My biggest gripe with laptops is that they're so integrated that when something breaks you generally can't replace it by yourself and even if you can, it will cost the price of a new laptop to do it (i.e. replacing the whole motherboard).
There are very few user serviceable parts inside a laptop, typically zero upgradeability (hd and ram excluded) and when stuff breaks it's usually a death sentence to the whole computer.
I've had 8 laptops in my life and none of them lasted more than two years in heavy use. The ones my wife uses for playing online games die very very fast.
Failures range from dead motherboards, dead displays, display controllers (onboard), harddrive etc. I had a fujitsu-siemens laptop that burned up the motherboard every 3 months - even with guarantee it was a nightmare. Last time it came back (3rd motherboard) the cooling fan started to scream instantly from start and the laptop was unstable so I canned it.
Last year (after 2 years with no use) my grandfather needed a laptop for writing his book so I decided to try to salvage the thing. Cleaned dust, checked all connections and what do you know, the service guy misaligned the cpu cooler on the last mobo switch - fix that and no more fan squeal or instability..
Regardless of that the moral of the story is getting a laptop can get you into a world of hurt especially if you stress it with games. They typically are very short lived.
