You've probably bought your new one by now, but I'm on my umpteenth IBM Thinkpad (Lenovo these days). They've been the only brand of laptop I've used for something like20 years, and I've not had a bad one. I upgrade when the "current" one gets to be seriously slower than my desktop. This one is a T43, and I'm very happy with it.
I have spent too much time trying to sort out non-functioning laptops for friends with various brands. I'm sure there are reliable non-Thinkpad laptops out there, but I'm not going to take the risk.
What I particularly like is having a docking station at each house, with keyboard, mouse, and LAN connection. I just drop it onto the dock, switch on, and everything is connected. When out and about, it talks to my mobile phone and uses the GPRS on that for web access. It really couldn't be simpler.
It also knows (all by itself) how to connect to the VPN at the main house, so I can check mail on there.