This is true with ultra books as well. 3 or 4 year old Thinkpad X1 Carbons or XPS 13s are an easy cost savings and quality improvement compared to low or even midrange contemporary competitors.
Batteries last 3-4 years and can already be very hard to get hold off after that time. I had a tough time sourcing a genuine replacement battery for my 4 year old X1 Carbon. It's a shame as otherwise the user replaceable battery would be a huge advantage over e.g. a MacBook.
The older XPS "developer edition" models with a lot of ram and an SSD also make very good home servers. Power usage at idle is a fraction of what you would otherwise use and the performance is great.
