What is so special about Macbooks?

[NeghVar]

We recently hired a person who uses a Macbook Pro. And has been using Apple products since the late '90s. So we purchased a Macbook Pro for him for business use back in February. $$$$. Supposed to arrive this month, but we got a notice that it's on backorder till June. Why are Macbooks so much more expensive than Windows-based laptops with the same or similar specs. What is so special about them? Do they accel in certain uses? Plus, so much harder to acquire?

 

[toast0]

What is so special about them? Do they accel in certain uses?

The excel at running MacOS. And the special thing is they only come in high spec models with lots of profit for the maker. The M1 chips are supposed to be pretty good though. I had macbooks for my last job (7 years) and MacOS never really did it for me, and the hardware wasn't exciting for me either; EFI 1.0 is also pretty derpy, not sure if they ever made it to UEFI.

 

[pendragon1]

We recently hired a person who uses a Macbook Pro. And has been using Apple products since the late '90s. So we purchased a Macbook Pro for him for business use back in February. $$$$. Supposed to arrive this month, but we got a notice that it's on backorder till June. Why are Macbooks so much more expensive than Windows-based laptops with the same or similar specs. What is so special about them? Do they accel in certain uses?

Plus, so much harder to acquire?

design, materials and status.
probably due to the shortage of everything.

 

[NeghVar]

Macs have always been off my list. Not for price, adapting to a new OS, or gaming options. It's just that ever since I assembled my first PC (Pentium 100). The assembly and customization is a thrill for me. Can't do that with any Apple product

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

Macs have always been off my list. Not for price, adapting to a new OS, or gaming options. It's just that ever since I assembled my first PC (Pentium 100). The assembly and customization is a thrill for me. Can't do that with any Apple product

Thats why many of us own Mac's as well as gaming PC's. Different tools for different jobs.

 

[NeghVar]

Years ago, I remember hearing that Macs excelled as a CGI/CGA workstation. Do they still have an edge over PC?

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Why are Macbooks so much more expensive than Windows-based laptops with the same or similar specs.

It's literally impossible to buy a 'new' Macbook that has "similar specs" to a PC. Apple has transitioned their entire lineup to ARM (with the exception of the Mac Pro, which is expected to be transitioned later this year). There aren't any widely available PC's that run on ARM. The Surface RT was basically the beginning and the end of it.

What is so special about them?

As for the other end of the question, PC heads have long "looked at specs" and ignored anything that "they didn't care about" as "not being a good enough reason" for price differentiation.
As an example, all throughout the 2010's, Macbooks have prioritized things like build quality, display quality, speaker quality, microphone quality, keyboards, touch-pads, battery life, high-speed ports (Thunderbolt Only since 2015), wireless technologies (always using the latest wi-fi chips and blutooth on all hardware whether desktop/laptop), physical size/weight (they are literally the brand responsible for the creation of ultrabooks), and an emphasis on support.

There is also the design/designer aspect of Macs. They aren't built from OEM parts (eg: Sager/Cleo) and all of their internals/externals are bespoke to Apple. Design inherently increases costs. This is why PC OEM's lived in beige boxes for 30 years. The PC super power is essentially mass production driving down cost. Apple with the Mac is the exact opposite of that idea - heavy design emphasis and decreased output driving up cost.
There has NEVER been a PC that was built in a way that was 1-to-1 comparable with a Mac (at least since the G3 era and beyond). Whether all of that stuff matters to you or not is a different discussion, but for users of the platform, those things have mattered and they drive a reasonable sales cost. In other words, there has always been more to the Mac experience than simply looking at CPU/GPU/RAM. Apple has always looked at ALL of the components - whereas PC OEM's usually find as many 'other' things to omit as possible in order to drive the price down.

For PC diehards, none of those things have "ever mattered", until they did. HP with the Envy as an example is basically a copy of the Macbook Air, acknowledging that people do care about premium designs and not just crap ware.

