[haunter]

And that’s why most people buy $500 laptops. Even if the screen broke you can probably buy a 3rd party one from Aliexpress for $100.

But $800 for a replacement one? I’d rather sell the MBP for parts on eBay and buy a new one if must then pay that much. Like you would get more for that with a broken screen for sure, some people would fix it on their own or use it as a desktop computer.

But I don’t have a SV engineer salary so what do I know

[z9znz]

> And that’s why most people buy $500 laptops.

Most people is a sketchy expression, but I would venture a guess that "most people" buy cheap laptops because they don't really care, they don't know how to adequately judge which ones are worth more, and they also just don't want to spend much on a computer.

It's hard to imagine, but "most people" actually care little about computers.

[comprev]

For many people outside of HN demographic $500 is a lot of money for "a computer"

A macbook would be like buying a top spec Mercedes when all they need is a no frills base model Ford.

[nickjj]

> For many people outside of HN demographic $500 is a lot of money for "a computer"

It would be but it's also kind of overkill based on the specs you can get nowadays for general computer usage.

I recently picked up a $399 15.6" Lenovo laptop new on Amazon for a family member. It has all of the important stats for a regular user. A 1080p display, fairly light, 11th gen Intel CPU (i3), 8gb of memory and most importantly an SSD. It's lightning fast for browsing the web, working with Excel and playing browser games.

If you did care more about development they have a 20gb of memory version with a 512 GB SSD for $540 and a 36gb of memory version with a 1 TB SSD for $630.

[cywick]

With these cheap computers, the manufacturers typically cut corners on things that are not listed on the spec sheet, though, especially the quality of the trackpad.

We have a bunch of $400 Lenovos at work and their trackpads are absolutely atrocious. When someone is using one of those, they almost always use an external mouse with them, because otherwise, mouse cursor handling is just too frustrating.

[nickjj]

The webcam and sound are decent enough for casual usage. The keyboard was surprisingly good.

I can't speak for the trackpad. When setting up the laptop I found it to be ok but I only have 2 occasions of using it for 20 minutes (2 different laptops) which isn't enough time to really evaluate it since so many things can be hit or miss with trackpads. The people who use it do use an external mouse, mainly because using a trackpad is too foreign to them.

Both Lenovos are IdeaPads that were purchased a few years apart. The latest one wasn't to replace the first one, it was for someone else. The first one is still going strong. I had forgotten I even picked a Lenovo the first time around and ended up picking the same brand / model when researching "what is a really good budget'ish laptop for general computer use".

[BoorishBears]

My mother had this mentality.

Almost yearly she'd buy some $150-$200 Dell clunker, all plastic, atrociously low resolution, loaded with bloatware.

For years I told her if she'd just buy one "overpriced" Macbook she'd save money in the long run, since despite some hiccups over the years, Macbooks are not particularly unreliable.

-

Eventually I took it upon myself to give her my old Surface since she didn't want to learn OSX.

A machine I optioned out to nearly 1k, for someone who only checks emails and writes word docs... yet 4 years later and she hasn't needed a new one.

She's easily saved her money's worth if she had bought it new herself simply from not dealing with the hassle of needing a new machine every 12-24 months.

[endorphine]

Agreed. I'm very proud of a $1200 Sony Vaio laptop I got back in 2007. My mother still uses and it's going strong, albeit the battery which needs to be replaced.

[NoPicklez]

I don't think that's true. Yes I agree it might be a Mercedes but given that most of Apple's customer base isn't HN and most people seem to be happy spending $1k+ on an iPhone. $500 isn't a lot of money for a computer.

[diffeomorphism]

This doesn't really transfer. The same people willing to spend $1k+ on a phone might still say that $500 for a computer is a lot. Just like they would consider $200 for a kitchen knife a lot. Different categories, different scales.

[tyre]

Phone through carriers are heavily discounted with 2 year contracts. Apple also offers zero APR financing to pay for a new phone. Humans have a harder time reasoning about buy now/pay later.

[NoPicklez]

Apple also offer financing on their laptops as well?

Phone's are not heavily discounted with 2 year contracts, definitely not here in Australia anyway. Carriers are going down the route of customers paying the standard device repayment per month (equalling the RRP). The days of device subsidies by taking a plan are fading.

Plans from mobile carriers are becoming suped up pre-paid plans with a device payment tacked on.

[ok123456]

Except the Mercedes is actually repairable.

