[sempron64]

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it.

The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality control that confuse consumers and leave them unhappy. This is the flip side of choice in prioritizing, say, gaming performance over battery life while optimizing price or vice-versa.

Also my personal opinion is that 90% of consumer frustration comes from the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep between Windows, Intel/AMD, and OEMs. Consumers expect to be able to close their laptop and for it to preserve battery instead of becoming hot or dying the bag. That really needs a solution.

[samatman]

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU.

People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.

Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.

[HumblyTossed]

Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 14" 14ACN6. Got one at Costco over a year ago for around $700US. Runs Pop_OS! really well.

Weight is very much light enough for me.

Edit: There is one downside I found. I replaced the 512GB SSD with 1TB and nearly needed stitches because the bottom plate was so sharp. Oh and I just looked it up, it's listed at 3.04lbs

[moolcool]

A big factor is how these machines age too, though. 4 years ago the 2020 M1 Macbook Air dropped, and it's still a fantastic computer today. On the other hand, I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

[ftrobro]

I'm still using this beautiful 12 year old Samsung series 9 laptop. Unlike my 9 year old Macbook it still receives official security updates (Win 10) and can run any new application (Xcode refuses to install on the Macbook, too old).

https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/16/3160289/samsung-series-9-...

[Moldoteck]

can't you install linux on an older mac? (similar to how you installed win 10 on a 12 yr old laptop) for newer m1+ macs we still don't know the max age support

[ftrobro]

I probably can install Linux, but I'm fairly certain Xcode would still refuse to install... The upgrade from Win 7 to 10 was seamless, replacing MacOS with Linux would be like replacing the computer.

[HumblyTossed]

Why not? It benchmarks really good:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+5600U&i...

Here's the M1:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Apple+M1+8+Core+320...

[moolcool]

I'm just thinking more in terms of hardware. Trackpad, keyboard, display, hinges, ports, support, battery life-- all of those (in my experience) tend to either be poor out of the box or decay rapidly for many machines. I've used an "enterprise" HP laptop that's just a couple years old recently-- the battery is totally cooked and it feels like it's made out of takeout containers.

[HumblyTossed]

I'm a year and a half in and everything is running smooth. I still get a full workday out of the battery - and that's using Linux. That's plenty for me. It opens smooth. The keyboard is good - no deck flex. The screen is fine - even at only 300nits I don't need it brighter as I don't work in bright areas.

I really really don't see how this won't last another 2 and half years or even more.

[lelandbatey]

Eh, I've been using a Dell Inspiron (the ones with aluminum chassis) since 2019. I've been using a 13 inch Dell model of the same type since 2016. They're great quality, great track pad (actual clicking, instead of haptic garbage of the MacBook) and quite reliable. I say this as someone who also owns and uses an M1 Air, and uses a 2019 MBP and a 2023 M1 for work.

Apple isn't the only one making great machines that're nice to hold and nice to use.

[JonChesterfield]

A 4 year old Lenovo is an eight core Ryzen with 32gb memory. Battery still lasts a day. I'm not sure there's anything significantly better available yet.

[Moldoteck]

is a day a figure of speech or?

[JonChesterfield]

I charge it overnight and usually leave it unplugged for the day. It's rare for the laptop to give out before I do. T14s gen 1.

Ymmv. I got the low power screen instead of a touch screen and it spends most of the day rendering Emacs from a server elsewhere.

Browsers and local compile&run probably comes in around six hours. Some very cheap external monitors bring the runtime down to a couple of hours.

[King1st]

I have a Thinkpad T480 from 2018, bought it last year for $100. Peoples needs in a laptop are far lower than marketers would have you believe. Where as many M1 macs users are finding their laptops a struggle to do basic tasks. I use it for programming, 7 hours battery life with hot swappable battery. My fan spins up less often than the Apple silicon pros in the office which is nice because I hate fan noise.

[itsoktocry]

>I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

Why not? I have a M1 Max supplied by my employer, and it's awesome. But guess what I use as my daily driver? An old t450s, running Ubuntu. Does everything I need, I can fix and replace anything in it (including the battery), and the keyboard is awesome. I think it's 10 years old.

I mean, for most of the work I do my computer is just a client anyway.

[uticus]

Dell Latitude 5400, i5-8265U [0], 14" matte screen. Bought refurbished, self-upgraded to 32GB and 1TB M2 PCI SSD with about 10 mins worth of work.

Currently running Firefox (14 tabs), LibreOffice Calc (spreadsheet), LibreOffice Writer (word processor), 3 WebStorm project windows (JetBrains JavaScript IDE), Kitty (terminal emulator), on Arch Linux w/Gnome (Wayland). No fans running, about 6 hrs battery life on WiFi being productive. Around 3.4 lbs, so maybe a little heavy for a 14" machine. But the extra 0.x lbs is worth it.

