Perceived hardware quality is something Apple is fantastic at. Their laptops look and feel great. They feel like they'll last decades. This is misleading since they're actually built to be disposable. e.g. If you spill coffee on your Macbook Air, it's dead. You can't fix it because you can't remove the battery in a timely fashion and don't have the tools to open it. Apple won't fix it because their warranty doesn't cover spills. They won't even open it up and help you clean it up. They'll just tell you it's now off warranty and to kindly buy another or PFO. This is the big apple lie. Their stuff feels like heirlooms, but it's built to be binned at the first sign of trouble or obsolescence (or when the non-user-replaceable battery inevitably fails).
For some strange reason Apple has managed to put retina displays in their laptops before LG or Samsung (who probably manufacture those panels) manage to put them in their own laptops. While other laptop manufacturers are pretty timid about doing new things these days, they are getting faster at following in Apple's footsteps. We'll likely see Samsung or LG putting out their own laptops with retina displays within a few months. At least some of them will have proper screws that you actually own a screwdriver for.
Samsung really has the potential to be an industry leader. They make everything. SSD's, memory, displays, you name it. Some of their efforts (e.g. the Series 9) have actually been innovative in certain small and specific ways. It's frustrating to watch them sit back and let Apple do things "first" with their own parts though. Someone at Samsung is really dropping the ball and I hope they're shown the door soon.
There's nothing strange about this. Apple has been pushing very high resolution as a differentiator for 2 years now. They've made huge investments in new factories for Toshiba, Sharp and likely other display makers. They've signed huge contracts taking almost all the production from other vendors. It's not like tomorrow Samsung Mobile can say "shit tear up that $3 bln deal with Apple we want to make a 2880x1800 laptop now"
"Samsung really has the potential to be an industry leader."
The fast follower strategy has been ingrained into Samsung for what, decades? I don't see how it's frustrating to watch them execute the strategy they've been very successful with and I don't expect them to turn around and bet the farm on a new market leading approach.
I've replaced the batteries for them, actually, I've had Apple give me new batteries due to them failing early... but I've never had issues with Apple not servicing my laptop. They have dents in them, they have scratches from wear and tear, they have stickers all over them, but they still work extremely well. Still run the latest version of OS X, still run all of the software I use on a daily basis.
I used to own an iBook that I had purchased in 2004, an iBook G4, when I purchased my new MBP in 2007 I sold my iBook to my dad and he used it till 2010. The iBook is still up and running, it is simply too slow for my dads needs so he bought a new MacBook Pro and absolutely loves it.
This is basically a longwinded way of saying that I disagree with your assessment that they are disposable machines. The amount of life and longevity in a Mac are to be envied, and the way they hold their value even after a couple of years is simply awesome.
Agreed -- I just sold my 2007 MBP and got enough back to buy a new iPad (retina version). That's more money than most brand new low-end Windows laptops go for (are there any non-low-end Windows laptops? I looked but couldn't find much from the major stores).
If you think about the original price that I paid (£1100) minus the sale price (£400), the total cost is really not that bad...
Battery replacement is $99.
For some strange reason Apple has managed to put retina displays in their laptops before LG or Samsung (who probably manufacture those panels) manage to put them in their own laptops.
Windows probably doesn't support retina properly (which is sad, considering that MS has been working on retina support since Vista). Also, Apple may have outbid Samsung for the panels.
Samsung really has the potential to be an industry leader. They make everything.
Except software.
Amen brother. It's astonishing to me that so much of what Apple creates is actually made by Samsung, and yet they constantly seem so far behind.
Have you seen their new 15" Ultrabooks though? They are awesome. 15" screen and weighs more than a pound less than the new MBP (obviously, with tradeoffs)
That or Samsung just doesn't care about being the first to the gate.
Biggest tradeoff being the Samsung has a low voltage (slow) dual core vs a full speed quad core plus a massive GPU. I don't think we'll see anything much lighter than the Macbook just due to the need to vent the heat. It's considerably lighter than any other quad I know of.
Plus, unless you have an OS that can take advantage of it, higher resolution in a 11" ultrabook machine does not make sense.
I'll rate that as damn good. Only damage was cosmetic other than that it was in great shape. I think you may be rating the macbook pro too low. I've seen people drop their thinkpad and having them go boom.
Yes yes anecdotal evidence blah blah. But I place a lot of props to that macbook pro surviving a motorcycle accident. Its been retired along with the helmet that saved me. Just my $0.02
In the end, I took a 6 year old computer to an Apple store and walked out with it looking more or less new, for free.
Apple's service is nothing short of amazing. I doubt IBM would have done that to your Thinkpad.
My Thinkpad is only a few years old, and the cooling system is acting up, I'm also having keyboard issues (even after replacing it) and just isn't worth bothering with. My old Macbook Pro on the other hand still practically runs like new, and never had to be repaired for anything.
I wish people wouldn't make claims based on speculation.
The only thing the newer macbooks would beat mine on would be games, and I just don't play very many. When I do its usually casual like Plants vs Zombies or whatever.
It's lasted longer and fared better than any other laptop I've owned (14" vostro, 13" inch vaio, 17" HP). It has simply been the best laptop I've every owned.
I have done upgrades, the best of which being an SSD. Without that, I'm sure I'd be feeling the pain of old hardware. I pulled the optical drive out and moved my mechanical drive to that bay for extra storage.
The casing has a few very minor nicks, and I did take it in to the apple store to get new rubber "feet" a few months back (under warranty).
I love my macbook pro. Someday I'll upgrade again, if the logic board gives out or something. Probably to a new macbook pro. Perhaps not though, the other manufacturers are catching up with their ultrabooks.