[surfpel]

For most people, you'll have to take it to the mechanic and it'll cost you an arm and a leg... wait that sounds familiar...

[namecheapTA]

A vehicle needing a repair that costs 50% of its new MSRP is extremely rare, outside of a few electric vehicle battery packs.

In addition, when a vehicle reaches the point where any common repair costs more than it's current market value, it's basically considered worthless and only desperate people buy them. How long does it take an apple product to reach that point? A year?

[ok123456]

Exactly. Apple has engineered their products and supply chain to make it not economically viable to do any kind of repair.

For traditional cars, as long as it's not a completely blown motor or transmission or a extensive front end collision, it's always economically viable to repair them.

[ok123456]

You can take it to an independent repair shop. There's a supply chain of repair parts. Mercedes doesn't try to use trademark laws and DRM to stop you from using a third-party water pump.

[mrexroad]

They’ll just void your warranty for tenuously related issues, oh, kinda like…

[asdff]

Not anymore

[OJFord]

That used to be true, but somehow Apple gets them. Probably still more true of non-mac computers - where high-end sales I imagine are almost exclusively to businesses and gamers.

[LoveMortuus]

Especially because "Why do I need a computer, I can already do everything on my phone".

I got this from my brother, so it's really not that far away from us.

[JustSomeNobody]

I needed a new laptop last year. I decided to care less about my computer and so I chose not to get another Mac. Got a small Lenovo instead. Runs great with Linux. Does exactly everything I need it to do.

[nibbleshifter]

I've been instructing (extended) family members asking about laptops to just get an ex-biz lenovo (x220, x230, etc) and let me configure Linux/do upgrades on it for the last 8-9 years.

It serves all their use cases, and most of them are still working fine with no real repair need.

The apple branch of the family though (my in-laws) have been having hardware failures almost consistently during that time.

[z9znz]

I'm too old and not of the right disposition to provide much tech support for people anymore. I did that for years, and I learned that it truly sucks to have to fk around frequently with stupid stuff (usually Windows stuff). But even Linux, using it as my own development environment, I would periodically have stupid stuff just mysteriously break and than require a lot of fiddling to get fixed.

As for Apple reliability, I set my grandfather up with an iMac 11 years ago. It was still functional when I replaced it with a Chrome desktop machine last year. (Of course it was no longer supported for OS upgrades, so that was the final reason to replace it). Likewise, my girlfriend daily drives my 2014 MBP which I used and abused around the world for years. I did an Apple service center battery replacement, and otherwise it performs as new. 8 years with a laptop is pretty great, especially considering it still does everything it's supposed to.

Oh, the wifi at my grandfather's house is still the original Airport I setup 11 years ago. It still does its job, without fail. I think I had to provide tech support (unplug, wait, replug) once.

For low-tech family, I now recommend Chrome devices. They are about the easiest things to support, and they are fairly low priced.

[ricardobayes]

Most people care about design more than realiability

[herbst]

The X2 or T4 series from Lenevo are definitely state of the art in Design. Being so thin that no standard plugs fit anymore wouldn't be 'hot' among humans either.

[ricardobayes]

For me as an engineer yes. But for a normal person, they look too industrial.

[jdshaffer]

I've been pondering doing something similar myself. If you don't mind my asking, which Lenovo did you get and which Linux variant does it seem to play nice with? :-)

[harry8]

T480s 3.5yrs old, out of warranty, ex-corporate cost me USD$430 running ubu 22.04 on a 4 core 8th gen core i5 & intel gfx is getting me 10 hours of battery life without having replaced the battery. (power settings set to Power Saver in the very obvious gui menu above shutdown). I did shove in more ram and a bigger ssd. Meh, 8G & 250G would have been enough fwiw. Gnome desktop is a thing I now find really polished and lovely to use.

In all it's just a beautiful thing I'm very, very happy with.

Use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_X1_series

& Ebay. But it's also a very reasonable & justifiable decision to buy a new thinkpad imho. When it's a couple of years old the hardware support is usually perfect on first install - but I guess I don't use garbage like fingerprint readers so ymmv on that kind of silliness.

Thinkpads, T-Series, X1 carbon are the best laptops on the market by a good margin and have been there in that spot consistently for a long time. Buy apple if you really want/need to run apple software. I'd say just about /any/ distro will place nicely with the kernel-hackers laptop of choice. I'd bet fedora, rhel/centos, debian, arch would all be just terrific if you prefer one of those (and why not?)

