The parts are easily available, cheap, and virtually everything is user replaceable. It's great.
I enjoy how my X220 really is a laptop of Theseus; over the years I've replaced everything except the LCD rear cover, bezel, hinges, and base. The biggest problem is getting decent batteries.
I get your point but this is pretty irrelevant to many people who want the machine to work. Function over form or some such. I'd rather have a durable, repairable machine than a "pretty" machine that allows me virtually 0 upgrades or I have to eat the cost of hundreds of dollars every time I have to send it to Apple care.
The thonkpads I have are fairly repairable, durable, and fast. Yes, they're bulky but weight is generally not an issue for me.
I think most people who write these comments are just comparing a 2002 thinkpad to 2023 mac.
Also the CPU and RAM were soldered on it, which makes it even less repairable.
The bonus was that for the same budget as standard Macbook Pros at work, I got 32GB RAM and the top i7 plus a thunderbolt dock.
You're right about about resale value. Cult of Apple and all that.
I get that looks are subjective but personally I find everything they've made post 2003 to be insanely boring with no real character.
Generation before and after are fine. I'm still happily using a 2012 iMac. No thermal issues.
Mine has dust, Apple store guys cleaned it and issue was gone.
My MBP M1 Pro is usually compiling big chunks of software. (Granted, not as intense as rendering video but definitely more challenging than most games) three to four times as fast as my desktop i9, and after almost 2 years, I have yet to see it reach 40°C. It’s got some hefty fans that simply never have turned on yet, as far as I’m aware.
Link for the lazy: https://system76.com/laptops/oryx
A lot of the Apple ARM hardware is a black box.
Plus, good luck if you need to run legacy x86 software, for example games, on the Apple stuff.
It's brave new world or nothing, more or less.
TL;DR: without actually committing to using both OSes for a solid period, I don't think developers have a clue about how bad Windows is compared to MacOS.
It's quite unfortunate that I assume many developers within the Windows team can see what needs to be changed, but are given the cold shoulder unless their solution comes bundled with another surface for ads.
The Windows 10 taskbar with "never combine taskbar buttons" is a lot more productive for me, especially when using multiple monitors.
I tried some apps that emulate this on MacOS, but there were always issues.
This is why I'm still on Windows 10 and not 11.
I also prefer the Windows Explorer view, where the left side are folders and the right side the contents of the folder.
I settled on windows 10 and do not plan to move away from it. MSYS2 adds the linux part, because I don’t really care about kernel or fs, linux means gnu/coreutils to me. And if you like gaming, fresh or non-standard hardware or are oc/tuning enthusiast, linux is out of the game. (Don’t bother commenting on that anyone, I check linux wrt that biannually, last check was this winter, shortly after yet another “it just works this time” promise. I couldn’t even set up linear mode for my metal-paws precision mouse, or 125% scaling.)
Mac is an off-the-shelf option, but it’s expensive and I get mediocre custom hardware for the same price as top pc. E.g. idk about now, but when my drive failed I had to either buy 2x-priced Apple(tm) ssd or a regular one and install a third-party fan controller. Without it it sounded like a vacuum cleaner. Something latest i7/i9, rtx, etc? Costs like half a premium car. I regularly laugh at my former mac-loving boss who e.g. searched for TB(?)-DP adapter for under $400 and walks with a bunch of cables because his macbook lacks usb ports.
Windows 10 is rock solid on hw support and software in general, for a regular price. I can build a completely silent and cool pc out of best parts. I also know how to set it up so it annoys me less if at all. And few programmers’ things that it lacks are easy to supplement. MSYS provides GNU, Powertoys help with desktop/wm, Windows Terminal is also okay. Start menu and taskbar are tunable enough to stop noticing them. Even Explorer became okay recently.
Don’t get me wrong, windows still sucks by default. But at least “yes, it can do that” and it doesn’t require money to change keyboard batteries, if you know that joke.
That's a good point. Hardware failures are far more costly on a Mac that on a windows machine. I'm so far removed from that being an issue (because I'm old) that it is a privilege I forget I have. Duly noted.
