I would say it depends on what you do. Mac laptops definitely have strong features that their PC cousins don't have, but...
The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro.
The port selection is nice, but the ports are too close together unless you're using all Apple cables. A chunky USB key or mini-display port cable can block other ports. I had to use a knife and shave off the edges of a mini display port cable I had.
>> "The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro."
What are you doing on them? I'm generally running browser/Xcode/iTunes or Logic Pro X/iTunes/Browser and my fan never spins up. In fact it spins so rarely I tend to think somethings going wrong when it does. It freaks me out. I'm on the lowest spec 13" MacBook Pro.
I run mostly dev tools, text editor, etc. But I have a bad habit of having more than 50 Chrome tabs open, and Chrome is a notorious pig on just about every OS.
My Macbook Pro (2011, quad core i7) is famous for heating issues, but that aside, any app that forces use of the discrete GPU (at one point, even Coda did) would cause the fans to spin.
I don't want to sound like a snob, but the 13" MBPs aren't comparable with 15" MBPs, since many of them use lesser CPUs (i.e., not the MQ/HQ/QM series chips) that don't generate nearly as much heat.
Those 2011 quad cores are powerful machines, especially for their size (thickness, mainly). I've used HP Elitebooks with similar CPUs, that are close to twice as thick, yet still have worse heat issues.
You've gotta work them pretty hard to start reaching thermal issues - as you are doing with lots of Chrome tabs :P
Yes, they are. In raw CPU benchmarks, it will still blow away just about any latest rev mac laptop that isn't a 15" Macbook Pro.
edit - as for the thermal issues, you don't have to work it hard, that model year had all sorts of issues in general, hence the Apple repair order that was issued last year. My MBP bricked itself a couple of months before that repair order was issued. That was the first laptop I ever had (Windows or Mac) that just up and died.
Previously to this machine I had a 15" MacBook Pro (2012) and didn't have any issues either. I don't run many browser tabs, that might be the difference. Although I do think the fans spun up more often on the 15" you're right.
The 2012's had the second generation CPUs of that class, and they ran cooler than those used in 2011. A lot of people had major heat issues with the 2011, it's quite famous.
Apple was basically in denial about the issue until last year when they issued the repair order.
Having said that, most of the quad core models will get hot pretty fast, especially if you use something like Chrome. If you use Safari, you probably won't have those issues, as it's much more efficient than Chrome, but that's a preference thing.
The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my Macbook Pro.
The port selection is nice, but the ports are too close together unless you're using all Apple cables. A chunky USB key or mini-display port cable can block other ports. I had to use a knife and shave off the edges of a mini display port cable I had.