Macbooks: As with all Macs, you'll get better performance per dollar out of another computer. But there's much more to a computer than just pure performance and specs mean much less for laptops than they do with desktops. Macbooks are remarkably good laptops, definitely some of the best. I'll give them this. If I said they were bad laptops, I'd be full of crap. The problem with them is that they're just not as good as other offerings, and I'll explain why in as much detail as I can.

1. Glossy displays. There is no point in a glossy panel besides making the colors falsely appear more vivid. A glossy finish makes the screen much more prone to fingerprints and glare is a huge issue. In short, matte panels are far superior to glossy panels.

2. Build quality. They're built well in that they are well-assembled, but durability is awful. Aluminum dents extremely easily and the unibody design does not allow for easy replacement of parts of the enclosure. Warping frequently causes problems with the hinge, which often results in a broken display cable and/or a loose screen. I deal with a lot of Macbooks daily, and this is a disturbingly common problem. Much like the iPhone, the design does not allow for resistance to impact damage. Impacts will cause warping and cracked LCDs very easily.

3. Heat management. Using any Macbook for CPU-intensive tasks reveals this problem. The cooling design is not effective enough and temperatures skyrocket almost immediately, causing the fan(s) to ramp up to max speed. This becomes extremely loud, but it's still not enough. Temperatures stay dangerously high under load and because aluminum is a good conductor of heat, it goes right to whatever surface it is on, like your thigh. In theory, this should help with heat dissipation, but Macbooks still run too hot and that heat is transferred to places you notice it, like the keyboard, bottom, and palm rests. This is one of many examples of Apple's form-over-function design principles causing problems that could have been easily avoided.

4. The specs are not up to par with other similarly-priced laptops. Apple computers perform far worse than comparable PCs, and this is not limited to the Macbook line. Still, laptops in particular are much more than pure specs. Macbooks have some things that don't show up on a specs sheet, like solid trackpads, unibody construction, and a pretty design. A cheap Toshiba laptop with the same specs can't compare to the Macbook due to factors like build quality, design, size, weight, looks, and trackpad quality. Macbooks focus on the intangibles of the user experience, while many PC manufacturers strive for the best specs on paper. Still, that does not mean Macbooks are the only computers with these traits. Lenovo Thinkpads, for example, place less of an emphasis on raw horsepower in favor of quality, but in a completely different approach from Apple's. Thinkpads focus on user experience and prioritize things that make a laptop a good laptop, like ease of use, battery life, screen finish, keyboard quality, input, reliability, and durability. Given the specs compared to other computers, yes, you do pay a premium for both brands. What you get is a better user-experience, which is what laptops should be about. It explains the surge of Ultrabooks into the market with their reduced processing power but great storage speed, portability, battery life, weight, and size.