[abrouwers]

I mean, x1 carbon (new) isn't much cheaper (in fact, more expensive, at the time of my googling) than a MacBook Air. The linux ecosystem (which I love) has it's own fair share of problems - gnome vs. KDE, deb vs. rpm, X vs. Wayland, pulseaudio vs. pipewire, systemd vs. (the world). Sure, installing ubuntu and not worrying about any of it is a great option, but I think you've painted a slightly too pretty picture :-)

(And, on your "kernel-hackers laptop of choice comment," it's curious that Linus released the last kernel from a MacBook device)

[lillecarl]

Gnome vs KDE isn't really a thing, deb vs rpm isn't a thing, X vs Wayland is only a temporary thing, Pulse vs PipeWire isn't a thing, PipeWire implements pulse apis.

systemd vs $INITSYSTEM is also temporary, though on a longer timescale. We need the old generation to die before systemd is accepted by everyone.

I don't mean to shit on your argument, but most things are either just preferences or progress that isn't done yet.

I'm about as bleeding-edge as can be (always latest stable kernel with xanmod patches) from NixOS, using Wayland and PipeWire.

The move to PipeWire made literally everything better for me (just works TM). While Wayland isn't perfect yet.

Gnome or KDE is a preference, it doesn't matter much and they're cooperating on many Wayland extensions.

systemd hate is either because you love the drama or you like bash scripts.

I don't particularly like either, so I like systemd.

A good thing people often forget with Wayland, PipeWire and systemd is that they are making our ecosystem a bit less fragmented, which I see as a great win, especially since I'm a NixOS user, my system relies heavily on systemd being declarative. My distro of choice wouldn't work as well (at all) without all "standards" (both real and implementation) that systemd and freedesktop puts forward.

Back on topic, the Linux desktop is honestly quite great if you constrain yourself a bit (Run a stable distro with boring tech, no Nvidia) or live on the bleeding edge where things also work well but might require more maintenance.

Lets be honest though, if I wasn't running NixOS I would probably run Ubuntu with whatever display and audio server they decided for me. And the package manager would be apt, brew, nix or flatpak depending on application. (Now it's Nix and Flatpak only).

[harry8]

Huh? We've been asked for our experience and that was mine. I feel strongly that if I were using fedora or debian that experience would be strikingly similar.

Gnome vs kde (and there's /plenty/ of other options) is a choice, make it. Done. No further issues. And as a happy gnome guy I'm very sure KDE is excellent and will serve well.

deb vs rpm. That choice is made when you choose your distro, never to be revisited or cared about again. Likewise pulseaudio, systemd are chosen when you chose your desktop and distro respectively and you don't have to think about them on your laptop again. X vs Wayland - whatever comes with your distro you use if you're even aware of it.

But yes you can complicate it all as much as suits you if you have the need or want to do so which you basically can't with apple, so... And your knowledge then translates to the pi or other SBC so that's pretty cool too. And to your servers or ones you work with for money. This is not a negative imho.

Go to any kernel conference and you'll see all kinds of laptops for sure, some hilariously eccentric. Linus used a mac 15 years ago too (powerpc iirc). Yet you'll see Thinkpads are always, clearly and obviously the most commonly used by a large margin unless things have changed dramatically during pandemic times, which I kind of doubt.

Anyway I bought a T480s second hand for peanuts, dumped ubu on it and have been contemplating its beauty and utility since. Apple gear is a _much_ bigger sysadmin headache for me (and it isn't close) but might be less so for you if that's what you know and understand. This is /my/ experience of it.

Linux on the laptop in 2022 is flipping great. Shhhhh, don't tell.

[jdshaffer]

Sorry for the very late reply, but thank you so much! I'm very glad to hear you have a machine (and OS) that you are happy with. I'll definitely check it out for myself!

Thanks again!

[JustSomeNobody]

Ideapad 5 pro with an AMD proc. it's the 14" variant. I am not near it right now, so I can't give you specifically what model. Got it on sale at Costco. Running Pop_os. The newer Linux kernels have support of amd_pastate so battery life is good.

Previous Mac was a 13" Macbook Pro if anyone is keeping score. Loved it, but just didn't want or need something that expensive.

[jasonfarnon]

they don't know how to adequately judge which ones are worth more

yeah we buy 500$ (150$ in my case) laptops over apple products precisely because we can judge which ones are worth more

[throwntoday]

Guessing power isn't your concern then. The macbooks offer power at a slight premium over the rest.

