Only if you compare the sale price of the Mac to the list price of the Windows machine. Which isn't fair, especially since Windows laptops go on sale far more frequently and deeply than Mac laptops do. A lunar lake machine with 16gb RAM and a small SSD should be $200 cheaper than that.
Macs will never be cheaper than Windows machines over anything longer than a flash sale by Apple.
Resale value is also considerably higher on an Apple laptop though, so it probably nets out long term.
Every time I've sold on my Windows laptop it's basically junk value after 4 years. Even when I buy used initially for half price, I'm consistently amazed that they keep dropping to literally nearly zero.
The only way to win is to be the ultimate last in line buyer of the out of date but previously high end Thinkpads and Inspirons for $246 or wherever the EBay auctions terminate.
Looking mine up (m1 air) it was £915 new, they now go on ebay for ~£370 for good, private sale so about 40% of the new price four years later. That is probably better than your average windows thing. I used to buy ~3 year old thinkpads because companies would buy them new and then dump them for very little to replace with new ones.
Looking briefly an X1 carbon thinkpad goes for about £300 four years old but was ~£2000 new so quite a drop.
Resale value really depends on M1~M4 MacBook laptops. Because if previous user won't sign off, their resale value is effectively between zero and for parts.
It's not true. M2 resale value plummeted as there is now cheap new M4 laptop available.
As someone that's been a lifelong windows user, i'm finally switching to a mac this month.
I have a large rig that I run as a dual linux/windows machine, but the quality of windows laptops have been getting poorer and poorer and the OS is increasingly becoming incredibly intrusive while removing core features.
I want to be able to search without it taking 5 mintues. I used to be incredibly pro windows laptops due to aspects like repairability, but i've had a horrific experience with Lenovo just trying to get a keyboard repaired. In the end, if I need to choose between two systems, both of which are unrepairable, i'd much rather have the one that will last me longer.
I don't want to use my singular experience as a data-point, but I'm someone that has never even thought about buying a mac before this, but the poor quality of windows OS has forced me.
Apple hardware is as good as it’s ever been, but macOS has seen better days. The fun of everything being scriptable, consistency throughout the system, and even stability has been replaced with transitional pains of a new application framework, iOS-ification of much of the system, and inconsistent behavior that I have trouble reasoning about, despite using Macs as my frontend almost exclusively for the past 20 years.
That being said, I bought an old Dell last year for dev work (primarily Linux) and I can’t believe most of the world puts up with Windows. It seems like desktop computing is an afterthought.
Agree completely.
MacOS has never been worse. However it has never been this much better than Windows.
Mac OS 7 on my first macbook 28 years ago was pretty bad. But in general I agree. Also there are one or two nice features in the recent OS's like my phone can actually stay tethered to the laptop sometimes when I close the lid and reopen it later.
>MacOS has never been worse. However it has never been this much better than Windows.
This would explain my experience, long time users confuse me when they tell me how bad it is, and maybe they're right. Coming from windows (well a while ago) it's still so nice to use.
What issues do you face on windows? I use both Mac and windows daily and I can't say I entirely prefer one over the other, and in recent years I've run into more noticeable bugs on macOS (although it does look better)
Performance.
Even on literally top of the line machines (Razer Blade 18, Ultra 9 275HX, 64G DDR5, NVMe over PCIE4, 240Hz display) the thing feels sluggish.
UI "quirks" such as hiding the context menu, taskbar being forced into place, and the removal of the "never combine" taskbar buttons are just gobsmacking.
Worse, Windows Pioneered "drag and drop" yet now we can't even drag and drop files or shortcuts onto taskbar icons.. a workflow I actually used a lot and which is still supported in MacOS.
The forced integration is also a non-starter. MacOS doesn't require online accounts, Apps (onedrive, Teams, Cortana et al) or force "suggestions" down my throat in the UI even though I am constantly told that Apple are the ones who force their ecosystem on me.
> Windows Pioneered "drag and drop"
I don't believe that it did. MacOS 1 had drag and drop. You could always drag a document onto a program to open the document with that program. Also, notably, to eject a floppy disk permanently you dragged the floppy disk to the trash can.
Are you on 26 yet or still 15? I've heard a lot of bad things about performance getting way worse on 26, so I'm wary of upgrading my M1.
Still 15.
As soon as I heard them say "We're finally able to make the UI that Apple Silicon enables because of its performance" I knew wholeheartedly that it was going to be an enormous performance thief.
