This is one hella pretentious thing to say, but honestly, I wouldn't know, because a) I didn't pay for the Lenovo and b) it was all spec'd out with slick hardware. So my perception is skewed accordingly.

The MacBook Pro was around $2000, so you're projecting the Lenovo as ~$910. I don't think it was that cheap. Certainly not, with Windows 7 software and no (obvious) mal/adware.

The Lenovo is like a hulking wrestler; brawny and powerful, especially the GPU. I code on it, I 3D CAD model on it, used it for SIMION, made official-ish Microsoft office files for a Microsoft outlook server email address, on and on, whatever. It's always business-oriented. But it takes a long time to boot, the touchpad is inferior, the keys aren't backlit, the native OS software is less transparent, etc., on top of having issues related to it being managed by an IT department. And if I gamed, of course I'd need a PC. Valid argument.

The Mac is like an ice skater; elegant, precise, efficient. The mandatory software updates are bullshit, for sure, but Windows has some problems of its own in that vein. I casually surf the web on my mac, work in Ableton (not enough lately :/), scrape together an album art .jpg and the related song into a .mov to post to my YouTube, and even do some command line image processing on files passed over from the Lenovo. Research in general is split between my home and work computers.

I guess what I've learned is that an OS is what you make of it, unless you're limited by software demands. Usually though, you get almost exactly what you pay for. If my gf is reading this, I'm thinking about your $250 HP notebook. 120% on the shitware meter. Dropped it once (on carpet), and that was that.

Oh also: I ran Linux on another work computer, mainly because the stability is absurd. Love it, but I've never had a period of several off-days to swap OS's, and more importantly, I have several software licenses installed on all of my current builds. Some are floating licenses not managed by me. Most of them would be lost in Linux, on top of some programs failing to run at all.

As per usual, the moral of the story is.. "just be rich".

Edit: I am not rich, sorry guys