I'm usually on the apple-defending side of this discusion, but: "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket".

For the same price, other laptops seem to offer more power, in exchange for less battery and a few other niceties.

I'm writing this from a MBP (magsafe-and-escape-key mbp) that I love. To me, it makes no sense to say "Macbooks are just like these windows pcs but way more expensive", but neither does saying "there is no alternative to a MBP".

A lot of laptops are competing. Some of them are premium, expensive machines, with high price tags and nice features and quality. The macbook is one of them, with its own set of unique advantages, but also compromises. Some people think they are the best. That's it.

> "MBP wins in disk speed and battery" doesn't match "there is no alternative in any price bracket"

Disk speed, battery, build quality, and screen resolution seem to be the big ones. There don't seem to be any alternatives with the same set of features. All of the machines brought up as an "alternative" are missing one or more of those which means they aren't really an alternative.

I do agree that you're also signing up for a set of compromises when you buy a MBP, but AFAIK there's not an "equivalent" machine elsewhere that I can find, which to me seems a bit strange.

I hate analogies, especially car ones, but for this situation it really does seem to fit. There are three big German car makers. BMW, Audi, and Mercedes each have "equivalent" sets of cars. You can pick and choose between them and while there are might be small features that one offers over the others there are definitely "alternatives".

With the MBP it feels like there's only one, and when looking for an alternative everyone's suggesting a Toyota Camry. Yes, it will get the job done but it's not really the same class of thing.