I'm not touching 26 with a 10-foot-pole.
I will even avoid buying new Macbook laptops, even though I have an M2 Air and M5 is around the corner.
Is that a windows11 thing? It sounds awful, I have a windows10 razer that is very snappy and I am dreading being forced to change to 11.
Yeah, it's specifically Windows 11 that has this issue.
I'm not certain as to why, if I had to speculate it would be the new scheduler prefers the efficiency cores and then thrashes the L1/L2 cache as soon as there's any actual work to do in the operating system (IE; you clicked something) by putting it on a performance core.
Windows 11 performance seems to be less terrible on devices that don't have big.LITTLE architectures.
Explorer in Windows 11 was overhauled, and its address bar behaviour is now absolute garbage. For example, type a directory path into it and press enter - takes 10 seconds to display the contents of the directory. Auto-complete on the address-bar as you type is unusable as it is so slow it's quicker just to type out the entire path manually.
Oh - and the popup UI for volume level and WiFi (and bluetooth etc) causes the system to freeze up sometimes, when you open it.
Logging in and the mouse freezes up for multiple seconds.
I'm sure these are not universal to all machines running Windows 11, but for me it's an all together shoddy user experience, and I'm sure there's a few other headaches that I forgot to mention.
Yeah, fully agree - and I should say this is specifically for my travel laptop. I have a desktop PC running Linux that I use and remote in from my normal laptop, but I've had a lot of issues with linux working smoothly on a laptop development.
i've seen the poor quality of MacOS recently, but it's relative compared to the despair I feel with windows.
> stability has been replaced with transitional pains of a new application framework, iOS-ification of much of the system, and inconsistent behavior
I see your point but I kinda disagree. As a daily macOS user (I have a MBP for work and one for personal use), my workflow just doesn't change much (if at all) between updates. If anything, I use less third party software since Sequoia (I replaced Rectangle with native window snapping, which is good enough). Tahoe didn't change anything for me. Working on a MacBook doesn't feel less powerful than before, and everything still "just works". I don't feel like the OS gets in my way at all.
Keyboard Repair Lenovo ThinkPad:
X13: 60 seconds
X1 and everything from Apple: You’re literally doomed. Complete disassembly required. At least Lenovo documents well how to remove the base cover, battery, mainboard, display…
All of that pain for 1 mm less height and a sharp palmrest.
I surprised how much pain people with Windows can suffer and keep using it. With weird arguments like “I forced to use that application” and “Ans Linux doesn’t do FSR4.1 something”. You decided that you need that?
I’ve been using laptops for 25 years, and I have never, not once, had a keyboard need to be replaced.
I worked in an IT repair place for 5 years where we repaired laptops for customers. I can probably count the number of times we got people asking for keyboard swaps. For context of scale, we probably handled 30-70 computers a week, the vast majority of which were “user serviceable” repair jobs
I've been using laptops for 30 years, and I have had three keyboards need to be replaced for 1-3 keys having mechanical problems, plus an HP which got its keyboard replaced four times before being dustbinned.
I've also seen a large percentage of MacBook butterfly switch keyboards require a complete return to Apple, for about 2 years.
Totally fair point on the butterfly keyboards - I skipped that particular model by chance. If dell or anyone else had a design fault,
Regarding the others… respectfully what on earth are you doing to them that you’ve had to replace them that frequently? That’s more often that I replace actual consumeble parts that have real wear like USB cables and the likes.
I avoid eating and drinking in front of the computer (hygienic).
But a little sticky liquid is enough. A drop of something hard is also enough. I was able to rescue a ThinkPad by popping out a key and clean the mechanism with isopropyl. Another one was sadly killed by the power-button, which got defunct. But a 20 Euro keyboard safes it.
Don’t underestimate how much devices get killed by simple stuff like lose hinges, defective trackpads and so on. People are often careful, often not and usually helpless when it is damaged.
The water holes in the ThinkPads existed for…reasons. But it doesn’t help if people tilt them in sheer panic.
Probably people suffer in silence, afraid in advance about costs or potential hassle. People who use external keyboard may ignore issues altogether. On my old HP Zbook half of the keys at the left side register with issues. But I probably won't even bother with replacing them, until laptop will die completely.