[bonestamp2]

Apple service is usually very good as well -- I've had several products replaced by overnight fedex with no additional cost. Also time machine backup/restore is a godsend for mission critical workstations when you do need a replacement. But ya, most people aren't doing work where time is worth the slight premium.

[Const-me]

I agree with GP, and I think here on HN the opposite of your comment is true.

People buy expensive laptops because they don't know how to adequately judge which ones ain’t worth more. Not just on HN, I’m observing same behavior among friends and co-workers.

People buy ultra-thin laptops because marketing sells them as high-end. It’s often impossible to upgrade them to good specs like 32-64 GB RAM and fast 2TB+ SSD. And even CPU performance ain’t great because thermal throttling, hard to dissipate heat from an ultra-thin computer.

Similarly, people who never play videogames buy laptops with discrete GPUs like nVidia 3070, paying money, weight, and even battery life for something they don’t need.

[Bayart]

I've never spent more than 400 or 500$ on a laptop. Plenty of good enough stuff on the second hand market if you go after business laptops. But it's never my main machine (I can't understand doing anything productive with 14").

[z9znz]

The screen size is the only real limitation for me when using my M1 Air. The keyboard is pretty decent, the trackpad is just right, and the form factor is wonderful.

There is a noticeable loss in human productivity by not having a separate large monitor (and sometimes also a nice external keyboard+mouse). However, I find that the small screen constraint can be beneficial sometimes as it forces me to approach my work a bit differently. I would say it's a bit like how changing my scenery or routine temporarily can recharge me.

[Bayart]

> I would say it's a bit like how changing my scenery or routine temporarily can recharge me.

Work-wise, the only thing I like about laptops is the ability to quite literally change my scenery (going in a café or in nature for an afternoon). But it's always with the intent of doing the few things I can do on that sort of device : reading or writing some doc and doing some surface level diagnostics through SSH (my job is a mix of Kubernetes administration and miscellaneous production tasks).

It's nice to have, but it also can't be the tool of my trade. Putting any significant money into a machine that'll end up 70% of the time as a self-standing Netflix screen in bed isn't worth it.

I know a few people who can work exclusively on their laptop, but they also use no UI scaling and have much better eyesight :)

[derekbaker783]

I've had good luck with refurb machines also (but never tried an Apple laptop refurb).

[threeseed]

> And that’s why most people buy $500 laptops

It's why you buy $500 laptops. You can't extrapolate that to most people.

Another reason is that they only have $500 and are buying whatever is available in that price range.

[jackmott42]

I bought a Framework laptop, new screen is cheap and very very easy to swap in yourself.

[XorNot]

Framework is my dream machine, still waiting for an Australia launch.

Also hoping we'll see them execute on some additional keyboard layouts (or someone will) - avoiding Mac-like keyboards is one of my primary desires laptop wise.

[Haegin]

I'd love a split, ortholinear, semi-ergonomic keyboard for a laptop but know it'll never happen on a mass-market device. The framework has the best change of making it possible because they couldd just sell that keyboard to those who want it without needing them to sell the rest of the laptop as part of the package. Still not likely to happen, but I can dream...

[lttlrck]

I had to check.. $179!! That's amazing.

[copperx]

Cheaper than a Chromebook! It looks like I'll have to buy one.

[kayodelycaon]

Depends on the Chromebook. I've got a $99 one and it's surprisingly decent: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-chromebook-3-11-6-hd-lap...

The trackpad works better than any windows laptop I've used.

[adhesive_wombat]

If I had $500, I'd get a second hand ThinkPad. Gets you a lot more computer than a $500 semi-disposible thermally-crippled mehbook.

My T440s is still going strong, and that was second hand back in 2016 (I did upgrade to an FHD matte screen).

They're not quite as good as they used to be though, the T580 definitely feels like a step down in build quality.

I may consider a Framework next go-around but for now, that's my strategy.

[jerryjerryjerry]

oh man, I'm also typing on my T440p now, and yes, it's still running strong and healthy without much to complain.

[haunter]

Agreed. I have some i5 x230 Thinkpdads from eBay and they are all perfectly fine with new SSD + maxed out RAM

[herbst]

Or just a ThinkPad. The best available screen for my T480s is like $150 and way better than the original.