This laptop has been the first computer I've owned where I haven't felt like I was "fighting" with it to get work done.
The "retina" display is the first thing they've done that has me actually wanting to buy new hardware.
I've never used a Thinkpad, though, so I can't say whether it would have fared better or not.
Well... my 2006 T60p is in great shape. Original hard drive, battery only 14.7% down from its original capacity.
My 2004 X31 is still ticking and it's been through a lot. Zero problems with the electronics although to be fair I did upgrade the hard drive in 2007.
The latest T's and X's are better, but your average 60p has a better monitor than nearly all of the current tpad line.
Looking at the IPS-equipped X220 for my next laptop :)
The batteries are actually designed to last for many years and pretty easy to replace with a screwdriver.
My MBP from 2008 is still going strong, and that's the less solidly built pre-unibody. Unlike many others, Apple extended the warranty because of the nVidia chipset bug.
From what I hear, Apple can sometimes be nice about accidents, but other times they're sticklers about the rules.
I'm still typing on it today. But man, those new retina MacBooks are tempting.
Looking into it further at the time there's actually a good chunk of your macbook that you can fix yourself it's just not officially blessed by Apple
What's gone wrong with them?
MBP - The case is full of dents, and the screen is starting to get dark. It's balls slow these days and Apple really doesn't want to support it anymore.
Netbook - it can't detect how much battery is left anymore, but otherwise seems fine. It's also balls slow, and there's not really a way to support it.
All that being said, replacing my netbook with something similarly priced will cost me $300-400 and get me a hell of a lot better piece of hardware. Replacing my MBP is going to cost me a pretty penny that I'm not looking forward to.
Note: I actually did "replace" my MBP with a Dell Studio a couple of years ago for about a thousand bucks and got a ridiculous amount of hardware for that price. It still looks almost new, but it "feels" cheap and fragile, even if it hasn't actually shown any wear and tear. My MBP on the other hand feels incredible, but has collected so many battle scars from fairly undramatic handling that I wonder if aluminum really is a good case material in the long run. The metal around one of the ports in the back is so buckled the port is no longer usable.
Note 2: It's interesting, being an East Coastie, that when I see MBPs it's usually young professionals at Starbucks or some such putting together business consulting slide decks or something. It's mildly unusual to see developer types out here with Macs (or see them with Macs not running Windows). I'm sure it's an effect of banking and government on the ecosystem. But it's almost always non-tech types using Macs here...usually as a response to having crappy corporate Windows XP/7 systems forced on them in their cubes at work.
Note 3: I'm not really a developer type, so personally I think Macs are "OK". I can see why West Coastie Web Startups use them. The Unixland is decent enough, the GUI is pretty good etc. For folks who want to do that kind of stuff the ecosystem is pretty nice.
For me, most of the stuff I want to do with a computer either isn't as good, doesn't exist, or is a second class citizen in the Mac world (it's mostly music composition, retrogaming, other entertainment) but is miles ahead in maturity and choices in the PC world. Portable software practices make lots of that go away when I'm stuck on my Mac and want to have some fun, but it still feels less mature than the Windows counterparts.
For business, almost none of my customers are using Macs, so I'm back into Windows land again.
It's frustrating, I'll sit down to really work with my Mac for a bit (and did for a few solid years), but find myself inevitably drawn back into Windows world to "just get shit done" in many cases.
Running Windows on an expensive MBP seems silly as the hardware seems to be about as durable, but the Windows machines are virtually disposable they're so cheap...and I couldn't care less about the feel of the machine.
I think changing work environments to a different kind of shop would probably offer me a better opportunity to stick with OS X, it's a kind of network effect.
But outside of some personal frustrations, I can see why either ecosystem would be a perfectly valid choice.
If you want an living room PC for entertainment, Windows is king. Neither Linux or OSX support Bluray properly and Windows still has a huge edge in gaming. Windows also supports the most hardware. That's become unimportant to most people, but if you work in a research lab with various oddball computer controlled devices around, you are often forced to work with Windows simply because that's the only OS supported by drivers for a lot of things.
OSX is the perfect OS for your mother. There's the one "Apple way" of doing things, so if she needs help it's easy to give her some. OSX gets decent battery life (on mac hardware) and still has a few Unix friendly features that haven't been locked away by Apple yet. If you're looking for a ghetto linux workstation, OSX will do in a pinch. I actually spent the better part of last year working under OSX on a Mac Book air. I've used Mac's off and on for decades and this is just the most recent stint (The MBA hardware lured me in this time). It worked, but the OS still puts up too much fight you when you try to customize it. OSX has also gotten rather buggy. I'm relieved to have retired it. As I said, while it would be great for my mother I personally detest OSX. Also, Mac hardware is moving away from the DIY crowd. e.g. The MBA's actually use proprietary screws to keep you out of your own laptop's innards. If you've ever saved a laptop from a coffee spill by disconnecting the battery and opening it up and doing a little cleaning, just bear in mind you won't be able to do that with most future macs.
Linux is bug central. Don't get me wrong, it's come a long way from the days when Slackware was king. You can install Ubuntu and almost everything will just work. The devil is in the details though, and if you have a low tolerance for flakiness you'll have to tweak away. However, no other OS is as powerful and flexible. If you want it to do X, it can do X in dozens of different ways. If the journey is as important as the destination for you, Linux is your OS.
Windows is all things to all people, but entertainment first and foremost. OSX is for your mother or people who would rather not use a real computer. Linux is for those who embrace the quest. Decide (and be honest with yourself) what kind of user you are and your OS preference will become clear, although what you are forced to use may be different. I currently use both Windows and Linux extensively, and occasionally help my Mom with OSX.