This is purely personal, but I don't buy laptop solely for its form-factor. What sells the MBP to me is the operating system and frankly that is what keeps me from buying a windows laptop too. In the end I'm ok with paying a premium for a laptop that just works 90% of the time. MBP usually last very long (I still use a early 2011 machine), so the cost is amortized.

I have a toshiba laptop from 2001 that still boots up and runs fine, abet slowly. I have 2 from 2008 w/ no problems at all. My 2012 230x thinkpad has better specs then what's being currently released (2 256gb ssds, and 16gb of ram - really easy to install aftermarket ram & ssds) and is my main laptop, and will be for the foreseeable future. I don't see how a 2011 machine is all that remarkable.

If we're giving anecdotal evidence, I have about 4 Dell notebooks from 2011 to 2016, all of them are either broken or cannot function normally. So should i go ahead and generalize that all the machines in this period are bad?

I said the price works for me because a 6 year old laptop still chugs along comfortably so the price gets amortized. I was not holding a measuring contest.

As for me the only thing I admire in the MBP is the form factor and build quality. I dislike OSX and the purely technical specs are nothing to write home about (especially at that price), so the Xiaomi 13 is great for me.

> a laptop that just works 90% of the time

That sounds horrible...

Eh! I meant it needs tinkering once in a while. It is probably more like 99%. Windows and Linux on the other hand require way more work. I just want my dad to browse the internet and not mess with registry or device drivers.

I run windows 10 on my macbook 12" because it works 99% of the time. And battery life is better.

Xiaomi Mi Air, plus VAT/duty, ships with Chinese only Windows license, unlicensed for English, without CE marking for Europe, and with minimal Western country warranty to speak of.

By the time you add all that up, it's approximately the same pride as any other similar spec non-Apple/non-Microsoft/non-Dell Win home laptop.

Still it doesn't come close to the price of brand laptops, even non-Apple/non-Microsoft/non-Dell, but with the build quality to match or surpass those. I also don't care about Windows or whatever since I use Linux. It's the perfect machine for me, fits my use case like a charm. I'm sure there's plenty of people with similar needs that would also be satisfied with it.

except that it comes from China, with chinese Windows installed and good luck with the warranty. No thanks.

But where would you buy one? (That is also trustworthy I should add.)

You could buy one from a store like gearbest or else buy from a reseller in your country and pay a small premium for warranty etc.

I have this impression in my mind that Gearbest is untrustworthy - this may have come from anecdotes where people were buying smaller ticket items where dishonesty, etc is more common, not sure. Anyways, I'm leery sending $800 to that site.

Search for physical resellers near you, you will pay a small premium but maybe it's worth it for peace of mind.