My mantra is that you get what you pay for. If you want great hardware, expect to pay for it too. And generally, the more business oriented offerings are better in the long run, despite the higher cost. That pretty much limits you to HP, Dell, Apple and Lenovo. I'm a thinkpad enthusiast myself.
Btw, chromebooks have internal storage to store keep your work when you don't have network (but seriously, who doesn't these days? Just tether your phone and be done with it).