Toshiba has some good machines and some bad ones. A couple years ago they designed the cooling fan's intake on the bottom of the machine and it acted like a dustvac picking up every piece of dust and lint in the area. Other machines have been solid.
I've always liked the IBM Thinkpad line, but they are a bit out of your price range. From the techs I have spoken with, the business class laptops are much better built but you pay for that. On the consumer grade class be sure you get the warranty; they are built to be as inexpensive as possible and the quality sometimes reflects that.
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