Apple producs are all premium priced machins - you can typically buy 2 or 3 similarly specced Windows compters for the price of a Mac. Sure, they are nicely designed, and have goten a few things right, such as the trackpad operation. But even at hardware level this does not translate into a better quality, which is a shame, considering the tight control that Apple purports to exercise over both the hardware and software. My wife's MacBook Pro has had 3 motherboards replaced, 4 hard disk reformats, 3 batteries replaced, (and spent probably a month and a half in the Apple repair shop), and the AppleCare isn't even up yet. I have never had such problems with my 7 PCs. When it comes to software, it's also not that great. Personally, I don't find it very efficient to work with OSX, and the business apps are incompatible with Windows (e.g. Outlook, which is essential for us). There are things that it does better, but it's not across the board.
So in a nutshell - 1. Perform better? compared to a similarly priced Windows computer? Not really,
2. Easier to use? Try to launch an application that is not in the dock - you need to search for it in the Applications folder, which after a while will become a hodge-podge of crap. Or how about a forward delete (with one hand please) - oh, there is no Delete button in Mac world. Function keys? you don't get no stinking function keys (at least not without pressing the Fn button with the other hand).
3. More Secure? With proper antivirus (e.g. MS Security Essentials) you will be just as secure
And my experience, as mentioned above, does not support the suggestions that Apple hardware is more reliable.