[settrans]

Even $500 is rich, now, for a laptop. iPads and Chromebooks can be had for half that, and could run circles around the laptops of yesteryear. Hell, MT8183-powered Chromebooks cost $170 and still come with FHD touchscreens, 12-18 hours of battery life and have acceptable build quality.

[analog31]

There must be a market for expensive new laptops, because there is a bustling market for refurbished ones -- my source of new gear.

But I have a hunch Apple will make good on this.

[davidf18]

https://www.apple.com/support/products/mac/

AppleCare+ is $70/year for M1 MacBook Air and covers damages. It also covers accidents such as coffee spills or drops.

I have 3 year AppleCare+ for 16" MacBook Pro.

[volkl48]

....kind of. It's got a deductible for accidental damage, and the deductible can be fairly significant.

You're going to be out an additional $99 if you only damaged the display or only damaged the top case. But if you had a liquid spill or significant drop, you're likely going to be out the $299 (for damaging both, or for damaging the logic board/anything else internal at all).

It's a decent deal if you've got a high end machine, but it doesn't as much sense IMO if you bought something like an Air or a Base 13".

--------

In contrast, ~$160 on a $1.5k Dell Latitude will get 3 years of warranty + accidental damage coverage with no deductible.

[auggierose]

And that's why you get Apple Care with your MacBook.

[josephcsible]

That feels like saying "And that's why you pay the Mafia their protection money." These screens are breaking because they're defective, which is what the warranty is supposed to cover. Why should you have to pay Apple more money for them to do what they're already supposed to do?

[armchairhacker]

AppleCare is a good idea in general. Even if you’re generally careful, you never know when the mac will break because of something that was your fault

[josephcsible]

I break things infrequently enough that it's cheaper to keep the money I would have spent on protection plans in my bank account, and then just pay out of pocket when I do.

[Phlarp]

Paying protection to the mob is a good idea in general. Even if you're generally careful, you never know when a leg will break because of something that was your fault.

disclaimer: I have applecare+ on an m1 pro

[tomxor]

> you never know when the mac will break because of something that was your fault

You have been gaslit by Apple.

You know when it's your fault... but with Apple, you can never be sure.

[astura]

I really don't want to own objects that are so needy the require their own insurance policy.

[parasubvert]

No house, car, utility vehicles?

How about your body? Medical and life insurance are nearly universal.

[softawre]

You should insure things you can't afford to self insure for. Life, Home, maybe car.

You should not pay insurance for all the tech crap we buy. You're just losing money on average. Only way to win with this type of insurance is to be unlucky.

[NorwegianDude]

Insurance is never a good idea in general, except if you can't risk paying for it yourself.

[parasubvert]

Which is nonsense, the whole point of insurance (and why most people should purchase insurance) is to pool risk so to cover high costs that most can’t afford for themselves.

[josephcsible]

GP is saying that insurance makes sense for things too expensive to replace on your own, like houses and cars, but not cheaper things like consumer electronics.

[__d]

Warranty lasts 12 months. AppleCare lasts 3 years. Your choice.

Dell is the same. IIRC, HP was too. There's nothing to see here.

[GekkePrutser]

12 months in the US. It depends on the country. In Europe a device has to last a reasonable time with a minimum of 2 years. But the warranty is with the seller, not the manufacturer. This is why I generally buy from Apple directly, so they can't weasel out of it this way.

Though after the first year the onus is on the consumer to prove a manufacturing defect. During that first year the manufacturer has to prove it wasn't broken by the customer. That makes the discussion a bit harder after the first year. Also, these protections only apply to consumers. Businesses have to fend for themselves and that includes -employed when buying as such (and thus avoiding VAT)

[josephcsible]

But aren't the computers that broke in this story less than 12 months old?

[auggierose]

You are still free to sue them if it is actually a faulty product. But maybe you want to get a quick repair done in the mean time without shelling out $800?

[ClumsyPilot]

> You are still free to sue them

Indeed you are free to sue a wide variety of criminals, but ususally we don't refer to them with reverence and respect

[smoldesu]

Waiting for Apple to admit wrongdoing is like trying to get blood from a stone. Remember the Nvidia chip failures that Apple caused by using cheap solder on their Logic Boards? They never fully owned-up to that one, despite being 100% culpable. We eventually got admissions of guilt for things like Lightning ports and Butterfly keyboards, but that doesn't fix the thousands of devices that are now using ass-backwards technology that can only be replaced once broken.