Total cost under $600, been using as daily driver and dev machine for about 4 years now. Handles VMs, containers, whatever with no fuss. Parts are easy to source, easy to find repair helf for, and not too bad to replace. Spends about half it's life plugged into an external 42" 4K monitor, I get 30 FPS but that is just fine for everything I do. Point being, it handles fancy external display just fine. And that's with integrated graphics.

It's not a fancy computer. Fellow nerds sneer at it. I have people wonder at the fact that I do so much with like the same Dell that their non-tech acquaintances bought at WalMart or Costco or maybe second hand off Facebook, but this thing just works. I don't care if it breaks, or if I drop it, or if I spill something on it. The cost for replacing or upgrading is easily justified by ease of doing so - plus the money that has been saved by not getting a higher-priced machine. It is silent during web browsing and most day-to-day tasks.

[paulmd]

Literal skylake processor is not in the same performance class as M3 no matter what you tell yourself. The battery life alone is literally an order of magnitude different.

Just like OP said, this is not really a comparable machine. It’s fine if it meets your needs, but the apple is also a better machine and you shouldn’t dump on people for acknowledging this reality.

[uticus]

> not in the same performance class...it's fine if it meets your needs...the apple is also a better machine

all responses here have been along the lines of 'i have x many tabs open no problem. i develop y no problem. i use z containers no problem.' i tried to mirror that, in my response. sounds like the same class for most people in this thread by real usage, if not same performance class by benchmarking.

> you shouldn't dump on people for acknowledging this reality

sorry if i burst the bubble a little, if you excuse me i'll get back to being as productive as the other people crowing about the machine - possibly more so because I've spent the remaining $700-$2200 on other things that boost my productivity.

[paulmd]

> sorry if i burst the bubble a little

Pfft. Okay. I wonder if there’s a name for this kind of reaction, “door slamming”?

Normally it behooves you to be in the right when you do it.

[miggol]

Hello, laptop buddy!! Paid more than $700 in euros for it two years ago though. Can totally relate to the sharpness, but otherwise still very happy with it. Had to patch my ACPI to nuke S0 and get decent S3 suspend though. Did they ever patch that with firmware?

[HumblyTossed]

I recall doing this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/zq3tc5/how_to_disab...

And it worked for me.

[bowsamic]

> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.

Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

[fennecbutt]

People don't think about sports or boxing etc in the context of talking about laptops, and some people here speak English as a second or third or more language.

But no, let's be snarky about HN peeps being literal and misinterpreting things.

[bowsamic]

I agree, let’s do that. Thanks for saying it

[dividedbyzero]

> Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

I've always wondered why that is. No other community I'm active in insists so much on explicitly spelling out everything and very literal language – most will actually reward playing with language, if done well. Writing as if targeting Commander Data seems to work quite well though.

[bowsamic]

This might come off as projection, but in my experience, HN has a lot of people who pride themselves on their rationality, and part of this is giving off the image of never joking and always being serious. You can see this when people get mass downvoted for making jokes, which is also uncommon in other programming communities. Somehow this often spills over into metaphors as well as jokes. I think that jokes and metaphors are quite similar in that regard, both not to be taken totally seriously and/or literally. The HN insistence of being above jokes inevitably leads to being above metaphors.

[e63f67dd-065b]

Tech is known for being international, and even in the US is staffed with a lot of foreign-born labour. I don't find it surprising that a community with a high amount of non-native speakers sometimes misinterprets metaphors.

[silisili]

It's just not a good metaphor in this case, where weight is an actual determining factor. In boxing, weight class is literally your weight, saying nothing of your power.

League or class would have probably been better here.

[wfhBrian]

The other issue with linking is that the "best" in the windows market is that it's heavily dependent on current promotions. It's easy to find windows laptops discounted >20% which really throws off the direct comparisons at retail prices.

[johnnyanmac]

>That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.

Hard to be when other oems need to profit from hardware and pay windows/Intel/Nvidia/etc. For using their parts. But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.

Apple just metaphorically throws out a MacBook at the slightest inconvenience, they don't even bother trying to fix their own devices.

[dividedbyzero]

> But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.

Do they? At least for the slimmer models, I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess.

[johnnyanmac]

>I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess

ultrabooks, yes. everything is so crammed and specs are relatively low, so you're mostly stuck with what comes in the machine.

Most other laptops (the "pro" competitors) tend to not do that. There's no good reason for an OEM to do that if they aren't optimizing for some sub 4lb laptop.

[bombcar]

It's part of the reason Apple has so few SKUs compared to others, because everything is conjoined; Dell will have five SKUs that are identical except two removable pieces (RAM and SSD) are varying sizes.

[justinclift]

Personally, I'm ok with getting 2nd hand business grade models off Ebay. They're generally pretty good (and cheap).

But a lot of people (especially the less technically inclined) will only buy brand new, which I think is for safety.

Anyway, 2nd hand laptops on Ebay can be both really good and in that price range. :)

[gnicholas]

I'm not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops, especially since the latter generally don't come with any sort of warranty. And when you're buying off ebay (and can't inspect beforehand, like with craigslist/nextdoor), you don't even know for sure if it will work on day 1.

