The thing is I'm in support for an enormous organization. We do use Dell desktops and laptops. The desktop that is sitting on my desk right now still has Windows XP on it and is over 4 years old. No issues. If you want to get into it further, my entire team all have desktops that are over 4 years old and not one have been replaced due to any hardware failure or manufacturer's defect. My manager is using an old t400 laptop which is also 5 years old. My older pc, the one I'm speaking of is sitting on the desk of my Father-in-law at his home and is going strong.
There are indefinably some suspect manufacturers and if you buy the cheapest hardware available, you will probably notice a big difference than better built equipment, however I have a really hard time believing that a laptop, under normal use conditions is dead after less than 1 year. I find it impossible to believe that a Dell gaming laptop was dying after 6 months. This I'm going to have to call BS on this (and even if it's true, both would still be under full warranty, as this would be a manufacturer's defect!!!). (Again this is the reason why people have issues with Apple users, it's surprising to see the full-blown lying going on here). The only way this could possibly true is abuse by the person owning the device. Never once in my 15 years working in technology for a 46,000 employee environment have I heard of hardware failing after under 1 year with any regularity, that wasn't caused by a manufacturer's defect. Apple has those as often as anybody else. Not to mention that when an Apple device fails due to a manufacturing defect, you have to send your device back and get it swapped with a refurbished model, losing everything. If a part fails on my desktop, I simply replace it myself. Enormous difference.
The one thing that I do know 100% for sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt is that my home PC will outperform any MAC desktop that is available (and is comparable to the MAC pro by the way) and I have 0 concerns about it's longevity or performance. I'm 100% positive that I can swap hardware and upgrade components at my own discretion. I know that I have the flexibility to do what I want, when I want. I don't have to jailbreak my device to customize stuff.
The iPhone 6 is already having memory problems and people in this very forum board are now complaining about the problem. App developers are being restricted by this very flaw. While I suspect that Apple will address this problem with an iPhone 6s, the fact of the matter is, in this day and age, this problem should never exist. It would cost them all of about $5.00 to add 1 extra GB of ram, but they chose not to. Most likely so they could convince the population to purchase a $1000.00 device, then buy another one because it has extra ram.
All that being said, I do fully understand this is personal preference. Nothing more, nothing less. I've seen and heard stories about reliability, which is false. I've heard stories about the ecosystem, which is as good in the Windows environment.