I'm inclined to agree on the vaio comment! I have had several in a row and all work as advertised, rarely (in fact, never in my experience! touchwood!) go wrong (unless struck by lightning, fair cop that really!) and do what they say on the tin. The portable/ultra portable variants are good, my current is a VGN-SZ1XP, weighs in under 2kg, tough enough for my liking (lug it all over the place, came with a handy slip on type cover which just lets you pop it in that and then dump it in any old bag rather than having to have a laptop case for it). The SZ5 is the current model, so would expect to be able to pick up a 3 or 4 for around your budget level.
Toughbooks are good but massively expensive!