I've replaced 6 laptop keyboards on machines I've used ranging from consumer HP and Acer to a number of Thinkpads and most recently a Macbook Air. Some of them I replaced just because I wanted a different layout, others because they were worn out or broken. The Macbook Air keyboard was - of course - in the latter category as all these things seem to end up doing with the Q to O keys going A.W.O.L due to what I consider to be a design problem. Needless to say that the Apple machine was the hardest to fix due to the repair-hostile design. What is a quick 4-minuted job on a Thinkpad - a device known for having good keyboards - is a several hour slog on one of those Apple trinkets involving nail clippers to remove half of the rivets which did not come out of the frame because their heads ripped off. Keyboards are wear items and should be user-replaceable but that does not fit with the Fruit Factory Philosophy which instead insists on replacing the whole top shell. I go this Macbook Air for free because its keyboard had failed so maybe I should thank the FF for furthering the cause of the throwaway consumer society but there is no question here that these devices are designed to live just long enough and no longer and that they often fail on the wrong side of that lifetime.
Short: keyboards fail, quite often. They are wear items which should be user replaceable.
weirdly, i've done the repair on one of the previous X1 generations. It was a pain to disassemble most of the machine (~2 hours?) but it was at least doable. i don't think you can do it on a Mac at all?
Respect. May biggest adventure was a screen upgrade for a X13 (Hint: HiDPI requires a bigger cable). Luckily the mainboard could remain in place.
The procedure for keyboard replacement should be similar between an X1 and MacBook. They are somehow “layered” to be cheap and flat. It was already a pain with the MacBooks from 2008.
> X13: 60 seconds
If you know what you are doing, and have that spare part including the correct screwdriver and screws in the shelf next to your desk?
How often does your keyboard fail? I've never had that happen in all my computing life and the other parts are usually not that easy to change for any regular person on a laptop. Not sure if that's the scenario to optimize for.
For regular users with a consumer laptop, a damaged key or keyboard means:
Laptop defunct. Use an external keyboard if not affordable.
Used my X220 for ten years, handled it with care, but after ten years a new keyboard was a nice uplift. You can also switch languages but especially also the layout between ANSI- and ISO.
Buying an Apple device with ANSI in Europe? Pain. ThinkPads? Buy anything. 30 EUR and new keyboard.
So even after 10 years you didn’t need a new keyboard, you just wanted one? I think you’ve proved the GP’s point.
How many people use a laptop for ten years?
Er, exactly! Most people replace the entire machine within that time, so they still don’t need a replaceable keyboard. You’re now arguing with yourself.
I mean, the irony is that the keyboards most people associate with failing are the Apple ones (2015-2020).
... Which are nearly impossible to replace, and are what the modern Thinkpads are trying to emulate.
The old X13's would almost never fail, so replacing them was never a consideration.
(also, screws are not that annoying, but I agree with the rest, most companies aren't/weren't replacing keyboards on laptops)
I don't use an X13. The Lenovo Laptop I have requires a complete disassembly, with the warranty being incredibly limited. I would much rather have the capability of improved performance and hardware.
I might consider switching to an X13, but Lenovo support software is incredibly intrusive, and I've learned to despise windows.
However, I also use a large amount of applications like Touch Designer, which is not available on Linux. I'd much rather own a mac for travel purposes.
ThinkPad + Linux = Love
I can only recommend to use Linux by wanting Linux. This way you can replace stuff which is holding you back.
Just leaving Windows because Microsoft sucks is often failing, you are still within the vendor lock-in of the applications. The authors only port if they
I made a clear cut and lost my favorite game. Luckily Valve decided some years later to port it natively to Linux.
Which leads to two options:
Drop proprietary applications. And spending money on Linux support.
Design applications seem one of the most troublesome areas?
I mean this is a nice dream but in practice doesn't seriously apply.
You are literally talking about sacrifices you have made specifically to move to a certain linux OS.
That's not a sacrifice I find acceptable. So I'll switch to Mac instead.
On the other hand, Apple has better coverage. Good luck getting parts for some random laptop especially outside the US.
Everything I've ever needed can be found on eBay, Aliexpress, iFixit and elsewhere. That is everything from drive caddies for old expired Thinkpads, CCFL tubes for Acer and HP consumer models, inverters for the same, CPUs, random lids for machines missing those, etc. Also, keyboards for those terrible Apple models which require the equivalent of open heart surgery to replace them. You might need to get one of those bags with 120 tiny screws with it if those are not included, make sure to check.
I am windows user who uses MacOS sometimes and I am still bewildered why I can't change Enter (rename) to behave, like an Enter (open) and Del to delete a file.
Can you change the "Enter" behavior on Windows to rename the file?
