I would say that you're not playing fair when it comes to laptops running Windows. I have had two high-end $3,000+ laptops from Dell and both have lasted almost 10 years before I gave them away. No problems on the keyboard or anything else. Apple requires you to pay for high quality hardware, whereas most people tend to buy cheaper Windows based laptops because they don't want to spend as much.

Interesting. What did you not like about it? If it's the Metro view, download the Windows 7 style start button from startisback.com. I'm a developer and have been using Windows 8.1 for several months now and use it like Windows 7. I do find it faster.