[edualm]

Some of your facts are wrong. The basic 16-inch MacBook Pro has also an i7-9750H, not a years-old processor like you said. Additionally... the screen on the MacBook Pro is leaps above gaming laptops for working with photos and video - I know that, since I actually recommended one of those to a friend who wanted a laptop for some photo editing, and he ended up returning it because the colors on the screen were all wrong, and it didn't appear to be fixable.

That's not to say that the MSI may not be a better deal... But you can't just compare the specs you said, there's more at stake.

[jimmaswell]

Must have been an older model - I just googled "macbook i7" or something since Apple's page didn't mention it, but I should've noticed the cores.

I forgot about resolution too but I've done this comparison a few times in the past with different laptops and always found better for the price point.

Colors might be a good point here but I'm sure there are other laptops with good colors too.

[mercer]

This illustrates pretty well one of the main reasons I switched to Apple years ago: I know what I'm getting and at least until keyboard-gate it did "just work".

While it's true that I could get better-specced laptop, phone, bluetooth earbuds, and so one, I consistently run into two issues that I just don't have with Apple: 1) there's almost always something subpar about the product, that reviews didn't warn me against, and/or 2) I hate having to carefully select from a dizzying array of inter- and intra-company options, where often companies actively game the system (reviews) or try to up-sell.

It's honestly somewhat astonishing how consistently I run into these issues when I buy a non-apple product, in particular laptops.

Now of course being 'in' the ecosystem already also has a ton of benefits, and of course I can afford being a little less price-conscious. But it's absolutely not the case that I go for Apple because it's cool. Or because they market well.