----------

Even despite saying all of this: the biggest reason to be on a Mac is macOS. If you don't want to use macOS, then I would simply buy something else. There are other advantages now due to their specialized accelerators on their ARM processors, but in short none of that matters if you don't want to use Apple software. The Mac has been great, because of macOS, even when it wasn't priced well against its PC peers. Now that the Mac is definitely faster than PC's for a lot of specific workloads, the reason to buy a Mac or not still comes down to the OS. If you need specific software that's Windows only - then there is an inherent barrier and it's not worth the time to even look into a Mac. And I more or less said the same thing when the shoe was on the other foot.

Do they accel in certain uses?

Everything is about use case. The very short version is that's software dependent. Certainly if you work in the photo/video world including the Hollywood level - Mac's are generally preferred.

Plus, so much harder to acquire?

That has to do with the silicon shortage. That's like asking why Tesla's are currently hard to acquire. Apple, in general, has the best supply chain management of any company - but not even they are immune to our current global situation.

Macs have always been off my list. Not for price, adapting to a new OS, or gaming options. It's just that ever since I assembled my first PC (Pentium 100). The assembly and customization is a thrill for me. Can't do that with any Apple product

That's fine. Everyone has their list of priorities. For most Mac users it's a combination between wanting a computer they have to do zero management on, 'just works', and can generally be a workhorse (and due to their marketing around design, design does play a role for certain people buying Apple products). I'm on a Mac to do work. I have zero interest in building, overclocking, or for the most part gaming (I might play 1 new game every 2 years or so).

Years ago, I remember hearing that Macs excelled as a CGI/CGA workstation. Do they still have an edge over PC?

This is again software dependent. CAD as an example has supported macOS since about 2010. There is a pretty strong use case to be using Mac's for things like Blender and Maya. But, if you're doing anything "really hardcore" at this point, you're still relying on a render farm.

 

[Aurelius]

We recently hired a person who uses a Macbook Pro. And has been using Apple products since the late '90s. So we purchased a Macbook Pro for him for business use back in February. $$$$. Supposed to arrive this month, but we got a notice that it's on backorder till June. Why are Macbooks so much more expensive than Windows-based laptops with the same or similar specs. What is so special about them? Do they accel in certain uses? Plus, so much harder to acquire?

To add to what UnknownSouljer said: a modern MacBook Pro will be very fast for creative apps (and numerous other tasks) while remaining quiet, lasting a long time on battery and providing a color-accurate display. Also, unlike x86 laptops, they don't aggressively throttle on battery power.

In my experience, it's a myth that Macs are far more expensive than equivalent Windows PCs... but it's also a bit complicated. The introduction of Apple Silicon makes direct comparisons a bit more difficult, but I'd say Apple takes a more holistic approach to the cost of a laptop where Windows vendors tend obsess over providing either the lowest possible price or the biggest-sounding specs, overall experience and real-world performance be damned.

Apple's issue isn't that its systems are overpriced, at least not in the Apple Silicon era. It's that the company's limited hardware range means it leaves certain gaps. If you want a very brawny GPU and don't care about power draw, a MacBook Pro can't offer that. If you want a large screen but are happy with modest performance, Apple doesn't have a machine for you yet (there are murmurs of a 15-inch Air in 2023). And of course, you won't find entry-level laptops in the mix — Apple would rather sell you an iPad in that price range. The lineup that exists does cover a significant range of people, though, and for creatives the MacBook Pro is pretty high on the list.

 

[whateverer]

Thats why many of us own Mac's as well as gaming PC's. Different tools for different jobs.

Why pay a premium for redundancy when the same tool does the same job? The only folk who can convince themselves to pay the premium for both are Steve Job's Second Coming evangelists

 

[Aurelius]

Why pay a premium for redundancy when the same tool does the same job? The only folk who can convince themselves to pay the premium for both are Steve Job's Second Coming evangelists

I'd agree that two desktops or laptops would be redundant, but in many cases they're talking about having, say, a gaming desktop and a MacBook Pro. That's how I rolled for a while until I ditched Windows PCs entirely.

 

[MrGuvernment]

If you do a true 1:1 comparison of an Apple laptop back when the used Intel to an equivalent Dell / HP models ,your price was almost identical, and in some cases Dell/HP costs more.

