with HP, but that grudge was more with Futureshop than the HP hardware. In two years I've had two close friends with broken HP DV2000s and DV6000. These were also Consumer grade "media" laptops. I personally would avoid Futureshop like the plague when it comes to service.