> The "crappy white plastic laptops" you refer to were the consumer/lower end models initially called iBooks (later MacBook).
I was being snarky. But they were all plastic when I bought that machine. It was a workstation that IBM built and set a standard for laptops that personally I don’t Apple has ever exceeded. Certainly not in keyboard and pointing device – also had a gorgeous full 1920 x 1200 matte screen – radical for its time. Apple makes good notebooks now but has made plenty of mediocre portables as well. But I don’t agree that no one else does.