FYI I am a PC guy, but the facts are now that "Apple is so much more expensive than PC" is a myth now (outside of building your own)

 

[MrGuvernment]

Why pay a premium for redundancy when the same tool does the same job? The only folk who can convince themselves to pay the premium for both are Steve Job's Second Coming evangelists

Or people prefer macOS? When you are used to using an OS your entire life, shortcuts and everything else, it is not worth the time and effort. Take someone who has used Windows most of their lives and switch them to macOS over night to save a couple hundred bucks...they will hate it.

This goes past more than just the OS, things like Photoshop for example, all your shortcuts are different than on Windows...

Why pay the NVIDIA premium to buy their high end video cards, "The only folk who can convince themselves to pay the premium for both are NVIDIA"s Second Coming evangelists"
Why pay the Intel premium to buy their high end over powered under performing CPUs, "The only folk who can convince themselves to pay the premium for both are Intels"s Second Coming evangelists"

It applies to any product line if you like....
People like specific tools for the job.......many linux guru's run 2 systems, one for linux one for gaming, but you dont see people ripping into them?

 

[whateverer]

If you do a true 1:1 comparison of an Apple laptop back when the used Intel to an equivalent Dell / HP models ,your price was almost identical, and in some cases Dell/HP costs more.

FYI I am a PC guy, but the facts are now that "Apple is so much more expensive than PC" is a myth now (outside of building your own)

But now, with m1, thew utility of x86 crossover is gone - you can't even install a fully-featured Linux on a m1 yet

Why continue the BS when they've been making the Macbook Pros more proprietary every year (touchbar, T2, stupid useless keys) (and now with m1, you're stuck min a dark room with no outlet)?

 

[MrGuvernment]

But now, with m1, thew utility of x86 crossover is gone - you can't even install a fully-featured Linux on a m1 yet

Why continue the BS when they've been making the Macbook Pros more proprietary every year (touchbar, T2, stupid useless keys) (and now with m1, you're stuck min a dark room with no outlet)?

Why would you need to install linux on it? you have BSD and pretty much everything under the hood you would need?

It is clear you have no use for an Apple product, so just move on, others do and enjoy the designs, the buttons and everything else...Do you get this mad when you see someone driving an expensive car around too?

On that note, I have never enjoyed Apple methods of releasing a product and 6 months later releasing a version 2 with everything version 1 should and could of had..

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

I'd agree that two desktops or laptops would be redundant, but in many cases they're talking about having, say, a gaming desktop and a MacBook Pro. That's how I rolled for a while until I ditched Windows PCs entirely.

This. Reliability and build quality are important to me in a portable form factor. And that includes software. Some older thinkpads did well enough with build quality in the field, but Windows is anything but reliable.

When you NEED your equipment to work and money and clients depend on it, then I choose a MacBook. Windows laptops are junk 90% of the time in comparison from a hardware build quality perspective.

And Windows has NEVER been as stable for me as MacOS. The LAST thing you need is to open a Windows machine on a job site with no internet and have 14 nagging screens about updates that auto installed even though you turned them off in 17 different ways.

Gaming PC or pc for non critical work? Sure that’s my overpowered over built custom PC I build almost annually to whatever is new.

Portable machine for critical work? MacBook. It. Just. Works. And when reliability and time is money, it’s worth spending the extra money. It’s no wonder I see so many people in professional fields especially engineering job, coding, software based jobs and IT jobs using Mac. Just my experience. Yours will be different.

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

Why would you need to install linux on it? you have BSD and pretty much everything under the hood you would need?

It is clear you have no use for an Apple product, so just move on, others do and enjoy the designs, the buttons and everything else...Do you get this mad when you see someone driving an expensive car around too?

On that note, I have never enjoyed Apple methods of releasing a product and 6 months later releasing a version 2 with everything version 1 should and could of had..

Depends on how developed the product is. There was a 5 year span where you only got a cpu upgrade with a new model. And even then, 3 years went on with the same cpu and ram offering while making minute changes to screen brightness and keyboard. So there were stagnant times for the MacBook in recent years. But with the M1 we are in a new development cycle. Expect changes annually within the same product line.

