I invited a family member to try Chipotle once. She complained of a soapy taste in the food. We both thought maybe a staff member had been careless about rinsing hands after washing with soap.
I later learned that some people have a genetic predisposition to perceive cilantro, an herb common in Mexican food, as a soapy taste [1] [2].
Maybe in the case of these laptops, nobody who was involved in production / QA had the right gene to be bothered by the smell. But once it's sold to thousands of people, that's both a much larger population, and one that's from all over the world (as opposed to the people in the factory who would would probably mostly be local workers from one country or region).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro#Leaves
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?_r=0