[samatman]

> not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops

It of course makes no sense at all. For any given laptop, you can also buy it used. Including MacBooks, believe it or not. It's a way of puffing up a comparison when the person making it knows the comparison doesn't stand on its own.

[justinclift]

Yeah, I'm kind of 50/50 about comparing them for the purposes of this conversation too.

In practical terms though, when I'm looking for a new laptop I do check both pricing of new and what's on Ebay. Sometimes I'll go with the new thing, and other times I'll get the Ebay thing, depending on the situation.

[bombcar]

I always keep an eye on those, but certified refurbished from manufacturers (whether Apple or Dell or HP, etc) are really good deals, quite often, and a known quantity.

I've no problem buying certified refurbished for work, whereas for home eBay off-lease is more acceptable because I know it's me dealing with issues if they crop up.

[gnicholas]

Yeah, I've bought refurb Apple devices from Apple, partly because they're always in pristine cosmetic condition, but mostly because you can buy AppleCare for them just as if they were new.

[jwagenet]

I think for the general public this is a reasonable comparison, since the performance is good enough for most things on a 2 year old eng pc for less than half the msrp. I would expect most corporate refurbs on eBay to be moderately reputable, and eBay is know to be consumer friendly.

[WesleyLivesay]

Shouldn't you then compare it to a 2 year old Air? They seem to be in the $600-$700 range on eBay.

[bombcar]

You can get a refurbished Air direct from Apple for $749. Cheaper from other places online.

[justinclift]

Probably a good comparison point as well. :)

[gnicholas]

I would consider buying a used computer from a person, if I could test it in advance. I don't think I'd ever buy a computer sight-unseen off ebay. They may be customer friendly on balance, but they're unpredictable enough that I wouldn't want to spend that kind of cash and risk being completely screwed.

[janalsncm]

> I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class"

I think “class” is the term you’re looking for. Or ballpark.

[silisili]

Are we talking weight class as in weight or performance?

I find the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 'in the weight class' with about the same weight, but with a less performant CPU and not as high res screen. It's also 8/256, has good battery life, and is fine for a lot of workloads. It can be had for $400ish factory recertified, or 100-200 more new brand new depending on sales.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that the two go toe to toe here, I'm just listing a lightweight alternative.

[NotSammyHagar]

This is an excellent laptop, I've found it to be great. Plenty of people can't stand chromeos, but you can run linux in vm mode, I find the ability to have a safe env but run any x / linux apps natively makes for a very compelling combo. You can run emacs, any x-windows software like dev tools natively. I also like the ability to run android apps - with the limitation that some app disallow running them unless they are on a 'native' phone; over time it seems more and more mainstream apps allow this.

[silisili]

Yep same. I wanted a cheap decent laptop for when I'm traveling, which isn't often, so didn't want or need best of the best. It dawned on me I spend about all my time on the web, in vs code, or on the command line. With their Linux VM setup I can install about anything, and it both installs and runs as if it were a native app. Perfect for my use case, at least.

I'm not a huge fan of the ChromeOS UI and whatnot, but spend very little time interacting with it or Gnome on my main machine, so it's fine enough.

[michaelcampbell]

> not in the same weight class as a MacBook

Which might not be a consideration whatsoever. It isn't for me; I bring my laptop to the office, or from the office, and am never using it where weight makes one bit of difference.

[n42]

“Weight class” as in “League”, not weight

[BHSPitMonkey]

Commuting to/from an office is usually a prime example of when a laptop's weight would matter.

[michaelcampbell]

Again, not for me. I throw it in a backpack and because I'm in the US without good public transport, the distance I carry it is precisely from my house to my car (25'), then from the parking garage to the office.

I "carry" it maybe a total of 3 minutes. The weight is literally not an issue for me.

I get it can be for others, but not EVERYONE.

[dividedbyzero]

Commutes can be very different, too. Someone who walks and uses public transport will feel differently about the weight of their laptop than someone who just has to lug theirs to their car and across the parking lot. Same with travel: Flying with just a carry-on bag and crossing big airports on foot makes lightweight laptops a lot more attractive.

[theultdev]

Speaking for myself, weight and battery life are the two most important factors for a portable.

I mainly use a desktop if I'm at home or the office.

I only use a laptop occasionally in bed or heavily when traveling.

[Our_Benefactors]

The term you’re looking for is “caliber”, since many will interpret “weight class” to mean the actual weight of the laptop.

[ecopoesis]

> “caliber”

What are you talking about? Laptops aren't even round.</literal>

[paulmd]

also, there isn’t even a barrel let alone any sort of rifling? So how could we conceivably measure laptops in terms of barrel length if there’s no diameter or length?

I just don’t see the metaphor here /s

[switch007]

> People love to say this without linking to a model

Because they all have a crap screens (1920x1080) and bad battery life and we would point it out lol

[rfoo]

> same weight class as a MacBook

Except that there are plenty? As long as you avoid Dell it's easy to find a good deal.

