Looking for a laptop?

[tumbleweed_biff]

Purchasing a laptop is a highly personal decision. You need to decide what type of keyboard you want: do you want a full sized keyboard or are you okay with something smaller? Do you like or despise the chicklet keyboards like apple uses? Do you want a backlit keyboard? Do you want a numeric keypad? Do you want a touchpad and/or point stick? Do you want 2 mouse buttons or 3? Do you want them above or below the touchpad? How large a screen: 13"? 14"? 15.6"? 17"? If you are highly mobile, then smaller is lighter. If you don't move around much then bigger means heavier but a much more visible screen.
These are all things to ponder which have a significant impact on how happy you are with your laptop experience.

Manufacturers:
Take a look at these rankings:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-worst-not...
Apple makes the highest quality laptops however they are also the highest priced and well out of your budget. You are also then limited to the Apple OS and software from the Apple store which tends to cost more than its PC equivalents and does not have as much if any free software.

Lenovo is the best Windows laptop mfg followed closely by HP, Asus and Samsung who are all almost tied. As far as your experience with the Lenovo screen, different laptops have different screens so another model may be acceptable to you.
Sony makes good hardware but has a history of pre-installing a lot of crapware which take a heavy toll on performance and they have a history of spying on customers in addition to draconian copyrights and software prices.
Acer makes Gateway and I would not spend money on either and would generally expect to be paid to use their products.
Toshiba now falls a distance last in the ratings although I have used their machines at various points without problems and many people swear by them.
Dell is hit or miss: people generally love it or hate it.

As far as durability, the Lenovo Thinkpad series and the HP Elitebooks.