>when I was partially responsible for hardware refreshes in a UK public sector organisation with around a thousand endpoint PCs we budgeted something like £600 a box.

Same here in EU mainland, at every org I worked we used to get budget notebooks to do SW dev on, also in the 600-800 Euro range.

I think because the US is so much wealthier and can afford to spend more on tech without breaking a sweat. Hence the "Europoor" meme where Europeans can't comprehend the material abundance and spending power of the US.