Of course, source aside, if you want a $300 laptop then you'll get the low build-quality, plastic-fantastic piece of spyware-riddled crap you pay for. If you're paying a premium, for a product range where reputation and quality actually matters, you stand a better chance. Unfortunately in the current laptop market, imho, that means paying a minimum of $1000, with low-end Apple prices being preferable.

Dells business range isn't so bad. I bought a Latitude in January of last year and, although it had some superfluous fluff bundled with it, it was lean enough that I didn't bother to format and reinstall from scratch (although I dual boot). I previously bought a Lenovo ThinkPad for more and returned it because the depressing build quality (I don't remember much about the bundled software because it simple doesn't factor in to my purchasing decisions).

I think the fact that this spyware was found on a refurbed ThinkPad shows just how far the brand has fallen.