mixture - you know my view on this. As a pensioner, nothing that Apple makes is "good value for money". They appear to be good products, but they are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive for us poor people.
My basic rule for advising people on what to buy is, if you own a mac and are familiar with it, then stick with it. If you are familiar with windows, then stick with that.
As for quality, well mac is no better than any midrange pc based stuff. I have had pc laptops last 12 months, I have had ones last 12 years. Mac is no different. Ugly as they are, I would vote HP as the most rugged laptop, and ASUS as next. Asus stuff is probably better these days. Worst I would say is toshiba, which given they were the best in the early 90's is a sign that what is good now may not be so 10 years down the track.