 

[uOpt]

Current Macs also have very good trackpads, good and bright screens, good speakers compared to similar size PC laptops. Right now they don't put in any weaknesses.

 

[ND40oz]

The trackpad and the integration of Apple products and services. MacOS is fine but I don't use Macs because of it, I use them because they work so well with all of my other Apple products.

 

[wra18th]

Current Macs also have very good trackpads, good and bright screens, good speakers compared to similar size PC laptops. Right now they don't put in any weaknesses.

if you paid the same amount for a Windows laptop it will have comparable parts.

 

[ND40oz]

if you paid the same amount for a Windows laptop it will have comparable parts.

I've yet to find a windows laptop with a comparable trackpad or with something like my 14s miniLED screen.

Liquid Retina XDR display

• 14.2-inch (diagonal) Liquid Retina XDR display;1 3024-by-1964 native resolution at 254 pixels per inch

XDR (Extreme Dynamic Range)

• 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio
• XDR brightness: 1000 nits sustained full-screen, 1600 nits peak2 (HDR content only)
• SDR brightness: 500 nits

Color

• 1 billion colors
• Wide color (P3)
• True Tone technology

Refresh rates

• ProMotion technology for adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz
• Fixed refresh rates: 47.95Hz, 48.00Hz, 50.00Hz, 59.94Hz, 60.00Hz

 

[toast0]

If you do a true 1:1 comparison of an Apple laptop back when the used Intel to an equivalent Dell / HP models ,your price was almost identical, and in some cases Dell/HP costs more.

FYI I am a PC guy, but the facts are now that "Apple is so much more expensive than PC" is a myth now (outside of building your own)

While this is true, it neglects the cost of Apple's fixation on changing ports; dongle costs add up. Also, when given the wide variety of PC models available, I think a lot of people would (and do) choose models that don't have an Apple 1:1 model available to price compare. There's lots of ways to save money on a PC purchase that aren't available for a Mac, because Apple doesn't sell lower end stuff; you have to buy from a menu, you can't put together what you actually need. One the one side, it's nice that all their laptop screens are super nice, but on the other side, a lot of people only rarely use the laptop screen, and could have saved some money there; extra pixel density comes with operating costs too (more complex software, more cpu and memory and gpu usage to drive the pixels). Some laptop PCs even come with sufficient cooling, which has never been an option for Apple. And if you need a portable powerhouse workstation with lots of ram, Apple doesn't usually serve that market either.

This. Reliability and build quality are important to me in a portable form factor. And that includes software. Some older thinkpads did well enough with build quality in the field, but Windows is anything but reliable.

When you NEED your equipment to work and money and clients depend on it, then I choose a MacBook. Windows laptops are junk 90% of the time in comparison from a hardware build quality perspective.

My anecdotal experience with Mac laptops wasn't great, but not awful either. But it was damn inconvenient when the power input failed and the storage is soldered to the mainboard, so I had to copy to an external drive with the battery I had left. Thankfully, that was before corporate Exchange/Outlook, because almost every time I forgot to close Outlook before putting the mac to sleep, when I opened it up it would be at critical battery (not sure whose fault that is, I'm happy to blame Outlook because it's terrible). Oh, and I really loved the year where 25-50% of the time when starting audio from iTunes, it would just play loud static instead of music; it stopped happening after the next yearly release, but could never find anything about it. Audio from Chrome never seemed to have the same problem , so I did music from Chrome for a while, but yeah. The battery life was nice though, other than Outlook related.

If I really needed reliability, I'd want to be able to swap storage in and out of the laptop easily, which means no modern macs and have to be careful about PCs. Maybe mitigable with a good backup plan, but restoring to a new laptop takes more time than swapping a disk.

And Windows has NEVER been as stable for me as MacOS. The LAST thing you need is to open a Windows machine on a job site with no internet and have 14 nagging screens about updates that auto installed even though you turned them off in 17 different ways.

