At the time I got my MacBook 3rd gen in 2007, it was very good value (in terms of being well-engineered) for money. And it's still going strong, only had a memory and SSD upgrade since then. Particularly the battery is amazing, I still get 2-3 hours out of it.

I chose it over a ThinkPad at the time, which I considered roughly comparable, on account of the displayport. No other laptop in that price range had DVI out without an expensive dock.