In terms of laptops, my experience is that they are more often subpar than not. Other than Thinkpads perhaps (of which newer ones are quite prone to goddamn throttling, but I guess it is up to intel mostly?)
If you get the cheapest crap available, yes, they're subpar. Any decent non-consumer oriented cheapest possible Dell, HP, etc. is absolutely fine. There are defects from times to times, of course ( like Apple had with the butterfly keyboard), but build quality is quite similar to Apple.
I have a fancy-ish Asus with aluminium body that is 7 years old now ( that cost 1/3 the price of a MacBook Pro at the time) which, next to my newly issued MBP, looks decent. Weird clickicking sound from the right button on the touchpad, small screen and thick bezels aside ( all of which are more due to the age than anything else) it still works perfectly.
I have a fancy-ish Asus with aluminium body that is 7 years old now ( that cost 1/3 the price of a MacBook Pro at the time) which, next to my newly issued MBP, looks decent. Weird clickicking sound from the right button on the touchpad, small screen and thick bezels aside ( all of which are more due to the age than anything else) it still works perfectly.