Can you change the Home/End behavior on Windows to match the macOS behavior?
(Legit don't know the answer to these, but I suspect not...)
If you can't do this on Windows, why would you expect to be able to do it the reverse direction on Mac? Just because it's how Windows works, and you expect the entire rest of the world to cater to the way you expect things to be when you have to go there?
I only use Windows occasionally, but when I do, I expect it to act like Windows.
If you want to survive on macOS after using Windows your whole life, I strongly suggest you install AltTab[1]. The default cmd+tab behavior on macOS is completely outdated and makes no sense (you can't cmd+tab between open windows of the same applications).
[1]: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
Command+Tab and Command+` is all you need?
Cmd+` doesn't work on an azerty layout for some reason. And even if it did, it doesn't make sense. Why would I want to first cmd+tab to the correct application and then cmd+` to the correct window if I can just do it with cmd+tab?
I get why it was done this way historically, but they should really make a general setting to fix this behavior, because it really feels like a bug nowadays.
The year I dumped all Apple hardware was when I discovered that the Corporatron was deprecating my perfectly capable Mac hardware -- via an XML property in a hidden plist -- simply because Corporatron decreed that my hardware was insufficient to "upgrade to the latest OS".
But I modified that plist and my Mac ran the latest OS just fine.
Microsoft has done the same thing with the transition from MW10 to MW11. Corporatron is doing something wrong and bad for the environment... to satisfy the needs of Corporatron.
I have long preferred the freedom of GNU/Linux. But Corporatron is making a zealot of me. ^_^
This year Apple decided to drop support for FireWire hardware (which I still use). For some things like optical drives it’s still the best option, especially with a lot of hardware attached. It’s not my trigger to defect, but it’s getting closer.
Everybody complains about both Windows & MacOS getting worse, but Linux isn't. The last few versions of KDE have been really nice.
I bought $600 HP Omnibook 5, and that machine is a beast with its Ryzen AI 350.
I used to love Windows as a utilitarian OS I could just get things done on.
But over time the OS felt like it wasn't there for me to use. Rather Windows feels like it is pointed AT ME. Eventually it felt almost like an advertising supported OS than anything else.
Moved to a Mac and haven't looked back. Performance and battery life were big bonuses too, but honestly weren't why I moved. I just hated using Windows that much.
I haven't purchased a new Mac for nearly a decade, instead getting refurbished models from https://www.hoxtonmacs.co.uk/ It's very easy on the wallet if you're getting models that are a few generations old, and honestly, if the MacBook Air is something you are considering you definitely don't need the current generation.
I second this. I got a 14in M3 Max with 96GB of RAM (although 512GB storage but not a big deal with NAS and external storage) for the price of a 14in M4 Pro 24gb/1tb back in May from the unsold stock in my country's online store. It's honestly way overkill for what I do and the only time I really use the power is when I load large LLM into the memory once in a while or build a decently sized project (rarity since I mostly work on my own stuff which is much smaller in scale so far). But for the price I would've paid for a "weaker" laptop, it's a banger deal
Interesting! More details on this please? like what country and how the prices compare.. This doesn't seem to be available on Apple's online stores in Scandinavia.
It was in Verkkokauppa (finnish version of amazon, crudely speaking) in Finland. They were marked as refurbished on the storepage but the boxes came sealed with 4 cycles on the battery and no visible sign of use (I think I ran some utility to check for SSD usage and it was pretty low but I didn't do it immediately after turning on can't base anything off that).
Either apple refurbished a product return and then resold back through Verkkokauppa? The machine came with Sonoma 14.3 or 14.4 which is well after the November 2023 manufacturing date. But sealed box threw me off, cause the unboxing felt exactly the same as for a brand new macbook. Warranty I got from the store is also the same you would get for a brand new item.
nonetheless, the value is great. 24/512 14inc M4 Pro costs 2500eur in Finland brand new for reference and I got this M3 Max for 2999
I recently got a used M1 Max 64gb with 4tb for around 2000 USD and 120 battery cycles. (when new it was around 4500)
This thing has 400 gb/s memory bandwith and never swaps. For dev work with shitload of dockers it just flies. Compile times in the newer CPUs are better but not by much.
For local LLM it's not the best (no cuda support), but for everything else this thing will last at least for the next 3 years easily.
This is particularly true for M1 and up; for the vast majority of users, any M1 with 16GB RAM or more is going to be _fine_.
or buy refurbished from the apple site. better deal too.
everything i buy is refurbished from apple. better deal than new.