This is definitely true. I have an occasional use Windows laptop I use for trips, and I always have to get it out a couple days early and run all the updates so it doesn't nag as much during the trip.

 

[ND40oz]

While this is true, it neglects the cost of Apple's fixation on changing ports; dongle costs add up. Also, when given the wide variety of PC models available, I think a lot of people would (and do) choose models that don't have an Apple 1:1 model available to price compare. There's lots of ways to save money on a PC purchase that aren't available for a Mac, because Apple doesn't sell lower end stuff; you have to buy from a menu, you can't put together what you actually need. One the one side, it's nice that all their laptop screens are super nice, but on the other side, a lot of people only rarely use the laptop screen, and could have saved some money there; extra pixel density comes with operating costs too (more complex software, more cpu and memory and gpu usage to drive the pixels). Some laptop PCs even come with sufficient cooling, which has never been an option for Apple. And if you need a portable powerhouse workstation with lots of ram, Apple doesn't usually serve that market either.

The latest 14 and 16s have plenty of ports and thankfully they finally went back to magsafe charging. I've worked exclusively from a laptop for 10+ years now, so the screen, keyboard and trackpad are extremely important to me. Also one of the reasons I got rid of my Late 2018 Air after just a year, they really screwed the keyboard up on that model.

If I really needed reliability, I'd want to be able to swap storage in and out of the laptop easily, which means no modern macs and have to be careful about PCs. Maybe mitigable with a good backup plan, but restoring to a new laptop takes more time than swapping a disk.

This is why Apple has things like Apple One Premier, you get all the Apple services and your stuff is in iCloud. No reason to ever mess with the storage at all, swap out the complete laptop and restore everything back. AppleCare+ is good for 3 years, after that I've either handed down the laptop to someone else or it's time for new one if it's beyond the point of something like a battery replacement.

 

[uOpt]

if you paid the same amount for a Windows laptop it will have comparable parts.

Not really. As you add money to a PC laptop RAM goes up, disk goes up, and maybe you can get a better screen. But trackpad and speakers stay the same.

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

While this is true, it neglects the cost of Apple's fixation on changing ports; dongle costs add up. Also, when given the wide variety of PC models available, I think a lot of people would (and do) choose models that don't have an Apple 1:1 model available to price compare. There's lots of ways to save money on a PC purchase that aren't available for a Mac, because Apple doesn't sell lower end stuff; you have to buy from a menu, you can't put together what you actually need. One the one side, it's nice that all their laptop screens are super nice, but on the other side, a lot of people only rarely use the laptop screen, and could have saved some money there; extra pixel density comes with operating costs too (more complex software, more cpu and memory and gpu usage to drive the pixels). Some laptop PCs even come with sufficient cooling, which has never been an option for Apple. And if you need a portable powerhouse workstation with lots of ram, Apple doesn't usually serve that market either.



My anecdotal experience with Mac laptops wasn't great, but not awful either. But it was damn inconvenient when the power input failed and the storage is soldered to the mainboard, so I had to copy to an external drive with the battery I had left. Thankfully, that was before corporate Exchange/Outlook, because almost every time I forgot to close Outlook before putting the mac to sleep, when I opened it up it would be at critical battery (not sure whose fault that is, I'm happy to blame Outlook because it's terrible). Oh, and I really loved the year where 25-50% of the time when starting audio from iTunes, it would just play loud static instead of music; it stopped happening after the next yearly release, but could never find anything about it. Audio from Chrome never seemed to have the same problem , so I did music from Chrome for a while, but yeah. The battery life was nice though, other than Outlook related.

If I really needed reliability, I'd want to be able to swap storage in and out of the laptop easily, which means no modern macs and have to be careful about PCs. Maybe mitigable with a good backup plan, but restoring to a new laptop takes more time than swapping a disk.



This is definitely true. I have an occasional use Windows laptop I use for trips, and I always have to get it out a couple days early and run all the updates so it doesn't nag as much during the trip.