Cygwin/MSYS/Mingw are really sad reflections of their source material. Not to take a big crap on the millions of man hours the developers have put into them, but they are not drop in replacements which is what I need. And in multiple cases over the years, they always fail to reproduce what is expected. These tools end up requiring their own special care in scripting, which is what I need them to avoid.
I'm a Windows wizard of many a decades and fucking hate iPhones and iPads, but finally got around to buying a Macbook to try it thanks to the sheer hype surrounding the Apple M chips.
My understanding of Macs now is that I hate them but also respect them. What do I mean by this? Well, I have gripes, lots of them; but I'm a power user and here's the kicker: Macs are not intended for power users, I'm not my Macbook's intended customer.
No, Macs are clearly intended for the moms and pops, the common man who treats computers like any other tool or appliance around the house or workplace. Once I understood that and re-evaluated what I had in front of me, I could not deny that Macs are superior to Windows (and Linux) for their intended audience.
Complete computer illiterate guy or gal come to ask me for advice on buying a computer? I'll tell them to go and buy a Mac. Macs Just Work(tm), and that virtue is invaluable for anyone who can't or doesn't want to mess around with their computers.
Something breaks in the Macbook? Just throw it away and buy a new one. The common man doesn't care for messing with the computer, it's an appliance and he has things that need doing, and Macs will satisfy that demand.
Yes, a Mac user has to subscribe to the One Apple Way(tm), it's a hard requirement of getting into the Apple ecosystem. But the common man doesn't care, he has more pressing matters on his mind.
I am absolutely a tinkerer. But I basically need Unix for that. I have a set of dotfiles and config that basically instantly works whenever I transfer machines, just by doing a “git clone” into my $HOME folder. I have a setup script included in there, which copies my config and installs all necessary programs. I have two Mac laptops and can keep them in sync this way. I’ve used Linux for years also, and can modify the Mac script with some changes to support Linux too.
There’s basically no way to do this on Windows because the terminal is a step removed from the system. I can’t open a brand new laptop and have all my programs and config transfer by just running a script. You need to use the UI during multiple points.
Part of this is because I’ve used all of the OS’s extensively (still have windows too!), and always end up needing to reinstall the system every couple of years for one reason or another — maybe just general clutter. This is regardless of OS. On Windows I always lose multiple days to getting it “back to how I want it”, but on Mac and Linux-based systems, it is much faster because (1) there isn’t a bunch of adware to remove, and (2) most/all of the programs that I need can be installed in the terminal with zero effort
The fact that you can make that claim with a straight face in the context of Windows, with zero examples, tells me you have little experience with both.
Its all subjective though.
Apart from adverts. From a users or consumers perspective advertising is almost always a bad idea because it is so manipulative. You were sitting down to play a game or get some work done and right away the OS is trying to distract you.
One easy example:
Bash/sh works the same on Linux and Mac. Nowhere on windows is that true: cygwin mangles paths in a demonstrable script-braking way.
WSL is not windows. It is literally linux running on windows. Which is even more complicated than running a half-baked shell. You're basically using a different OS which is an admission that windows is so awful. Might as well run VNC on a Linux box.
If you want to objectively compare WSL and macOS, you need to run Linux in a virtual machine on mac, that would be the correct comparison.
Your WSL comparisons are incorrect as well: WSL Linux on Windows can not only access and run commands like find over the entire windows file system, but it can also run windows executables - these start in windows even though triggered from bash or whatever in Linux. And vice versa: Windows can run linux binaries which start in WSL (or dual use it like Docker for windows which uses a wsl backend). Furthermore, if that floats your boat, if you start a linux gui application (I occasionally do with browsers or certain recon tools) it runs fine in a window as part of the windows ui experience.
So its not really like a linux vm on mac at all, not even considering the vastly better performance you get from WSL vs a VM.
I never used Win11. I actually prefer Win10 in comparison to Mac.
Linux is much better than any of those anyway.
What extra up front cost? The Macbook Air costs $799 at BestBuy. Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less?
Only Samsung makes computers that are comparable to the Macbook. This Samsung [2] arguably has a better screen but costs $1450. (There are cheaper Samsungs but they don't have 200% screen resolution.)
