I have worked with Dell, HP and Toshiba. I was on the road doing field service and they got bounced around from van to factory to hotel and the Dells held up the best. For some reason the Toshibas ate hard drives. Get back in off the road and start up the laptop and 2 hours later it doesn't work. Happened twice.
I like the small Dells. Don't take up much space and seem to hold up. If you are doin heavy programming you might want to look for a laptop with an older 4:3 display rather than the 16:9 display. If your biggest use for the laptop is looking at videos the 16:9 is okay, but I prefer a display that has more resolution in the vertical for writing and programming.