Does it count if someone makes something that does the same job at a quarter of the price, so that if you flex it too much, or run it over with your car, or leave it on the bus then you can replace it and still be saving half the price?

Or are we forced to accept Apple's business model as a given, just like Microsoft fought against the netbook pricing model because it began to make their OS pricing look ridiculous?

No, because it's not about the initial purchase price. It's about having your stuff crammed into a piece of hardware, and for most people being dependent on that stuff being readily accessible.

That's why the "it just works" attitude is very powerful amongst the almost entire population for whom replacing hardware is a really huge deal, because they

a) have to be without their stuff for the time it takes for the computer repair guy to fix it, and b) because they're scared pantless that their stuff will have been destroyed.

If you're not in the know, broken computer _might_ mean loss of data. That thought means loss of sleep.

The Macbook assumes you keep things on your Mac, the netbook...

That counts as a valid preference, but it isn't an answer to "who makes better quality hardware?" unless you are implicitly answering "nobody you can think of".

This is the place where a discussion turns into a pointless unending argument. We are certainly not talking about the same thing in the same context.

Are you

a) defining or redefining "quality" to so that a cheap item can be considered high quality because it can be replaced cheaply?

b) avoiding answering the question of who makes a better laptop hardware than the unibody mbp because you can't suggest any company and don't want to admit that

c) you think I am refusing to see some obvious and relevant point because I'm an apple fanboy or that I am just being obtuse

d) other ( insert answer here )

My point, which I didn't think was too obtuse, was that if you squint at a bicycle from the point of view of a motorcyle, then you could easily conclude that it was just a crappy motorcycle, as it doesn't meet the applicable quality criteria.

But, and this is where it gets interesting, you can do the same in the opposite direction and conclude that a motorbike is just a really crappy bicycle because it's heavy, expensive etc.

You could say the same about most web apps versus their desktop equivalent.

So, to a lesser degree, a laptop designed within the constraints of a factor of 4 price difference, perhaps with mobility (and all the many non-obvious things that mobility entails, like the iBooks being designed to be put in student backpacks and so not having little breakable flaps covering ports) being paramount are going to be faced with very different set of engineering trade-offs. I think it's simplistic to say that the Apple one has greater quality if you don't take that into account. (Especially when their expensive material choices seem to regularly kill wireless signals, that's a quality and engineering factor too).

Apple themselves have said that they don't know how to build a cheap netbook that isn't crappy (I think that's almost a direct Jobs quote) so I don't see why they should be getting plaudits for sitting out a market that they've decided is difficult, when you're calling out the folk who actually make products for their lack of quality. I think it's a good business move for them, and I'd continue to buy their products as I have for years, if I couldn't get something much, much cheaper, that does the same thing (and often a few more things) and doesn't lock me in to a series of interlocking, expensive purchases within their ecosystem. What locks-in their users, also locks out people like me.