[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/macbook-air-13-3-laptop-apple-m...
[2] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-galaxy-book3-pro-14-3k-...
These days, the extra cost is (mostly) for the quality. (Some of it is also for some of the capabilities, which a given user may not need all of, but the selection is very limited.)
So much of the time, when people are comparing a Mac to a PC on price and complaining that the Mac is overpriced, they're comparing it to a PC whose build quality is very obviously inferior. For them, that may not matter, because they're fully price-focused, or because they're only planning on having it for 2-3 years anyway, or because they just don't believe that build quality matters...but it's still a real thing, and it does make a difference for many people.
The old Surface Book has 3000x2000 resolution which is 200%, but the Surface Laptops have 2256x1504 resolution, which is only 150%. As Steve Jobs said when he introduced iPhone 4, the only resolution that looks good after 100% is 200%. I have tested screens with 150% and 300% resolutions, and they all have display artifacts (such as horizontal 1-pixel horizontal lines appearing to have different widths).
Right now a entry level Macbook Air in NZ is ~1600, 1400 on special, and a Surface Laptop Go 2 is ~1400. Same size, same ram, same hdd, higher res on the air, touch screen on the surface, m1 on the air, intel x64 on the surface, basically same target market.
Only if you go with the absolute lowest specs. Which means you cannot upgrade them and will have to chuck that MacBook Air much sooner than any Windows laptop because it’s unable to keep up with you.
Maxing out the specs on any Apple hardware is practically required for maximizing usable lifespan, and unfortunately, represents a massive barrier to entry for a majority of people. Since these products are not upgradable after the fact (as most Windows systems are), you have to choose between a much shorter expected lifespan or a much more expensive product.
For example, I can easily put together a Windows machine for $3,000 that can do much the same things that a $2,000 Mac Mini can. But get the entry-level Mac Mini, and any Windows machine which matches that price is relevant for more than twice the time span thanks to its ability to be upgraded.
512GB seems to have been enough for me for the last ten years or so, if I need more storage than that, it goes on a different machine or cloud storage of some form. I haven't found it restrictive at all.
I had my 2013 MBP (i5/8/512) in active use until 2020 when lockdown hit and I stopped needing a laptop for a while. Now I'm on a M1/16/512 Air, and two years in I'm still very happy with it. Hopefully I'll get 7 years out of this one too.
I do have a 4 TB NAS at home, but that's backups and childhood photos, no daily-driving stuff. I don't consider myself a casual user.
("temp" like "stuff I occasionally need", not literally /var/tmp)
The base model m1 macbook air has 256GB of storage.
I can’t find any laptops in my country with the same screen resolution, brightness, weight, and trackpad combo as a base Macbook for a cheaper price.
My wife’s M1 Macbook Air feels faster than any laptop I’ve ever used, and outside of 3D rendering, even faster than my Ryzen 5900x desktop.
A more apt comparison would be that MacBook with a pangolin amd 5600? machine. It’s much better on battery, has the same ports. It’s been my daily driver work machine for almost a year. I’m not going back to Mac or windows if I can help it.
The 2015 MacBooks were the greatest apple machines, but I doubt they’ll get any support in a couple years
Surface and M1 Macs aren’t even in the same universe of utility.
I have a Macbook Pro M1 Max. I upgraded from a 2015 MBP, which had previously been one of my all-time favorite Apple laptops (and I've had cough a lot).
The MBP M1 Max - to my surprise - destroyed the 2015 on virtually every level.
This is my current "from my cold dead hands" machine.
Isn't Microsoft still selling laptops with only 4GB of RAM?
This is not my experience. At best I'd get a few hours. If I'm using the GPU? An hour or so.
This opinion has not necessarily changed as much as Windows has just descended into full blown subscription-trap-ridden spyware with more ads than your average website.
