There's one other thing you're getting: resale value. I wrote a piece on how to buy a Mac: http://jseliger.com/2010/11/01/how-to-buy-a-mac/ and should probably write another on how and why to sell them. I first bought a PowerBook in 2004 and sold it for about 40% of its original value three years later, at which point I bought an iMac, which I sold about a year ago for half its value. My parents were amazed that computers could hold any kind of value at all; part of the reason Macs retain their value is because Apple doesn't sell really cheap Macs, but the other part is simple: buyers can actually figure out a) what configuration you're selling, b) its approximate age, and c) its approximate value. If you're selling a random Dell or HP with a string of numbers and letters after it, most people can't tell if you're selling a computer you bought six months ago for $3,000 or a computer you bought six years ago for $400. You can reinstall the OS quickly and easily.
Basically, no one save (to some degree) Lenovo with Thinkpads has any kind of brand recognition.