By their nature, laptops are going to be less reliable. It's a lot harder to get rid of the heat. Other than the power supply, and sometimes the hard disk, a desktop should last "forever".
That said, the Acer Netbook that I got almost a year and a half ago is going strong, and it's for practical purposes my "main" computer. No good for games, obviously, but I can get banned from DB, check FB and my email, make tee times, and Google anything with it.