Oh, and I prefer plastic. Aluminum adds weight for nothing.

[konart]

Why not just name a few with links to benchmarks, temperature and battery profile etc?

[jiqiren]

lol reply guy didn't leave a model name either...

[DataDive]

Oh yeah?

Please link to a model, just one in the 500-600 range that is comparable to a 1K Apple model.

I have owned half a dozen Windows laptops in the past, in all kinds of price ranges, cheaper and far more expensive than a Macbook Air.

None were even remotely comparable to the build quality and practicality of a Macbook Air. This was true even in the Intel CPU era. In the M processor era, the gap only increased.

You cannot even do research on a good Windows laptop because the makers constantly change the model numbers to confuse the customer and hide the flaws of these systems.

You buy a Windows laptop then either the screen, the battery life, the touchpad or the keyboard will suck ... maybe all four.

The sole reason to buy a Windows laptop and put up with all these flaws is playing games. If you need that you will put up with all that crap.

[rkangel]

The parent isn't saying that there are $500 laptops that are as good as $1k Air. They're saying that there are $500 laptops that are "good enough" for most people's use.

Personally for home use I buy pre-owned Thinkpads and then put Linux on them. They're fine for normal use - Internet, Email and light to moderate SW Development. The screens are mediocre, but I pay £300-£400 (UK). Oh and I don't care about battery age because replacements are inexpensive and require sliding one catch to make the replacement.

Yes, for work I want something more performant and I'm considering pushing work to get me a Macbook (instead of the high-spec Thinkpad I currently have), but that's a different use case.

[DataDive]

Good enough is not the correct term.

The other day I bought a 30 dollar phone,

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Walmart-Family-Mobile-BLU-View-4-...

it has all the functionality that you might need it has map, a browser, runs facebook and twitter apps, tiktok what else do you need

can I use that as an argument that why buy an iPhone for 1K if you can get a great phone for $30 - no because when you talk about phones or laptop you are talking about comparable products

what I was saying that you cannot buy the same value you get with a Macbook in any laptop product

[havaloc]

$500 laptops are good enough until they have to call over a tech consultant (me) to work through some issues once every 3 months. At trip charge of $65 each, they aren't saving money with a $500 laptop - and then the battery gives out 2.5 years later.

This isn't theoretical, it happens all the time. I worked with a person who had a 10 year old MacBook Air - it still worked and held a charge! They got their money's worth.

[jwells89]

As someone who likes to keep at least one machine dedicated to each major OS around at any given time, the thing that’s frustrating about non-Apple laptops is that just about all of them, including machines costing well in excess of base Macbook models, make big tradeoffs somewhere or another. Very few are good all-rounders, even if many are better than Macbooks in one or two aspects.

I would kill for a version of ThinkPad X1 Nano or X1 Carbon for example that had the battery life, silence, and unplugged performance of a Macbook Air for example, but no such machine exists even if I were to spend twice as much as the cost of a MacBook Air.

[Klonoar]

> I would kill for a version of ThinkPad X1 Nano or X1 Carbon for example that had the battery life, silence, and unplugged performance of a Macbook Air

Ditto on the Nano. I wind up looking at it every few months and then begrudgingly walking away because it just doesn't make any sense to buy.

[jwells89]

I have the first gen and it’s about the perfect size for an ultraportable in my opinion, and its screen, build, and general feel are great but its battery and CPU are underwhelming at best.

The newer gens are even more confusing because they don’t offer the cooler, more efficient U CPU variants, only the hotter more power hungry P variants, which exacerbates heat and battery life issues.

[paulmd]

U chips are just P chips with a tighter power limit, they’re not inherently “more efficient” (same architecture), just a lower cap.

is there really anything stopping you from setting a lower cTDP if that’s really what you want?

[jwells89]

Where would you set that? The only PC I’ve seen that lets you explicitly set a target TDP is the Steam Deck, the most I’ve seen elsewhere is the ability to turn off turboboost and limit clock speed.

Regardless, a default TDP above that of a U chip in a Nano is still an odd choice given that machine’s lack of cooling and battery capacity resulting from its size. It means that a lot of buyers who have no idea how to reduce it are going to have a subpar experience.

[Garcia98]

> The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality control that confuse consumers and leave them unhappy. This is the flip side of choice in prioritizing, say, gaming performance over battery life while optimizing price or vice-versa.

This is 100% it, Lenovo has been killing it lately with their Yoga/Slim series, but for every laptop they have that competes with a MacBook, they also have a myriad of other options that are just e-waste. At the end of the day, the average consumer is not going to do the same kind of research that a tech enthusiast might do, and Apple has a somewhat simple catalog (although incredibly overpriced once you step out of the entry configs).

[gjsman-1000]

I bought a laptop for about $600 with a GPU (RTX 3050).

