My sister's Dell is 1 year old and cost $500. Is that antiquated? Although, if their Android strategy is any indication, middle range hardware from a year ago is antiquated.
If their job is for a smoother and faster web experience, they're definitely failing badly. Zooming in Chrome is not almost unusable (and I dare you to say that zooming is a "select case")
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/...easeBlock Cr Status Owner Summary OS Modified , it takes way more resources compared to IE, and don't even get me started on how long it took them to include Hi-DPI support.
"Google Chrome for me.... has always worked more reliably" anecdotal, but it's the only part of your quote that I can say is probably.
Please spare us the apologist speech. Thanks.