My friend got a cheap Satellite something like 2 or 3 years ago now, it's the one with the broken screen, dead USB ports, and was completely unable to boot for a week because apparently it hates him.
His mom projects some kind of EMP field that breaks electronics.
The moral of the story is, don't trust anecdotal evidence. But if you do, I have a Dell that only broke during its warranty and now works fine, my mom has two that work fine, and my brother's Dell worked okay until the screen / screen cable gradually gave out from too much opening and closing, when it was like 6 years old. It probably still runs.