The display... is not comparable. Sure, it's 144hz compared to the Mac's 60hz... but it's only 74% NTSC at 250 nits with 1080p, so the color accuracy and dim picture is distractingly bad.

And as for sleep, it's just useless. You close it with 70% at night and it's dead by morning. Supposedly the battery is the same size, but even when it's awake, the battery never makes it last more than ~2 hours. Also, that's two hours... when I'm not gaming, as I painfully learned when trying to download a Windows ISO. When I'm gaming, well, then it's shorter.

I might as well mention the thick, heavy, completely plastic construction. Feels like it will shatter from one drop. On the upside I managed to upgrade it from 8GB to 16GB... but then I'm wondering why this laptop even shipped with 8GB in the first place.

Ultimately though, it runs Windows with a basic GPU. Desktop Parametric CAD isn't coming to Mac anytime soon.

[vundercind]

I was initially issued a Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows at my new job last year. I really liked my bottom-tier IBM Thinkpad back in the mid '00s (running a heavily-tuned Gentoo) and WSL exists so it's possible to do real work on a Windows machine without just using it to run a fullscreen Linux VM (... though WSL2 kinda is that) so I decided to give it a real chance.

I was working on getting issued a MacBook within a week. Right back to battery/outlet anxiety that I had escaped years and years ago by switching to Mac. Goddamn thing was losing over half its power over night. Six hours of useful time before you'll be hunting for an outlet at best from a full battery. WTF.

My MacBook that I've been using on battery almost three hours this morning and that hasn't been plugged in since about 5PM Friday is still over 70% charge. I didn't even think about or check the battery level when I opened it this morning, because there's no way it'd be a problem. Ahhh. Relaxing.

[int_19h]

Which ThinkPad model was it?

[smoldesu]

As a dissenting example, I got a 14" Lenovo Ideapad with a Ryzen 7 for $250 on Ebay. It's got a nice 1440p HDR display, a great iGPU for gaming at low-power, and an 8-core CPU.

If you want an ultrabook experience, get ultrabook hardware.

[Teever]

> Desktop Parametric CAD isn't coming to Mac anytime soon.

I had no problems with Fusion360 running under Rosetta 2 and Autodesk recently released an Apple Silicon version of Fusion360.

[gjsman-1000]

Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of SolidWorks and Alibre which aren't so web-based.

[johnwalkr]

I use soldiworks on an M1 Pro 14" macbook pro under parallels and it's fine for professional work (including ~2000 part assemblies). Not fast but on par with my 2019 13" macbook pro and I've never been unable to do anything that I can do on my desktop.

[Solvency]

Switch to Fusion or Rhino/Grasshopper.

[xutopia]

I disagree with your assessment.

Things that matter to me and that all Windows laptops in the same price range or lower as the MBA have shittier speakers, camera, monitor (both brightness and color accuracy). The trackpad feels entirely wrong on those plastic devices and often you have loud fans turning on at random times. Furthermore they're usually heavier despite being made out of plastic rather than metal.

[Solvency]

Why has it been so utterly impossible for a single Windows laptop manufacturer to match the build quality? Just matching the body itself would at last be SOMETHING.

[xutopia]

I suspect it has to do with the effect of scale. Apple operates with limited number of models and that means they get volume for each mould and assembly lines. If you did 20000 laptops of one model versus 2 million you can definitely can put way more thought into every detail and that translates into higher quality.

[izacus]

Because you're not looking hard enough.

[Solvency]

Right, it's actually all my fault.

[MBCook]

So post some links.

[akshayt]

The zephyrus g14 2023 should be in the same ballpark https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-14-165hz-...

The 2023 version is made from magnesium alloy with plastic at the back while the macbook is unibody aluminium.

The 2024 version is aluminium unibody like the macbook and the new speakers are nearly as good as macbook ones from the reviews I have read. However I have only been able to find the 4070 model which is much more expensive than the macbook. There is also the XPS 14 but it is also more expensive than the macbook

Edit :- Found a 4060 model of the g14 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2024-14-o...

If you get the m3 air with 16gb ram and 512gb ssd the g14 is 100 dollars more expensive but the price will probably drop to lower than the macbook in sales

[saurik]

I solve these problems by: 1) only ever buying machines without fans; 2) barely ever touching a mouse; and 3) using my phone for speakers and camera... all three of which I was doing even when I used to use a Mac as fans have always sucked, I am a software developer and don't need or want a mouse, and Apple's laptop cameras have always been much worse than the phones in their phones AND meeting software tends to do dumb things if you screen share and try to just be in the meeting at the same time (and do it is often better to have an external camera device off to the side).

I then just have to buy any laptop that: 1) doesn't weigh much; 2) doesn't have a fan (this is so much more difficult than it should be it is insane); and 3) has a good enough monitor... I care a lot about resolution and brightness but it might be I don't care enough about color accuracy as I am a software developer and so honestly barely have much use for more than 16 colors and mostly look at photos, again, on my phone (which is also my camera and my media device in general as it is simply better at that so this makes sense). If you are a graphics designer, though, I get it... but weren't they always Apple's core market?