The other comment is entirely right. The fact that Apple can sell a first-party service entirely dedicated to replacing broken iDevices is evidence enough that it's a racket.

[auggierose]

I rarely had a problem with an iDevice. Once my MacBook Pro 17 inch broke down after 4 years or more, it was out of warranty and out of Apple Care, and they replaced the whole motherboard for free anyway. My mother is using it to this day.

Doesn't feel like a racket to me. Rather, if you buy an expensive device, and you cannot easily afford a replacement if it breaks, get an insurance. That's Apple Care (plus). It is an easy enough to understand concept.

[smoldesu]

I think it's closer to Ford being both your manufacturer, insurer, and sole authority on vehicle repair. This is something our nation already faced, and rectified with legislation.

[the83]

I used to always pay for apple care, but not once have they paid out a claim or fixed a problem without charging me. It's always "we don't cover normal wear and tear" or "we don't cover moving parts" or "the user must be at fault".

[legitster]

> And that’s why most people buy $500 laptops.

It's also worth pointing out that the $500 laptop will probably last a lot longer than the most expensive Macbook. All plastic, they use a lot of older/reliable technology, they don't get used as rough - the most common failure mode is they get too old/slow for the user.

[bardworx]

In the last 12 years, I’ve owned 3 MacBooks. Maybe my experience isn’t common, but the units that I’ve bought, have always outlived my windows machines.

When averaged out to cost per year, in my experience, Apple is way cheaper.

[legitster]

Part of the issue here is that "Windows machines" could mean anything from an el cheapo Asus to a mil-spec Thinkpad.

I also think that people don't necessarily appreciate how much quality improvements have been made in the last 5-7 years in consumer laptops. Optical drives are gone, everything has an SSD, performance has plateaued and AMD is good again.

Someone walking into Best Buy today and dropping $500 on a laptop will be getting a much more robust machine than when I did the same back in college.

[bardworx]

You are 100% right, besides the mil spec, which explicitly means the “least expensive option that does the job”.

I can attest that recently, the average laptop is way better. My machines were a toshiba, surface (2nd gen), and think pads (during their dark ages), dell XPS.

[TacticalCoder]

My two MacBook Air, both from 2013, are still working. They both have battery issues but I plan to replace the battery.

My MacBook Air M1 had that very screen defect thing happen for no reason after... 10 months.

So, basically: ten years vs ten months.

Many people are reporting this issue: Apple fucked up big times and it's time to stop apologizing.

I don't care how genius the Apple geniuses are and I don't care that my 10 years old MacBook are still working: what I do care about is that my 10 months old M1 Air died on me out of nowhere.

[bardworx]

Yes, that is really, really messed up. I’m not abdicating Apple from making a crap machine that they will be fixing for the next X years because of whatever issue.

Currently, I still have faith in Apple, despite their lemons only because other companies laptops sucked more.

But that does not mean your point in invalid, at all. I just hope that this is an isolated incident to a particular generation vs a broad company trend.

[10729287]

My 2008 white macbook had cracking wrist rest, exactly like any other macbook fromp this generation, and it seems every macbook since then had its very own issue impossible to avoid. I Love Apple laptops but it's like you're always buying them and using them with a sword of Damocles over your head.

[decremental]

I bought an Air in 2014 that lasted me until last year when I bought a new one. The old one still works. It's just too slow for my needs. I still open it up occasionally for some things. Longest running computer I've ever owned by a long shot.

[__d]

I have a 2011 13" Air that has been mine, then my wife's, then my kid's. It has been thrown in backpacks, dropped, stood on, you name it. It's still going strong, and my kid still pulls it out to play some Mac-only games every few weeks.

I've got a 2014 15" MBP. It's had the screen replacement (free), and a bulging battery got me a new lower case & battery for $200. Still my daily driver.

OTOH, my wife has a 2017 MacBook which is on its third keyboard/lower case. Both the replacements were free, but it's a PITA to have to take it to the store and be without it for a few days while they swap in the new one.

Either way, my experiences have been uniformly positive with Apple's service, and whatever issues exist with the underlying hardware, if they're Apple's fault, I've had no trouble getting replacements for free.

All anecdata, I acknowledge.

[ricardobayes]

I hate the fact I need to research 'vintages' for every product nowadays. Almost every product has a good production year followed by several worse ones. Like wine.

[acdha]

This is lazy trolling - maybe it’s true in your personal experience but there are tons of people who can say anything you want for n=1-2.

