Yes the ride you get on a laptop completely depends on the laptop. I have a Dell XPS and everything is working great under Linux with that, except sleep that Intel seem to have screwed with to keep the cpu awake. Other HP laptops have been either a similar ride for higher-end one or quite difficult to get working well for a cheap one.
Part of it is the laptops are developed for windows ACPI interpreter, for windows wifi drivers, for windows system level hack drivers etc. It takes time for Linux to figure out individual workarounds. At least for XPS Dell seem to be developing also for it to work on Linux.