To buy a laptop, you have to first decide the price range of your laptop. Depending on your income or your family conditions decide a price between $500 through $1700. Then you would decide if you prefer the Mac Osx Operating system or the PC Operating system. If you do not know what is different, the Macs operate with a simple operating system which is very limited unlike windows which has XP, Vista, and Windows 7. If you used windows or a PC in your house, it would take a while to get used to Mac's operating system. While, if you buy a PC you will be able to use it right out of the box. Mac is a totally different interface and design. It is owned by Apple, and the computers of Apple only have the Mac osx installed in their Macbook, Macbook Pros, and the Macbook Air. However, if you buy a PC laptop it will have the software from windows, but it will be made by some big companies. For example, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony, HP , and millions of more. This means, if you buy a Apple Macbook you will have an advantage that the OS would operate better because Apple is in charge, while PC laptops might have some downfalls since it can lack in some areas. Now, PC laptops can not operate Mac osx, but the Macbooks can operate Windows with an application called Bootcamp. This might make you think, Why not buy a Macbook then? In which i have to say, since mac was not built for windows your battery life will fall dramatically fast, your performance will become slower, and it will annoy you with the flash programs. In addition, PC's have a variety of price ranges depending on their intel chip processer, their Ram, their battery life, and the graphic processor. However, Macbooks are very expensive for the name of their brand. The computer is overall good; however it is a very big ripoff. But the Mac osx has the best A/S in the world, since it owns so much retail stores, and the Mac Osx comes with applications you would love to use as a student or as an adult. Some people say the mac's are actually the same as Windows in prices because who ever buys a PC will have no software and will have to buy expensive microsoft products and if you enjoy recording music or creating video's unlike the mac you'll have to buy it on your own for usually over a hundred bucks. Another advantage of the Mac would be that it is virus proof. So if you put in a usb with a virus, it will not get infected on a mac while it will infect a pc. So in the end, people buy the Macbook regardless of the price for a trustable products. However, who enjoys to play games with overload of graphics they might just buy a PC laptop with the greatest graphic processers since they do not buy it for multitasking like students or adults who use it for everyday usage. So buying a laptop ultimately is not easy at all, so you have to consider every factor of a laptop before you buy one without considerations.