Most all laptops are equal for development, regarding processing speed at least. As long as the CPU and video card are not budget types, and there is enough RAM

Most all laptops are equal for development, regarding processing speed at least. As long as the CPU and video card are not budget types, and there is enough RAM. What makes a big difference to me is the display quality and the battery. Apple tends to have very good batteries. That's why I personally would buy an used Unibody Macbook or Macbook Pro, one of the recent types with the long-life high-capacity batteries. I do mainly Linux development work, on Ubuntu, using an older Macbook Pro, and everything just works great and is super smooth to use - in fact this is the best Linux machine I have used!