Reliability does not mean repair ability. I need reliable as in not having hardware fail. I’m not talking about repairing. Big difference. If things are backed up (which macOS makes almost effort less) then there isn’t much need to worry. No need to swap drives. I literally plug in my boot camp drive to my replacement or new Mac and I’m up and running after a restore. It’s literally that simple. Sure there’s added cost, but from a standpoint of uptime it’s simple. Not many laptops come with replaceable parts anymore. Not even in the corporate world. It’s just the future.

 

[Epos7]

For at least 10 years Apple held a massive advantage over the competition because they were building a Lexus and the competition was stuffing 600HP engines into a plastic Saturn. Now that Windows builders have caught on to the idea that design and build quality matter, there are a number of competitive Windows machines in that department. However it still holds true that if you buy an Apple laptop, you're getting something quality, but selecting something running Windows requires more time and thought because there are still plenty of plastic crapbuckets out there.

I have a MacBook Pro (2017) and my desktop Windows PC. I also have a Windows laptop for work. It's a Dell something or other and I don't like it very much. It's clunky and bulky and unpleasant to transport.

I don't find either OS to be more or less buggy than the other. They both do some pretty silly thing. For example, Apple recently introduced a bug that broke the SD card reader on their machines in certain situations. Not ideal for the creative professionals who rely on it. On top of that, camera manufactures updated their cameras to get around the bug before Apple fixed it.

I do a bit of amateur photography, and Lightroom and Photoshop are nearly indistinguishable between Windows and Apple. Windows gives you better access to advances display settings when doing color calibration and the like, but seems to have more bugs in that department.

For code development, I'm primarily a .NET developer, and the Windows Visual Studio experience is significantly better. MS has been putting a lot of work into the Apple version (they purchased Xamarin) and it's pretty usable now, though rather different. The Apple terminal is lightyears better than the Windows equivalent. I'm perpetually annoyed that I can't control-V into a Windows terminal when I want to clone down a repo or something like that.

 

[Liver]

Windows took the approach of having drivers for anyone and everything.

Apple is more curated.

Both approaches have pros and cons. Both have their place in the market.

 

[D-EJ915]

Apple's been pushing out the M1 Pros out for a while now, a friend of mine was supposed to have his already but has been pushed out a month.

That being said I have a 16 Pro M1 for my work and it's fine I guess but on startup it will hard crash depending on what you open and if you open it too fast lol. usually teams does it every time. Have to hard power it down and power up again and hope it doesn't bug out and reopen windows which it does sometimes even when you have it unchecked lol. If you just use universal apps it should be fine but rosetta/intel ones still have issues.

Another friend has had issues with his M1 mac mini where his old bluetooth apple keyboard causes mac blue screens lol, if he uses a usb microsoft keyboard no crashes. I guess this is why they released new M1 specific models? It seems a bit absurd to me though.

The one thing that does bug me about apple is their mouse support, it sucks. Compared to windows or linux like in safari forward/back buttons don't function - they work as left click but in every other browser they work normally as you would expect. I also have to run an app (MOS) to make scrolling usable too.

 

[NeghVar]

Found more info about our new employee. She does work on databases and number crunching. It uses an M1 Max chip and has 64GB RAM. Did some more reading on the chip. Sounds like an excellent fit.

 

[Verge]

Found more info about our new employee. She does work on databases and number crunching. It uses an M1 Max chip and has 64GB RAM. Did some more reading on the chip. Sounds like an excellent fit.

Should probably be doing that on a server somewhere, and not locally on an ARM processor.

 

[NeghVar]

Should probably be doing that on a server somewhere, and not locally on an ARM processor.

Either way. She's been doing this work for years at other employers. She knew what she needed. So it is just a matter of time until we get her work laptop in.

 

[Verge]

Either way. She's been doing this work for years at other employers. She knew what she needed. So it is just a matter of time until we get her work laptop in.

I mean, this is an apple sub forum, and i would love an m1 max, but make no mistake apple's benchmark charts are pretty misleading.

