Check the following link.
It shows the best laptops for the year 2013.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369981,00.asp
In my opinion the four three best laptops are Asus, Toshiba, Dell and Lenovo.
See, the laptop that you buy, regardless of the cost should meet all your computing needs and more. I say 'more' because people change and what you need today may not be what you want a few months from now.
Keeping this in mind , do some research for a laptop that will meet most of your computing needs now and perhaps could meet some other needs a few months down the road. Whatever you decide, keep in mind the fact that technology renews roughly every two years.
The laptop that you buy today will probably meet your needs now and a few months into the future but they may not meet the computing needs two to three years later. Essentially there is no future proof laptop. If you can look to upgrading some basic hardware of the laptop then that too would be a step towards getting future proofed.
That being said Macs are very good computers but you need to decide whether you will be happy to stick to Apple's Operating system alone. Also, Mac computers are not too easy to upgrade. Once you get an Apple computer then you have to figure out as to how to get various software for it. So you will need to get " MS Office" for Apple, anti-virus for Apple and so on and so forth.
The thing with Windows Computer is that you can look to upgrading some basic hardware of the laptop ( RAM, Processor, Hard Disc Drive etc.). You can also think to install various flavors of Linux on it rather easily. You can download Linux free along with third party Linux Office which is also free. If you are going to use Linux you do not even need a super powerful computer.
This will keep your costs down.
So with Windows computer you can think of using two separate Operating Systems on it but with Mac you will always have to use one, the Apple Operating system.
Yes ,I know people will go nuts now, saying that they can install Windows on top of Apple Operating System. Sure, but think of it, this is like wearing an oil-skin coat on top of a fur lined winter coat, on a hot sunny day.