Apple hardware have some downsides though. One big advantage of HP, Dell, etc is their support. Apple repairs takes weeks (especially here in New Zealand) as they expect devices to be sent long distances to wherever they repair them. HP, Dell, etc can do on-site repairs in <24 hours in many cases. If it's just your personal device then a few weeks may be an inconvenience. But for businesses it can cost them enough that getting a support contract from HP, Dell, et al can be worth it.
That's bollocks. Time Machine performance over network is atrocious.
With a HP/Dell Enterprise line model all you need is a decent set of screwdrivers (and if you're touching anything that requires taking off heat pipes, skme thermal paste) and you can literally replace any part in a hour or two from a spare laptop - or you just swap the disk in a spare.
With Apple's newest shit you can't even do that since everything is soldered.
I'm a die-hard Apple fan, but for large shops professional machines are lower in maintenance cost.
It's been awhile since I was in a big org, but when I was, no one was replacing laptop parts. The deals we had with Dell/HP were basically overnight replacements (this was different from servers where we had 4 hour on-site support). Then we would send them broken machines that would eventually come back fixed.
So do big orgs actually have people internally swapping random parts in a laptop to see if they can fix it?
Doesn't change the point that Apple was more expensive, but mainly because Dell/HP prices go way down at volume.
Go look at the source, IBM. They started a pilot program, with power users, and converted them to Macs, and then a year in said that Macs need less support and cost less over their 3 year lifecycle.
See the problems? They couldn't know a year in about 3 costs over 3 years, and taking power users that demand Macs and saying they don't need support is obvious. That's a bullshit and obviously wrong "statistic" and source to use.
Typing this on a late 2012 iMac which remains my main workhorse. I'm considering a new M1 iMac when they come out, but really no need at the moment, now I've fitted a a 2TB SSD