[pathartl]

Honestly, I find this to be such a weird argument. Apple does the same crap with iCloud and people put their hardware on a pedestal when it has the same inherent flaws, often for a much higher price. And maybe you share this opinion, I just want to point out that this hardware from MS is relatively benign in the grand scheme of the PC world.

[neodymiumphish]

Completely agree that Apple does the exact same stuff with account management and iCloud notifications, but I don’t understand where these arguments keep coming from that Apple is more costly.

The 13.5 sLaptop 6 for Business is, i5/8gb/256gb is $1200

Compare that the 14” MBP (M3/8gb/512gb) for $1600. The diff in SSD storage offsets some of the cost, but not the whole $400

However, the 13” MacBook Air with the same specs (although a much better CPU) - M3/8gb/256gb is actually $100 cheaper.

Until someone builds an actual M3 competitor, Apple’s making better laptops for cheaper.

I have an M1 16” MBP that’s still running laps around any other laptop I’ve ever owned, including the 15” sBook 2 with a 1060. The Windows Arm laptop I have sucks compared to the M-series.

Anyway, totally agree that Apple does the same cross-sell garbage as Microsoft, just think it’s way off to argue that their hardware is more expensive, at least meaningfully so when you compare the performance, longevity, and battery life.

[pathartl]

Yes, my argument was not that the Surface was competitive in pricing. There are much more reasonable options in the Windows world.

[neodymiumphish]

Well you said “from MS,” so I took that as one would.

Comparing some third party provider against Apple isn’t entirely reasonable, unless they’re marketing a very similarly premium brand.

[pathartl]

There are _many_ manufacturers that have premium products, including your "boring" manufacturers like HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

[neodymiumphish]

True, and all of their MSRPs are easily comparable to Apple’s similarly-specked hardware.

[snom380]

Does Apple require an Apple ID/iCloud account to set up a Mac? I thought that was a difference with windows 11?

[pathartl]

Windows 11 changed the OOBE to have users sign in, though this can be bypassed fairly easily if you're tech-literate. Sometimes for installs I'll bypass, other times I'll log in with a Microsoft account, then create a local user, switch to that user, and then delete the computer account for the MS account.

My original comment was that macOS is no better. They require an account for downloading any app on the app store. The Microsoft store does not require one.

[rwc]

They do not

[seec]

Well that depends where you buy, and I would argue that buying Surface device outside of sales/special offers is not a very wise decision. Those are MSRP not necessarily the price people will buy them at (unlike Apple).

Even then, a Surface Laptop is somewhere in between a MacBook Air and MacBook pro depending on configuration. Where I live, if you start adding necessary options, at the announced price a SL6 16/512GO is more expensive than a MacBook Air 16/512 (1879 vs 1759 euros) but much less expensive than a base MacBook Pro with 16/512 (2229 euros) and it arguably perform closer to the latter (especially with the dedicated 8GB of VRAM).

Then again, I would not buy them at launch and at the very least one should wait for their consumer-oriented offering.

Where I agree with you, is in Microsoft being almost as idiotic as Apple are with their pricing.

[neodymiumphish]

MSRP is the best way to compare. In the US, there are significant deals for Apple devices all the time.

[wiseowise]

I never seen any iCloud “ad” outside of iCloud settings item.

On windows I literally get annoying notification to use OneDrive.

[vizzier]

That is because apple doesn't ask you, it just turns it on. If you don't accept changes to their terms of service (As I haven't) you'd get these notifications fairly regularly.

[snom380]

Granted, I have iCloud turned on (for syncing notes and calendar) but I have it turned off for everything else. I’ve never had it ask me to turn on any of the other iCloud features like iCloud backup or drive / desktop sync. (And I’d guess if it synced things without my knowledge it would show up in my iCloud storage usage?)