I wouldn't say that the remote control was free, unless you can obtain a machine *without* one. Otherwise, it's part of the purchase price.
HP *do* make some knock-down machines. Dell too. My personal experience of all 3 manufacturers is that HP make some extremely unreliable, badly-designed machines (cheap manufacture, unstable hardware, frequent motherboard problems) and also make some terrible design decisions - often intended to garner an extra tick on the box, but at the cost of usability and ergonomics. Dell make rock-solid, pig-ugly machines, and have good support. Sony make more expensive machines, with more advanced technologies (seen screens as good as sony's xblack2 anywhere? when every other manufacturer were cutting back on 1920x1200 screens, sony were still knocking them out.)
I still see people regularly using Vaios from the first few generations. Find a still-working HP of that vintage, and I'll be impressed.
Feature-filled doesn't always mean good. I'd rather have 3 features well done, than 100 half-cocked features which are no use once the novelty has worn off, and can't be relied on.
The remote ain't all that. If you have a bluetooth phone, you can do more with it already... including *not* need line-of-sight to operate your machine. If it's a missing remote that's killing you, there are online suppliers/ebay who can turn them out, or you could even get a standard programmable one and record the signals from another machine.
Sony used to manufacture excellent (though expensive) electronics and none of them were made in China...
I'd choose IBM anyway.