[ChuckNorris89]

Yeah, you can tell they designed that machine way before the pandemic and WFH was the norm and they switched to a no-webcam-on-gaming-laptops mantra.

ASUS engineer: "laptop webcams have shitty quality and gamers don't use them anyway, let's just not include one and save ourselves the BOM cost; applause from bean-counters"

Covid-19 WFH: "I'm gonna end this man's whole career"

I'm sure their hindsight is now 20/20 though.

[xiphias2]

MacBook Pros got the right balance between usability, features and power a long time ago, other companies should just copy & modernize it. Not having webcam on a laptop is unacceptable (though having a physical switch on it is a great feature for privacy).

[ChuckNorris89]

I disagree, other companies should definitely stay away from copying the modern Macs.

I like having choices regarding OS, hardware configuration, ports, keyboards, displays, upgradeability, reaprability etc..

If you want a Mac copy then the Mac will be the best anyway.

[xiphias2]

I don't like the post Steve Jobs direction that the Macbook Pro took, so it's a no-go for me. I had a company macbook pro in 2008 and I loved it (except the OS and the keyboard layout). It had great sound (I had more expensive laptops with worse speakers since then). Also the display was perfect for me (especially outside in sunshine...). Maybe it's just my memory, but I don't feel that the current laptop offerings are that much better.

[perryizgr8]

Hard pass. People who do not buy Macbook pro do it because they don't like what's on offer. No point copying it. For example, latest laptops from Dell/ASUS/etc have 120Hz screens, sometimes even touch screens. If they were to just copy mac, we would never get these amazing features.

[yxhuvud]

It was a shitty deal to not have a camera even before the pandemic. It seems they thought only gamers would want to buy it.