I can't resist these threads for some reason.
Background: For most of my life, I've been a PC user. I had to use old OS9 iMacs at school and hated them. They were unstable and slow. Except for the first, every PC I've personally owned, I've built myself. I've built PCs for friends and family. I know what I'm doing. A few years ago, I decided I wanted a laptop. My friend had just gotten a Macbook Pro for school, and I fiddled with it a bit. And, dammit it was good. REALLY good. Stable, light, well built, awesome battery life, and OSX was extremely easy to figure out. So, I bought a Macbook for myself. Since then, my self-built desktop PC has been used for one thing, and one thing only: gaming.
Macs can't touch PCs for gaming. We all know it. So, if you're into PC gaming, I'd say that building a Windows desktop is your best bet. But, for literally everything else I do with a computer, I find OSX much more intuitive, efficient, and reliable.
I won't pretend my preferences are universal. Get what you like, and what works better for you.
But, there's a more specific point I'd like to address. And that's build quality. The only laptop that I've personally used that can touch my aluminum Macbook as far as build quality is concerned, is a Thinkpad. As far as laptop build quality goes, the unibody Macbooks and the Thinkpads are in a class of their own, with literally everything else limping behind, off in the distance somewhere. My Macbook is going on three years old now, and the battery still lasts 5 hours, the chassis still looks new... the entire computer hasn't aged at all. I've seen HP laptops basically disintegrate in half that time Based on the Thinkpads I've had the joy of using, I could say exactly the same things about them that I say about my Macbook. Anyone who says a Macbook Pro is a waste of money must also conclude that a Thinkpad is a waste of money. The prices with comparable hardware are very similar.