[justin66]

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives

I would pay more for an acceptable alternative - no fan, Windows 11, good battery life, top quality screen, no gimmick features (touchscreen! detachable screen! whatever).

No such thing exists, as far as I can tell.

[theultdev]

Don't forget the touch pad / gesture recognition.

You can tell Windows laptops are general computers, the hardware fires off the gesture recognition and gives the command to the OS, so you swipe, it's recognized, then you get the action.

On Mac, the gesture is registered as it's happening, you can pull the screen, cancel, flick it, etc.

Not to mention the convenience of taking it to any Apple store and the battery life.

I game on Windows, host on Linux, and travel with Apple.

[Solvency]

Can you explain technically the hardware difference here? Or is there none and Apple's track firmware/software is just better.

[tnmom]

Probably some vendor provides the trackpad, and provides a driver for that trackpad, and it recognizes the gesture and then sends Windows a `GestureHappened()` event.

Versus macOS being fully integrated and effectively generating `GestureProgress(0.31)` events.

[vient]

I don't notice anything unusual in that sense on MSI laptop with Linux. I start pinching, browser immediately performs gradual zoom. Swiping with 3 fingers immediately starts a "desktop switch" which is controlled by my movement - so I can pause, revert the gesture, and you will see on the screen exactly what you expect, second desktop partially showing, pausing, and then going back.

Can't test on Windows right now but I would expect it to have even less problems than Linux.

[theultdev]

It's possible things have improved, I haven't used a non Apple laptop in some time.

Last time I checked on Windows, swiping will result in basically an alt-tab after the swipe.

It was not a fluid motion that could be cancelled.

[pmontra]

> The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market

Another way to look at that is "MacOS vs non-MacOS" laptop market.

There is only one manufacturer of MacOS laptops. That helps keeping the number of models down. Same thing for the iOS vs non-iOS phone and tablets market. If you want MacOS or iOS you must buy Apple. Hackintoshes do exist but are a rounding error compared to the number of machines Apple sells. And if you want Apple, you must get MacOS and iOS. You can run something else on that hardware, but again we are writing about rounding errors.

There are non-MacOS laptop manufacturers with even less models than Apple have. Maybe it's very niche but the Framework laptop has been popular on HN lately and it has only two models.

On the other side if you want to buy non-MacOS, then HP, Lenovo or Dell have a zillion of laptops each, ranging from the very low end to the very high end. Some people pick features and look at which models are left with those features (that's me.) Some people pick a price tag instead. Probably the laptop is a commodity to the price tag people, much like gas. Who really cares about the gas company? If you need to fill the tank everything will do.

And about

> the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep

this is something that Microsoft throw at us and we can't dodge it much. My laptop runs Linux and it's from the pre Hybrid Sleep era. I didn't investigate if Linux sleep works well with new laptops.

[mikepurvis]

Hybrid sleep being broken is the #1 dealbreaker issue I have with my work-supplied XPS 9570. I know that machine is pretty long in the tooth at this point, but in some ways that actually makes it worse, that it's been all these years and Dell just shrugged and moved on.

It really doesn't make me want to reward them with more money, only to find out what exciting new issues will be present and trivially reproducible for the entire next revision of the hardware.

[skygazer]

I buy myself supposedly overpriced Macs and never have hardware issues, but buy family, that prefer Windows, more affordable $400-800 HP/Toshiba laptops. Over the last decade and a half, the HPs/Toshibas invariably have keyboard failures within a year or two, with ignored keypresses and key labels rubbing off, and internal fans seized, overheating problems. And those cheap plastic cases are never the same once opened. I hate them so much. Although, I suspect if I spent as much on a PC that I do on a Mac, we wouldn't have those issues, but I can't bring myself to spend that much on a Windows laptop.

[Thrymr]

The reliability issues are real. I have a MacBook Air that is 11 years old now, I haven't done anything but replace the battery, and it still works fine. The only real issue is that the memory is not upgradable, otherwise it would still be a generally useful machine (instead of just light web browsing and Zoom).

[meatmanek]

Certain vintages of Apple laptops have proven more durable than others in my experience.

My 2007 MBP went through a battery every 11 months for about 3 cycles before I finally missed the boat on getting that 4th battery replaced under warranty.

My 2013 MBA still has a perfectly healthy battery today, though it doesn't see much use and its disk just died yesterday.

My 2017 MBP's battery degraded significantly after about 300 or 400 cycles (within spec, I think). A few keys on the keyboard partially failed due to dust or whatever (common in this vintage). The screen had some sort of damage that gave a subtle color cast to parts of the image. The USB-C ports wear out after like 20 insertions and won't hold a cable in place anymore. A year or two ago I replaced the screen and bottom case (keyboard, battery) and it's still doing fine.

[Analemma_]

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives,

I don't think this true, unless you have extremely low standards for "acceptable". I've tried a number of $400 laptops and in every single case got fed up with the shittiness within minutes.

