Suggestions for older high end laptop

I have a Core2Duo @ 3.0GHz with 8GB RAM and run antiX-13.2 quite successfully and it's pleasingly fast. Wireless can prove to be a problem with Debian-based distros like antiX if the wireless card requires proprietary drivers (Broadcom is most notorious) but, since yours is a desktop and you will most likely use a good wireless router like Netgear (don't try LinkSys), It should not be a problem getting netflix up and running.

If your video card is nVidia, that could be another potential issue with any distro, not just a Debian-based one, due to proprietary drivers and lack of support for so-called Legacy cards. Hardware compatibility is the issue and certain sites will serve to inform you of general degrees of compatibility --

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/compatdb/index.html

for example. There are others.

Try LinuxMint-13-xfce or LinuxLite, as suggestions. 32-bit will make it less likely that architecture and/or other issues may become a problem.

http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=18
https://linuxliteos.com

Long Term Support (LTS) versions are what one should seek as a newbie trying distro in the 'buntu family, of which the two noted are members. Especially if running "legacy" hardware.

Should one really want to speed things up, with your hardware a Samsung SSD would liven things up considerably and give the biggest bang for the buck.

Welcome, and best wishes!