Your problem is with buying a dell or hp laptop. They're known to be crap. Buy by specs and look at other brands.

The 2 macbooks I've had shit the bed within 5 years and cost ~$2k each. Both have also required repairs, so add to the costs. The PC laptop and desktops I've purchased/built for under $1200 each have been running smoothly still (laptop for 5 years at ~$900, and a 10 and a 6 year desktop $1100-$1200), haven't required repairs, and don't see any need to upgrade their performance in the near future (tho an rtx 3090 would be nice for running certain ML models).

Yeah windows ui sucks, but the cost to performance ratio for the hardware is way better than an Apple laptop, especially if you build your own desktop. Not to mention, you can always use a linux drive or dual boot if windows ui is that much of a hassle.