I find the Apple doesn't have the range that others have, but yeah it's a good option when they have what you are after. I've also had good refurbished electronics from Backmarket. I'm sure there are similar in other countries.
If they have what you want. Often it’s specs with too little memory.
Apple's official refurbs aren't available in every country though. Seems to be available in the UK but not here in Sweden, don't really know the reasoning since it's available in Germany.
I saw the link to refurbished pop up in the Apple Store app on my iPhone recently in Finland (it either lead to the normal product page or just didn't load, I cannot remember). Apple refurb might be coming to Nordics in the near future
I might be too informed by headlines than reality, but is my perception correct that the Windows experience is worsening by the year, particularly with regard to installation, configurability, UX, and privacy?
Apple certainly isn't perfect and has released some tripe lately (iOS 26) but I trust they'll work through the kinks. Apple seems to undulate, whereas Windows's trajectory seems net downward.
Windows isn't worsening in every regard. Some people don't like the telemetry so for them, that's a major privacy strike.
But the typical person taking home a new laptop from Best Buy doesn't care about installation. UX is the same as it has been for a while now - click on an icon and the application will start. Things like printers and scanners pretty much just work now.
The main market for Windows these days is corporate users and gamers and Microsoft is still doing a pretty good job of serving both of those markets.
I would have to disagree. Since Windows 11 rolled out, calls from family have increased. This is not the usual "where is my printer", but basic stuff: "where are my files", "why can't i find the backup drive", "where is my computer", followed by "why do they change stuff".
Microsoft seems to insist on alienating a whole generation of computer users. I expect that this next Christmas I'll be doing a lot of Vista or 7 installations.
You would go back to an old vulnerability infested OS that nobody builds for anymore instead of dealing with a UI change every few years?
I have elderly parents on windows 11 and they've been fine, as long as the browser works, outlook loads, and they can scan and print (and tbh a Chromebook may be even better for non techy folks)
>Windows isn't worsening in every regard.
It feels like it is. I was watching my wife use Outlook the other day and was appalled by how slow it is. The last time I used it it was fine on 2000 era hardware, now it barely runs on 2025 hardware. It seems Microsoft has forgotten how to write good software.
I’ve been a Linux sysadmin for 25 years but always preferred Windows on my desktop. Reason: Software compatibility.
Windows 11 changed that. I have to reinstall it every six months or so due to instability. Last time it happened, multiple monitor capability disabled, audio out to my headphones kept disappearing (reboot to fix), and every few days upon rebooting, boot would fail requiring the Bitlocker PIN. I don’t install any weird drivers/software or visit weird sites, never get malware. It’s just Windows fragility. I really miss Win10.
I’m scheduled for a new laptop in June and I’ve decided it’s getting Ubuntu. I’m done. Windows 11 is just too fragile. I checked and all of the important apps I use now have near-perfect Linux counterparts. So the software compatibility issue is no longer a concern for me.
Bye, Microsoft!
Those symptoms sounds like breaking hardware though, cold joints somewhere or even worse a swelling battery, I literally had a multi-monitor disappearance last week on an older machine because the broken battery somehow caused the Intel GFX chip driver to fail and a colleague had some bitlocker failure when his last machine died.
If it were breaking hardware it would persist through the reinstall. But since the day I got it, it’s done this kind of thing about every six months and every time, a reinstall fixes it. For about six months, and then I need to do it again.
Work laptop has done a little better but if memory serves they did have to reinstall it about a year ago. I only use very bland software on that.
Ubuntu is.. not that good on the desktop
I just installed it on my son’s desktop with Cinnamon. It’s good enough for me. It’s the server OS I prefer to use so I’m most familiar with it. And has the same excellent software compatibility as Windows; Most tutorials assume Ubuntu.
Oh and I’ve been using Lubuntu for the past year on my road laptop. No issues.
Good enough.
I mean, you're the sysadmin, so I probably shouldn't explain things to you. But I spent 20 years with Ubuntu and recently switched to Debian. The tutorials work the same.
The disadvantage of Ubuntu is its weird mixture of apt and snap. The snaps self-update when they feel like it (eg when you're on a train, wasting your precious data). Debian uses apt for everything. It's a lot simpler and you have more control over it.
That was my experience. I switched from Windows to Mac last fall with the incessant popups my PC wasn’t eligible for Win11. My pi-hole is no longer full of blocked requests to Microsoft tracking domains. I get the pleasure of using Win11 on my work laptop and the UI is a hilarious Frankenstein mishmash of mostly the new design, but every so often something is inexplicably skinned the “old” Win10 UI and looks super out of place.
