Problem is that they're working too hard on it looking nice to the expense of usability. For example, the latest version of msn messenger has removed the file, contact, etc menus... now there's a fourth button next to the minimise, maximise, close buttons that drops down a menu with those menus on. In other words, an additional mouseclick and extra movement is required.
A case, I fear, of "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is".
Too much software now is getting more and more junk... big cartoony toolbars, etc... I don't want that much screen space taken up thank you!
Anyways, coming back to the original topic (oh, the novelty!)...
I bought my first laptop recently. You hear bad things about all makes, but generally the feeling I got was that Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung etc are much of a muchness and reasonably good. Sony have more than their fair share of problems, as do Acer. Avoid anything ultra-cheap (eg Advent, Packard Hell, EI systems). I don't know how apple compare in reality, because although you read a lot of problems with them, perhaps people are holding them to higher standards?
FWIW, I bought a Dell for £680 with Core 2 Duo T7200, 60GB hard disk, DVD-RW, 1440x900 14" screen and I spent £100 (not with dell) to upgrade the memory to 2GB dual-chan 667 (£125 for the new memory, sold the original 512MB 533MHz for £25), so total £780. The cheapest apple competitor on the spec bits I was unwavering on (1440x900, 4MB cache Core 2 duo, long battery life) is the Macbook Pro at £1349, which is bigger (15.4" vs 14.1") and has a shorter battery life, but has a much larger hard disk and a separate GPU (since I'm not playing games on the laptop this is a non-issue to me). Thus, for my needs the extra £570 for something bigger with less battery life was not worth it. No other PC manufacturer got close to Dell either (at that price most were offering T2300E processors, 1280x800 15.4" screens, etc).
Edit: Oh, and the other killer for me is that in order to read a compactflash card on a macbook pro, I would have to carry an external CF reader, whereas the full-size cardexpress slot on my Dell will take an internal CF reader. This is important to me. Similarly importantly, my Dell has a built-in SD card reader which the mac lacks.
Point being, determine what you are wanting to use the laptop for and what features are important to you in doing that... then see what works for you and what doesn't.