My next laptop will probably be a mac, and my desktop workstation will stay on win 10/linux as long as possible, a repeat of the XP era. I'm honestly tired of fighting the OS I want to work on at every step. (and yes that also includes fighting all the little problems you have trying to make linux usable: audio, bluetooth, x/wayland)
Despite how glossy and powerful the machine still is, if it doesn't have a working web browser it's only semi-valid. Watched my Dad go through this three times in the last 20 years, and no stranger to it myself. My own current Macbook Air is just a thin client for a Remote Windows instance, but I suppose eventually that the browser interface for that is going to become a problem too, when it 'ages out'.
I have a Mac Mini from 2012 that has the security updates from 2022-05 and Catalina, from 2019, but I have the latest version of Firefox that I use.
The machine is perfectly usable and probably performs even better than day one given I put in an SSD in it. I bought it used for less than 300 euros with a wireless keyboard, and given the form factor, ability to use multiple monitors, great integration with my other devices, it wouldn't be fair to complain about a this 11 year old machine that still works as intended.
The build quality thing is only true if you compare them with cheaper laptops. In the same price class you find more interesting devices IMO
Display flickering if you have the low power LCD: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Fedora/Random-screen-flickering...
Microphone is very quiet: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Other-Linux-Discussions/T14s-Ge...
Most higher end Thinkpad models have 1080p screens with 300-400 nits of brightness at most.
The base M2 Macbook Air is 2560x1664 with 500 nits brightness. And it’s cheaper than a Gen2 Thinkpad T14.
And of course, all Thinkpads can’t hold a candle to Macbook trackpads
Slightly higher resolution and brightness doesn't matter if you can't see anything because of Macbooks's glary screen. And of course, Macbook's trackpads can't hold a candle to Thinkpad's trackpoint.
The only objective truth here is that open software makes devices age better.
It also has a very nice glass track pad, which as far as hardware is concerned is arguably better than the mac one. The difference is software support, which is better on Mac.
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/dg/LAPTOPS?from=splitter&visibl...
Don't get me wrong - I like this laptop, especially it's keyboard.
But it simply doesn't offer enough value compared to the newer Macbooks.
Screen resolution caps out at 1920x1200 which feels blurry coming from the 2560x1600 a Macbook provides.
Its speakers are awful - they use EQ under Windows (provided by the Lenovo Vantage software) to sound vaguely reasonable. Under Linux no such EQ exists (even though Linux is supported by Lenovo on this laptop) so the speakers sound like a smartphone (not exaggerating).
The trackpad is so-so, to get a trackpad in Lenovo's lineup comparable to a Macbook Air you'd have to buy their Z13 which costs £700 more.
Pluses are the AMD CPU and graphics are good enough to actually play games, like Flight Simulator 2020 at 30 fps on low settings, or older titles like Witcher 3 or Arkham Knight on high settings also at a constant 30fps.
The laptop itself is good value, I picked it up on sale for £1200 with 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM for £1200. A comparable Macbook Air (M1) is £1600.
No? Just opened the lenovo website and it says
Up to 35,6 cm (14") 2,8K OLED (2.880 x 1.800) IPS, 16:10, DisplayHDR™ True Black 500, Dolby® Vision™
So higher res and oled.
> 1tb ssd, 32gb ram. Comparable macbook air m1 is 1600.
Can you even get an air with 32gb of ram? Or what do you mean by "comparable"?
No it isn't better value, it's expensive for what it is, especially when you can find $200 refurbished Asus Vivobooks out there with a Ryzen 5/7 APU and run linux on them. Apple products are insanely expensive and are often plagued by specific problems due to Apple obsession with (thin) design at the expense of usability.
In my experience, I pay less upfront for a Windows machine and get to enjoy it just as much (if not longer).
Lets take device lifetime: I have a 2013 MBP 15 and 2015 MBP 15. I use them for intensive things like music production. Both devices work flawlessly. I also a System 76 Oryx Pro which cost more than any mac I own. The webcam failed 5 months in, several keys don't work anymore, and it gets hotter than the surface of the sun when I ask it to do even moderate workloads. Its also ugly as shit. I don't really use it anymore.
There is also resale value: I've been able to get at least a few hundred bucks for pretty much any apple device I've owned when I've sold it. My Oryx? No one wants that thing. Its gonna end up in a landfill at some point.
In my experience, you pay more up front but you get more for your money in the long run.