A couple months ago I also switched from Android to iPhone. My overall perception is Apple isn’t perfect, but definitely does privacy better, and their guidelines for user experience in design avoid some of the more egregious things MS and Google have changed recently.
I definitely prefer iPhone over Android—-until I need to copy and paste something. Then I just want to throw it out the nearest window. Android does text selection FAR better.
Other than that, you can have my iPhone when you take it from my cold, dead…
> the UI is a hilarious Frankenstein mishmash of mostly the new design, but every so often something is inexplicably skinned the “old” Win10 UI and looks super out of place.
You did not dig deep enough or you'd have added the Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT4 and probably even still some lingering Windows NT 3 UI elements.
This is not Apple‘s price. This is Amazon‘s price. I don’t think Apple has much control over the price of their laptops on Amazon. Please anyone correct me if I’m wrong. I also think that Apple does not like when Amazon offers their products at a discount.
Apple is making definitely setting the price. What they want is to keep that low price out of their own stores and web site but still keep it in front of price conscious consumers.
They can forbid if Amazon is buying directly. However as with Wallmart it's beneficial for them to not provide discounts directly, but still have a "low-cost" alternative.
Comparing the UK prices, my M1 256gb macbook air cost me £915 four years ago and the new equivalent is £879 or 4% less. It's nice but I wouldn't say "Apple Is Going Nuts."
On a random mid-range laptop I can still install the OS I want and upgrade storage and memory, not to mention source another battery from ebay. So the overall value is way higher.
I really wish these laptops were compatible with Linux. I'd buy one today.
Same here. I am thinking of getting one refurbished M1 or M2 machine to get it to running Asahi Linux, but even then there are a few important things that seems to be unsupported (like external monitors).
I'm running a 4k monitor from the HDMI port on my M1 MBP with Asahi. I was thinking the same, so discovering a hdmi port was quite a nice suprise, especially since only 3xUSB-C
I was thinking of getting a MacBook Air and I think it doesn't have a HDMI port. But good to know that the HDMI port in MBP works. I will take a look at them.
This article is just an affiliate link ad page, the macbook air latest or older version (still brand new) has been priced 700-850 on amazon since the M1. you can pick up older models new for ~750. These posts show up on cnn, macrumors, fox everywhere. Theyre ads
I'm still rocking a refurbished Macbook Pro 2015 CTO model. I was planning on upgrading this year or the next because of the Mx chip, but it seems like with the latest MacOS version, Apple software is falling to Jevons paradox: even though compute is becoming extremely fast, Apple is deciding to spend that extra compute on things not important to me (fancy glass effects).
I'm gonna wait out a bit longer and see if I can get away with using only my Linux Desktop.
This is a good moment to try to take Microsoft customers, as they're putting a lot of machines out of support.
The article is cherry picking data points to make a clickbait headline. Why is this being posted here?
I dote on Apple for a lot of reasons; but this "article" is an advertisement.
It's pretty disgusting.. "Hello ChatGPT, please write a few paragraphs to advertise this laptop. Bold the features about screen resolution, 3nm chip process, storage, and how they will make the user's experience amazing".
Got one for my wife here in Canada recently, where it's on a similarly good sale.
It's a nicely put together piece of _hardware_ and firmware, way way better than the garbage Dell laptops I have to use for work, which are heavy and hot and regularly fail to manage basic things like customizing sleep/wake behavior…
… but I personally am completely unwilling to use a Mac unless I'm getting paid and forced to.
I hate MacOS. I hate the UI, I hate the fiddly little ways that it hides information about real file paths and makes it unnecessarily difficult to uncover the tall ones. I hate hate hate all the broken stuck-in-the-80s non-GNU CLI tools, and the kludged-together stupidness of the networking stack compared to Linux.
Windows 11 is arguably worse than MacOS in many of these ways, but Linux with a Gnome or Cinnamon or XFCE desktop is far far better.
I hate the lack of full-size USB ports and HDMI. I don't care if it makes the laptop 3 mm thicker. I want them, in particular to be able to plug in my Logitech wireless mouse adapter and all my 10-15-year-old USB devices which still work fine.
I hate the keyboard and trackpad. I want a pointing stick and a trackpad with physical buttons. I want page up/down buttons and separate delete/backspace.