If you want to do more than rehash 4 decades of “PC/Macs suck” forum posts, try finding some hard stats on resell value or enterprise fleet longevity.

[legitster]

I'm not trying to make a case that Macs are inferior. A Nissan is a much crappier car than a BMW, but I would bet on the crappier Nissan to run much longer without need of serious maintenance.

[ricardobayes]

One thing I learned is japanese cars function very well if you change their oil very frequently. It's usually 10k miles by the book, but also the book says if you sit in traffic a lot or go short trips this should be more frequent, even as often as 3-5k miles. Most people don't read this fine print and get surprised their car burns 2 quarts of oil per thousand miles by 40k miles.

[acdha]

You know what would help? Data! Your car analogy is backed by decades of that being available from a slew of organizations.

Computers are harder to get that for, especially when you have to correct for things like whether different classes of buyer have notably different habits.

[lolinder]

I probably use my laptops harder than most people, but this has not been my experience with plastic laptops. I lost two laptops in a row to the plastic case cracking. In the first case the case broke around the hinge and destroyed a fan. In the second, about half the keys on the keyboard stopped working. I'll never buy another plastic-chassis laptop after that second one.

[vladvasiliu]

I can beat you! I had both issues, cracked hinge AND keyboard not working anymore on the same PC! It wasn't even a "cheap" model, but a rather mid-range HP ProBook. Judging by current prices, it should have been around €800 at the time.

> I probably use my laptops harder than most people

Yeah, I didn't. This was basically a sedentary laptop, 95% of the time sitting on a desk connected to external screens / kb / mouse in an AC office, never in the sun. The other 5% I'd carry it around to meetings in the same building.

Since I was using it so little as a portable, it actually outlasted my colleagues' ones by two generations! So, it wasn't just my particular one that was a piece of junk.

[tverbeure]

I’m anecdotally writing this on a 2012 15” rMacBook Pro that aside from some battery replacements just doesn’t want to die…

It blows all the “premium” work laptops out of the water.

[legitster]

> It blows all the “premium” work laptops out of the water.

I disagree. I loved my Thinkpad T450s so much I bought an identical used machine when I quit the job. Since then it's been stepped on, dropped onto concrete multiple times, had beer and wine spilled on the keyboard.

It cost me $250 + $100 for a battery replacement + $34 for a new keyboard (when the wine spilled on it, it still worked but the keys were sticky) + $150 to upgrade the RAM.

It's currently running Visual Studio Code, Photoshop, and prepping to run a pub trivia event later.

But this is all a digression - my larger point is that a $500 laptop bought today is going to have a lot more longevity than people will give it credit for.

[jacobgorm]

One caveat wrt the more recent mil-spec Thinkpads is that they broke the ergonomics by making the front edge razor-sharp, so that it really cuts into your wrists. I tried to work on my T14-2 on a long train ride, and the pain in my wrists the following days kept we awake at night.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/hvb60f/thinkpad_t...

and https://twitter.com/jacobgorm/status/1496099294159544321 for an acceptable workaround using Sugru.

[tverbeure]

My daily Linux driver is a ThinkPad X220. $75 on eBay + another $120 for IPS LCD screen and an SSD. I use it when it really need Linux or when I’m on the go and don’t want to carry a 15” laptop. I wish they still had 1080p conversion kits for that one…

But my current Dell Precision from work is a spectacular nightmare POS.

[LouisSayers]

I'm also a big fan of the 2012 macbook pros. I only upgraded to an M1 mac end of last year.

I love that the older macbooks can be opened up and fixed if needed. I had to replace the HD connector a couple times (and learnt to add some electrical tape to stop the issue), and I recently cleaned the old CPU adhesive off and added some new (old macbooks can start to smell like Body odour!).

With 16GB of RAM the macbook performance is still decent, able to run docker and run modern IDEs.

It's a great machine. The only downside is that you can no longer update to the most recent OS versions.

[nibbleshifter]

In many cases a battery replacement = dead.

Im unsure about the 2012 MBP (not having had one), but if its an internal battery, battery death usually means user unfixable, for most users.

[tverbeure]

It’s not supposed to be user replaceable, but there are plenty of kits and YouTube videos available on how to do it.

[nibbleshifter]

Kits and YT videos pretty much always means "beyond the average consumer", meaning either paying a repair shop hundreds of euros in labour/profits, or just replacing the device.