 

[blackmomba]

Been running 2021 MacBook pro for a few weeks now for work. Came from a Lenovo X1 carbon

It's nice and I like swiping the trackpad to switch between full screen apps

 

[OFaceSIG]

I'll never forget when I was at a .com for a number of years. During the Intel Mac era, my IT director and his underling would run Macbooks but bootcamp into Windows. I always thought, what was the friggin point? "Muh build quality" would probably be the answer I got.

 

[sphinx99]

I have a 16" M1 Max for home use and a 16" M1 Pro for work. It's hard not to love this hardware - hands down my favorite mobile computing device going all the way back to a Compaq Portable 386. It's the first laptop I've used that truly feels like it has no weaknesses. Best keyboard and trackpad I've ever used, the best display I've ever used on a mobile device, the best sound I've heard, and the unique combination of utterly blistering performance + stupendous battery life. Some of the crap of recent years (Touch Bar, limited ports, no MagSafe) have all been undone. Really, the only thing I dislike is that I can't Bootcamp and dual-install Windows to access my Steam games.

I love PCs and admit x86 laptops have gotten much better in the last decade, but the current MBPs represent, I think, the current pinnacle of overall well-rounded mobile performance computing.

 

[OFaceSIG]

I have a 16" M1 Max for home use and a 16" M1 Pro for work. It's hard not to love this hardware - hands down my favorite mobile computing device going all the way back to a Compaq Portable 386. It's the first laptop I've used that truly feels like it has no weaknesses. Best keyboard and trackpad I've ever used, the best display I've ever used on a mobile device, the best sound I've heard, and the unique combination of utterly blistering performance + stupendous battery life. Some of the crap of recent years (Touch Bar, limited ports, no MagSafe) have all been undone. Really, the only thing I dislike is that I can't Bootcamp and dual-install Windows to access my Steam games.

I love PCs and admit x86 laptops have gotten much better in the last decade, but the current MBPs represent, I think, the current pinnacle of overall well-rounded mobile performance computing.

I'll say this. I think my Framework laptop has the best build quality of any PC laptop I've owned in a long time. It's only a quad core so performance isn't blistering and battery life is not huge. I'll chalk those up to a 1st gen device. But easily the best built PC laptop I've ever owned.

 

[cjcox]

Macbooks are like magic. When I have one, money disappears. And I'm still happy about that.

 

[bananas1]

I think you can go back to any of Steve Jobs' speeches from the 80s/90s and point the finger to the "think different" campaigns. For the people who like them, they REALLY like them. Apple owners really like one or more spiky features that don't have equal competition - beautiful exterior, software that "just works" without layers of customization, it's simply different from the rest of the market while being in the same tier of quality, etc. And now the battery life on those M1s....man I wish I could have that on a non-Apple product

 

[Agraffe]

It all has to do with their performance. They have better integration of hardware and software and better battery life..

 

[Aurelius]

I think you can go back to any of Steve Jobs' speeches from the 80s/90s and point the finger to the "think different" campaigns. For the people who like them, they REALLY like them. Apple owners really like one or more spiky features that don't have equal competition - beautiful exterior, software that "just works" without layers of customization, it's simply different from the rest of the market while being in the same tier of quality, etc. And now the battery life on those M1s....man I wish I could have that on a non-Apple product

A lot of it comes from Apple simply avoiding some of the garbage that has defined (and sometimes still defines) Windows laptops. They have great trackpads (and since late 2019, great keyboards again). No weird drivers, no special utilities for basic functions, no bloatware. Apple still offers better high-DPI resolution scaling, and I'd argue that its sleep/wake behavior and multi-monitor layout handling remain top-tier. There's above-average overall build quality and attention to design. Hell, I even appreciate that Apple refused to cave into pressure for stickers when it was using Intel CPUs and third-party GPUs.

I wouldn't say that Apple is selfless, and it's certainly not flawless, but it does feel like the company is designing for users, not just to hit a lower price or please hardware partners.

 

[bananas1]

Right, but it's less to do with specific modern features. As you pointed out at the end, Jobs repeated over and over how Apple designed for the customer's user experience. That's why Apple came out with one of the earliest GUI with a mouse, the ipod was not the best mp3 player in many respects but it felt the nicest to look at and was the easiest to use. And so on...