The windows laptop experience is frankly nothing short of embarrassing today. Battery life is measured in closer to minutes than hours, sleep/hibernate is less reliable than my last Linux laptop (in 2017), default OS functionality is unusable for 10-20 minutes after booting, boot times measured in minutes, a never ending stream of windows updates (despite me installing them all at every opportunity), and such lacklustre performance are all problems I have with a < 4 month old top of the range dell laptop my work provided for me (and this is actually the second one they gave me.)
I’m usually in the camp of “things aren’t as bad as you think and they weren’t as good as you remember” but I’ve upgraded from a mid range windows 10 laptop to this and it’s one of the first times I’ve ever experienced a complete step back on what should be a generational update. And that’s before you get to the “quality” of the hardware.
Meanwhile, my 5 year old MacBook pro is faster than either of those machines….
Spam marketing. Starting at $900 for 256gb hdd 16gb of ram and an M4 is nowhere near the midrange windows laptop price. A Lenovo E16 with a Ryzen 7, 64gb ram and 2tb SSD is $900 right now.
Toss that with the seemingly OBVIOUS throttling due to non-existent forced air cooling that nearly every fanboy bench tester has given a pass for.
15 years ago NO ONE would have tolerated a 40% performance drop after heatsoaking.
Had m1/m2/m4 air and don't think i've experienced throttling. They rarely heat up, and oftentimes i do heavy cpu load with large c++ compile jobs.
What workloads are you envisioning where this is a problem and if throttling kicks in does it make ui/os laggy, or just reduce throughput (the former being noticeable where the latter is just mean longer wait of say a rendering job or something). I'm guessing maybe gaming is the issue, but i don't think anyone really buys a mac to game.
I searched for the Lenovo E16 and can only find a $900 version at a 3rd party seller on Amazon. With the same memory but twice the hard disk as the Apple.
Much more noticeably, however is the Intel Core Ultra 5 225U which is about half the performance as an M4.
However, the $900 MacBook is not the one with the large screen, right? That costs much more money, right? It doesn’t make sense to compare a small laptop with a large laptop. Even if they are in the same price range, consumers aren’t really choosing between the two.
Even on the pro models with fans, they only turn on under heavy load. Most regular work is not heavy load, especially not the kind of work the Air is designed for. So I as a developer consider the fanless design to be a feature, not a performance problem. I've got an x86 desktop (and cloud services) for heavy workloads.
I don't know what I would do with that much SSD, and it makes me wonder if they're using cheap stuff or if it's all on one PCI lane.
The RAM size is barely an issue because the OS has had excellent efficiency from coming from phone engineering. I've had 16 gig for years and never had a problem.
> wonder if they're using cheap stuff or if it's all on one PCI lane
Nah they just aren't charging apple tax. "Bad" ssd (which imo are still amazing) are dirt cheap these days.
for me 16gig is definitely not enough.
I'm on a 36gb M3 and I have to reboot it every three to five days to have it behave again.
I have normal dev apps open: a browser with jira, another with testing, another with documentation, an ide, teams, calendar, zoom.. it adds up very, very quickly. 16gigs are gone in the blink of an eye
If you have to reboot to get it useable again instead of just killing and re-launching the applications there's something wrong with the OS, not with the applications. Have you tried killing and re-launching the browsers and pseudo-browsers (Teams etc.)?
Very obviously assembled from cheap components at that price range. I like Lenovo Business stuff. Their regular laptops are assembled from the same cheapo components as the HP and Dell laptops my parents brag about getting for a steal at Costco… which then fail irreparably in under 2 years. Rinse repeat.
The Lenovo is more like $1,200. Plus, even with lower specs Apple laptops perform better, are more pleasant to use, and last longer.
I've a lot of experience with owning both Windows and Apple laptops for a long time.
So we have to thank "AI" for forcing Apple to put a decent minimum amount of RAM in their machines?
Vertical integration can be amazing.
I don’t know if this is Amazon’s pricing or Apple’s pricing but there’s only usually one reason when price is decrease. Lack of sales. And that’s been true for apples, MacBooks, the last two or three years.
I think this might be another sign of a slowing economy or high inflation.
Apple announced M5s recently, so these are the old chips.
My Retina MacBook Pro lasted over a decade, that's 200$ a year plus $50 battery replacement and $8 speaker. It still runs fine. Macs are an absurd value/quality for money. If M series Macs run this well, no one else comes even close.
So, the cheapest Macbook Air 2025 (MW123, 16/256) is 1140 USD in Europe.
