Livre d'Or

My last laptop, a Sony Vaio, lasted 8+ years before the graphics died spectacularly (it's actually still working 3 years on, as long as you don't mind headache-inducing lines down any screen it's plugged into). My current laptop is also a Vaio, and it's one of the ones you can customise at the Sony website and they put it together for you. I don't know if they're still doing Win7, but at the time I bought my current one they were offering to put WinXP on it (I was very tempted!) so I'd be surprised if it wasn't an option.
Vaios aren't cheap, but in my experience they're worth it. The laptop-before-last was an HP, and it made the standard 3 years before dying. I did pay extra for various things, though, including light weight, which you said you weren't interested in.