My experience buying laptops in 2023 was that most of what I found was cheap junk. Even when I was buying stuff in the $1800-$2500 price range, it was mostly junk with build quality problems, incomplete support for the hardware (USB-C especially being an issue), and terrible thermals.

I don't really like Apple as a company but I just hand them money and they give me a laptop that works without any nonsense. Maybe I'm just too old and overpaid nowadays but I legitimately feel like laptop manufacturers other than Apple are in a self-destructive race-to-the-bottom with each other.