For that price I see multiple gaming 15-16" laptops with good CPU and GPU in the range of 4060-5050 mobile, same memory 16Gb and more storage. With 144-165 Hz FHD gaming displays.
Next I see Vivobook 15" with OLED HiDPI display, top Intel CPU and again more storage.
Yet another smaller Vivobook 14" with weight the same as Mac, good Intel CPU, FHD OLED, more storage again.
Zenbook 14", good Intel CPU, OLED HiDPI screen, even lower weight, more storage.
HP with Snapdragon X Elite CPU is also in the same range, HiDPI screen, low weight.
Basically there are around half a thousand SKUs in that price range (+-50$) and I wouldn't call them mid range really. There many laptops with top CPUs, top GPUs (for that weight) and top display panels.
And I'm not even comparing high memory models. Kit out your Macbook with more RAM and more storage, clearly made out of unobtanium and unicorn tears, and comparison to x86 will fail completely.
There many laptops with top CPUs, top GPUs (for that weight) and top display panels.
Which ones come consistently with excellent battery life/speakers/webcam/display/trackpad/keyboard and are quiet? As for cpu/gpu can you beat performance per watt?
With a PC laptop I often see people optimise for something like a top cpu/gpu/ssd/memory specs but the keyboard (feel & layout)/trackpad/speakers/display/etc. are always variable and many times trash.
The other issue is there's no consistent design team for each model, and a lot of the times you get a half-baked design which manifest into reliability issues. Then compound that with uncooperative vendors which gets their users to troubleshoot/diagnose/and fix their flaws (see [asus]).
PC laptops just do not undergo the same amount of rigour in design, testing, and QA that Apple does with their macbook/powerbook/ibook lines (we never talk about the butterfly era).
At least for laptops, vertical integration will always beat modular/fragmented integration.
[asus]: https://github.com/Zephkek/Asus-ROG-Aml-Deep-Dive
Oh, I'm not arguing that Macbooks are bad. I'm arguing that they are not midrange. Midrange is a plastic Acer with low res display and mid range CPU, the thing for getting things done without fancy design. Macbooks are top tier, expensive devices (double so outside of USA). And when considering utilizing their unmatched integration, customer would want to buy in into other top tier devices, like Apple made phone, headphones, chargers etc.
My apologies, I misread the intent of what you're saying.
I see now and I think I agree. Base air is premium and compete spec wise with the mid range but at a higher cost.
I'm hoping that rumours are true and a budget macbook using the a19 pro chipset from iphone will mean something at the low to mid price. Basically something that is more attuned for students / casual users that need a computer and not a tablet.
I’m holding out for Mac17,1.
Now that M5 is out and the last of the M1/M2 products are basically cleared out (and made EOL), Apple can stop producing M1 Macbook Airs for Walmart and switch over to the plastic $599 A18 Pro-based Macbook they want to make.
Damn how does $850 translate to £1000? Even accounting for VAT it should be about £750.
It's showing as £880 for me — are you looking at the Amazon link for this submission or are you going direct to Apple's website?
It costs 1,100eur for the cheapest model where I'm at. Not prohibitively expensive, but I would never pay it for a machine that does not properly run Linux. I'm sure it is good hardware compared to similarly priced laptops though.
> I would never pay it for a machine that does not properly run Linux.
I find comments like this a little puzzling. Apple products run MacOS. The operating system is part of the package. And yet someone always shows up to say they would never buy it because of the operating system… it would be like me showing up on a post about an android phone and saying I would never buy it because it won’t run iOS.
That Macbook Air is 1200 Euros where I live which is way above the price of the most sold Windows laptops according to the public sales data of big retailers here, which seem top hover around the 700-800 Euro pricing.
So no, it isn't cheaper when you look at what people actually buy. It's only cheaper if your data set is full of the unicorn $4k-8k Dell/HP/Lenovo workstations at corpo pricing .
except real life performance is not about nm process (this is almost completely irrelevant) or benchmarks.
I load my DuckDB into RAM and I'm mindblown at the speed that I can run data analysis on it due to RAM bandwidth and the fact that it's SoC, so almost no bottleneck between RAM and the CPU. Dozens of seconds on a $5k PC compared to milliseconds on a $2k Mac.
Not to mention that Windows 11 is a very weird OS.
Linux is great for some usecases, but doesn't utilize the hardware in the same way as other OSs.
I have all OSs at home and the difference is stupendous.