[robertAngst]

> MacBooks are the best laptops in many respects

I've never heard this before.

I thought some people needed their proprietary software that could only be run on Apple products, and that is what forces someone to buy a Macbook.

What are they best in class for?

EDIT: Thank you for the serious responses

[michaelt]

  I've never heard this before.

For several years (after the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware) there wasn't really a PC laptop brand with a rock solid reputation for high build quality.

Lots of companies were putting their badges on inch-thick, mostly plastic 15" laptops with mediocre touchpads that never delivered the battery life they promised. And if your employer issued you with a Windows laptop, that was what you got. Remember laptop bags, when moving a laptop needed padding and a shoulder strap and pockets to carry your mouse and power brick?

That's not to say there weren't some good products out there - there were some well designed Vaios, some pretty daring early tablet PCs and so on. But there wasn't a brand where you could say "Just buy an X" and know that you'd get a good quality product.

Of course, in recent years a lot of PC manufacturers have stepped up their game (or maybe I'm just spending more money?) while Apple has had a few stumbles.

[Stratoscope]

> ...the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware...

That's incorrect. You're referring to SuperFish, which was only on Lenovo's consumer machines, not on ThinkPad.

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish

[michaelt]

Nonetheless, it cast a big shadow over the brand; you couldn't just advise someone to buy a Lenovo.

[Stratoscope]

Oh, I would never just advise someone to buy a Lenovo. They might end up choosing some mediocre IdeaPad!

I only advise people to buy ThinkPads, and I make specific recommendations on what model to get and which options to choose after we talk about their needs. For example, most people are better off getting a better display instead of a faster CPU if they don't have the money for both.

Everyone I've advised like this has been delighted with their ThinkPads. If there is any "shadow" over the brand, it hasn't affected them or me.

[Octoth0rpe]

> What are they best in class for?

Best overall balance between performance/weight/battery life.

Best trackpad, hands down, no caveats, no balancing against other concerns. It's just that good.

Best integration with other devices (iphone, watch, etc). Making calls/sending text messages from a laptop is something I'm unwilling to give up at this point.

And most importantly, it's _by far_ the best support for a commercial unix/unix-like OS on a laptop. Dell isn't too bad though.

In the end, unix or a unix-like os is hard requirement for many of us, and I'm just too tired of fiddling with xorg/powertop to get decent battery life. I just want to get work done.

[colomon]

The older (say 2008-2015) trackpad is best -- a dream to use. The newer one is too big, alas. It's shocking how often I accidentally press it when I'm just trying to rest my palms on my laptop.

(But yes, the unix-like OS that doesn't require a lot of fiddling about and has nice GUI is the big thing for me, too.)

[Cyph0n]

Reliable, great hardware quality (keyboard aside), gorgeous Unix-based OS out of the box, excellent driver support.

Edit: And the best trackpad ever designed imo

[parasubvert]

Near-instant sleep/wake, best trackpad, Exceptional battery life, good weight/thinness balance for the power, industry-leading I/O performance with their SSD (which were PCIe years before the mainstream), very fast external ports (USB-C now) which can drive RAID disk arrays, fast flash drives, even eGPUs.

After the hardware, the software: it's a GUI that just works with minimal fuss, supports most mainstream software, and also works with all the *nix stuff from Linux and BSD.

AND I can dual boot to Linux, Free/Open BSD, or Windows

AND I can run VMware or Parallels or the native Mac hypervisor (Docker)

I've seriously given consideration to the Surface Book Performance Base and the Dell XPS 15, but there are a lot of tradeoffs that keep me coming back to Apple's choices. The touchbar is not very useful to me but it's a minor thing. The keyboard I've been lucky (for 2 years).

[rahoulb]

The trackpad makes it impossible for me to use a non-Apple laptop (I particularly love the haptic ones) - if anything else comes close I would love to try it.

[nottorp]

Trackpad, battery life, the OS.

[nicky0]

Best in class screens

The trackpad is unsurpassed in the industry

Low power consumption / good battery life

[asadkn]

Except for trackpad and a decent MacOS, nothing really. Low quality hardware, increasingly subpar battery life on newer MBPs, battery swellings too common.

The hardware issues are common, but PR damage control teams, stakeholders, and fans will bury anyone who mentions it.

[Razengan]

> What are they best in class for?

The overall experience.