[lotsofpulp]

> Also my personal opinion is that 90% of consumer frustration comes from the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep between Windows, Intel/AMD, and OEMs. Consumers expect to be able to close their laptop and for it to preserve battery instead of becoming hot or dying the bag. That really needs a solution.

Mind boggling that so many smart people at Microsoft/AMD/Intel/HP/Dell have not been able to figure this out yet.

[acdha]

Here’s a better way to think about it: whose boss thinks that _they_ need to fix something as opposed to all of those other people? If your MacBook had a problem everyone involved knows that Tim Cook is going to pull their bosses into his office and ask why he’s reading a news story about unhappy users. In the PC or Android world you have coordinate different parties who each have a financial stake in saying that their part is working but the other guys screwed up.

This is an area where I think part of the solution should be regulatory: require manufacturers to take back defective devices within a much longer period of time after the initial sale, for example, or requiring them to cash out advertised features which don’t work reliably.

[johnnyanmac]

>Mind boggling that so many smart people at Microsoft/AMD/Intel/HP/Dell have not been able to figure this out yet.

Follow the money. How much demand is there for it, Who's incentivized to fix it, how much does it cost to R&D, and will that feature increase profit margins?

The sad workaround is simply SSD's having faster boot times and setting a computer to hibernate instead of sleep when closed (and not on battery). It gets "close enough" for many.

[lotsofpulp]

>The sad workaround is simply SSD's having faster boot times and setting a computer to hibernate instead of sleep when closed (and not on battery). It gets "close enough" for many.

That is not a workaround since, as far as I know, only MacBooks have a sufficiently good reputation that when you close the lid, it won’t still be on in your bag.

I assume if this hibernate option was viable, then people would be slamming their Windows laptop shut and stuffing it in their bag at a moment’s notice.

[johnnyanmac]

>I assume if this hibernate option was viable, then people would be slamming their Windows laptop shut and stuffing it in their bag at a moment’s notice.

it's viable for me. sleep has never been consistent on any of the 10 devices I had, no matter the cost or build of the laptop. But that's the default settings when you receive a new Windows device and changing this means going deep into the settings (Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\System Settings in case you're curious). So most people won't ever have that configured. It's probably at best what pops up if you google "how to fix windows sleep issue" or "my laptop not turning off when lid closed" kinds of stuff.

That's one mantra Apple usually lives up to: "it just works". i.e. most of their defauls align with what a consumer expects, and is consistent with behavior. Windows/Linux can do almost everything a mac does, but you may have to spend days figuring out the settings and how they interact with your specific machine.

[carlosjobim]

> Follow the money.

If you follow the money, you can see it flowing in to Apple's bank account from consumers.

[acdha]

This is a lazy troll - for example, note how conspicuously people making that claim are unable to identify specific equivalent hardware at significantly lower prices or any discussion of the total cost of ownership over the service life of the device. Simply repeating a cliche forum comment doesn’t contribute anything like those details could.

[smoldesu]

> note how conspicuously people making that claim are unable to identify specific equivalent hardware

At this rate, if you show someone a laptop that's genuinely better than a Macbook they'll complain that it's missing a notch. Setting a nebulous standard of "equivalent hardware" is a lazy goalpost intended to waste the time of good-faith commentators. It's an ivory throne in the swamp, if it suits you.

[acdha]

> At this rate, if you show someone a laptop that's genuinely better than a Macbook they'll complain that it's missing a notch.

Okay, let’s test that: try being the first one in the thread to do so and see what responses you get.

[johnnyanmac]

sure, trillion dollar company invested hundreds of billions over a decade to secure their own supply chain from parts to distribution.

But I don't think every other OEM would have the same success even if it ended up being higher quality.

[carlosjobim]

They became a trillion dollar company by doing that. There was nothing stopping other enormous companies to compete on quality and customer service, but they decided against that. Follow the money indeed...

[johnnyanmac]

>There was nothing stopping other enormous companies to compete on quality and customer service, but they decided against that.

I mean, are we pretending that Microsoft also isn't a trillion dollar company? They are the only one with an incentive to do that strategy, but they probably got a good share of money from licensing their platform to other OEMs.

The next closest thing to "full OS vertical integration" are game consoles. Specialized devices focused on entertainment instead of general purpose ones.

[NotSammyHagar]

It's the heterogenous combination of multiple and constantly changing hardware requiring tweaks or adjustments to the sleep modes. It's not satisfactory to write that down but I think that's what's happening.

[indymike]

At $700, you'll out-spec the mac on RAM and GPU but get a potato grade 1080p display.

[briffle]

My Asus zenbook 14 is around that price, has a 1TB disk, and 16GB of ram. I'm sure the processor on the M3 is faster, and probably a fair amount more battery out of it, but now I'm comparing a $1000 zenbook to a $1700 13' macbook once I add disk and memory, without the upgraded cpu.

