They have a very good price-to-value ratio, especially when you account for their high resale value, so that's not really a good reason to avoid apple.
It is simply unbeatable on the laptop market currently, imo.
I was more thinking to the iphone (I don't have laptop). You can't find a cheap new iphone, and even the cheapest iphone is more than I would put in a phone myself.
It's true that now high end android phones are as expensive than high end iphones, so on this point of view it's not a criteria
I purchased two brand new iPhone SE's for $100 each around black Friday from Straight Talk. Required one month of prepaid service and then they were unlocked, I used them down in South America.
The iPhone SE is better than any comparable Android phone and will receive updates for another 5 years.
So "You can't find a cheap new iPhone" is not true. If you're willing to take 1 extra step and get a month of prepaid service you can get a cheap iPhone.
We get dazzled by "benchmark number higher" and ignore other factors. The lock-in means I'd need to have a gun to my head to use an Apple product. I can't game on it or use Linux. My laptop and desktop are both ~10 years old- how long are Apple computers supported? These factors don't show up in benchmarks but they are just as important.
Your laptop and desktop are 10 years old, and that’s it. They are not supported by anyone, they just didn’t die on you yet. Apple actually supports their devices for that long easily, that’s one category they really outshine their competitors in.
Also, the macs are not at all locked down if we are talking about that. OSX is pretty much a general linux with a generally supported graphical environment on top.
It's true that now high end android phones are as expensive than high end iphones, so on this point of view it's not a criteria