I think he's referring to the aesthetics and quality of materials. Things have gotten better recently, but the majority of non-Apple laptops out there are made of cheap plastic and have terrible keyboards and trackpads - the only well made ones I've seen were similar in price to Apple's stuff.
Meh. I've owned the following Thinkpads over the 6 years - T42, T60,
T61, X60, two X61s, T500, and T510.
All of them have Just Worked(TM) with Linux (inluding accelerated
graphics), and out of all of them, I've had *one* hardware issue
requiring a visit by a technician.
So I'm gonna have to call BS on your assertion. Thinkpads are not cheap,
but you get what you pay for.