[Solvency]

And it feels like a cheap piece of flexible creaky plastic.

[tryptophan]

I bought one and it actually feels very well put together. Quiet, pretty 2.8k oled screen, and long battery which is all I really care about.

[akvadrako]

They are all metal.

[Macha]

But will probably outlive your MBP keyboard.

[caycep]

of note: MacBook Air actually has a decent GPU...

[turtlebits]

I have yet to see a under $1.5k non-Apple laptop with a comparable high res / high quality display.

[moralestapia]

>But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives

Can you show me just one of those, please?

I would buy it today.

[HumblyTossed]

About a year and a half ago, I was looking to get a new MBPro to replace my existing one. I loved the hardware, but having used Linux since the alphabet floppies, the software was always meh. So I was in Costco one day and they had cheap Lenovo ideapads (Ideapad 5 Pro 14") on sale for something like $700US. I bought one, put Pop_OS! on it and it's been running great since. Has and AMD processor, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. It's really snappy and best of all it's pretty solid with no deck flex.

[The5thElephant]

I'm curious what you can do in Pop_OS that makes MacOS software "meh" in comparison? I have a few friends who are Linux devotees yet watching them do stuff seems so tedious and slow in comparison to my workflows. Like I get that you can setup all sorts of keyboard shortcuts and stuff to do whatever you want, but that's also possible in MacOS, so what is it exactly that you can do better/faster in Pop_OS?

For most of my Linux friends they claim it's because they prefer the customization, but in practice it really seems more like they just dislike the Apple ecosystem in principle. I have yet to find a workflow they have that I can't do more easily and faster in MacOS. Similar experience with working in git in the terminal vs GUI apps. So many devs swear the terminal is "faster and more powerful for git" but in practice I am doing basic git functions faster and with fewer errors than they are just using the GitHub desktop app.

I would very much like to be proven wrong, I think OS competition is a good thing, I just want to see some practical examples.

[opan]

I've got a M2 Max MBP I'm not using yet because there's no way to get sshfs/fuse working with free as in freedom software on macOS, and Asahi doesn't support external displays yet, so it can't take over for my ThinkPad T440p with either OS.

Package management and package availability is much worse in the macOS world. Nix is weirdly broken, at least the ARM macOS packages. Homebrew is okay but not very good, similar to Chocolatey on Windows.

When you need extra software for something on macOS, chances are it's proprietary and may even cost money. This is not the norm at all in the GNU/Linux world, and it comes off as quite disturbing to me. It's like a community of everyone scamming and mistreating each other instead of working together to improve things.

I'm not even a dev, for the record. GNU/Linux is just what works best for me.

[MSFT_Edging]

> It's like a community of everyone scamming and mistreating each other instead of working together to improve things.

I was saying this exact thing to a friend of mine who is big into apple products and suggested that you could technically do the things I wanted to do on apple devices.

The general ecosystem between windows/linux/mac is very different. Windows freeware is all packaged and provided on sites last updated in 2002 and look like you'll get a virus despite the site being the defacto source.

Linux software feels a lot more unified(despite n+1 packaging schemes) and feels a lot more like a collective effort where anything is possible.

Mac software wants you to break out your wallet and contribute to the APPL bottom line in order to get some basic custom functionality for some app written by a single developer that will be quietly given up on in a couple years.

[int_19h]

With Windows these days you can have a much better experience with freeware if you install it via WinGet.

[The5thElephant]

Additional software being free by default is definitely an advantage Linux has, although usually not the benefit I see pointed to by most Linux users.

That being said I am a dev and a designer and I can't think of any paid software I use beyond Figma (which is free for basic use) and Texts.app which doesn't have any free or paid equivalent on Linux.

[seszett]

> Asahi doesn't support external displays yet,

It does if your machine has a hdmi port. It just doesn't support displays connected to the USB-C ports.

To comment on the topic, for me the window management on macOS is a deal-breaker, I just never manage to make it do what I want without having to constantly fiddle with the windows to put them where I need them, and focus just works on a weird way.

I tried amethyst (I think) and although it improves things, it really looks like a hack, a constant battle against the native behaviour.

[The5thElephant]

Agreed the built-in window management isn't ideal (although I do like Spaces and Mission Control a lot more than what I've seen in Linux/Windows defaults) but there are a lot of free and simple apps that significantly improve it in just about any way you want. I can arrange my windows in a couple key strokes to whatever layout I desire.

[HumblyTossed]

>I'm curious what you can do in Pop_OS that makes MacOS software "meh" in comparison?

Having used Linux since forever ago, MacOs was "meh" to me because while it is a unix, it was just different enough for me to find it "meh". IOW, I found it to be "meh" for the fact that it just wasn't Linux.

You sound offended, don't be.

[The5thElephant]

I am not offended at all, just curious and your reply confirmed my assumption?

Genuinely, how did you get offended out of that?

[szundi]

Sorry but 400 is peanuts to beat Apple’s simplest in build quality, touchpad and performance