[mcgrath_sh]

I have considered going back to Mac after about 5-7 years on Windows/WSL, but the storage premium is just too much to swallow. If the $999 was a base 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, I'd consider it. I just added another 32GB of RAM to my 2020 built desktop for $50. You can get a 1TB crucial M.2 drive for $70. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges, but the storage cost is too much, and 256GB is much too little.

Edit: to go to 32GB RAM is $400. To go to 1TB SSD is another $400. That is essentially doubling the $999 cost. $400 buys me between 4 and 6 1TB M.2 drives or 2-3 2TB M.2 drives.

[godelski]

  > storage premium

I wanted to make a nice comparison chart: (prices are very rough but from NewEgg)

  DDR5 RAM (Single Stick)
  Memory  Apple  Desktop Laptop  Server
    16      -     ~$40    ~$40     ~$60
    24    +$200   ~$200   ~$50    ~$100
    32    +$400   ~$80    ~$80   ~$100-$200
  2 Sticks
    64      -     ~$200   ~$170  ~$150
   128      -     ~$115   ~$310  ~$250

  Storage  Apple  NVME (Gen 5)  NVME (Gen 4) SSD     HDD
  256GB     -         -           ~$50       ~$20   ~$20
  512GB   +$200       -           ~$60       ~$30   ~$40
   1T     +$400     ~$150         ~$80       ~$60   ~$50
   2T     +$800     ~$200         ~$150      ~$100  ~$60
   4T       -       ~$400         ~$280      ~$200  ~$80

Side Note: I recently bought a 11T HDD for $120...

You can AT WORST buy the storage OUTRIGHT for cheaper than it is to UPGRADE. But in most cases you can buy more than double what Apple is offering for cheaper than it is to UPGRADE.

I boycotted Apple for years because of these issues, but unfortunately I think this battle is lost. I gave up. I have a macbook Air. It is nice, but it is a glorified SSH machine. They must know this, because I'd prefer to get an iPad pro with a keyboard but run an actual fucking desktop OS. But then again, the fucking iPad isn't even good at the one thing it is supposed to be good at: writing... The 3rd party apps are leagues ahead of Apple Notes.

What I can't figure out is:

  - Why are there no good competitors? 
  - Why are there no good linux laptops with good battery life?

[mrheosuper]

why the heck a 24gb stick on desktop cost $200

[godelski]

It's a really uncommon type so I'm assuming just that. I mean why get 24? Doesn't that number seem weird to you? It should

[p00dles]

What apps do you use instead of Apple Notes for writing/keeping notes?

[godelski]

I use Goodnotes, but people really like notability. For me, the most obtuse missing feature from Apple notes is that you can't fucking pinch to zoom...

[ndiddy]

The whole point of Apple's pricing strategy over the past few years is that since they have a monopoly on storage/RAM upgrades, they can price base model computers at margins below what they'd normally be comfortable with, and then gouge users on the upgrade costs to claw back some of those margins. That's how they're able to charge $400 for an extra 16GB of RAM.

[kccqzy]

I doubt it. In corporate environments I see so many base models being used. Most office workers do everything on SaaS web apps anyway; they only need sufficient RAM to run a browser and browser-based apps. Having small amount of storage is a feature not a bug, because it prevents employees from downloading too much company proprietary information onto their laptops.

[aprilnya]

Same with stuff like OneDrive and SharePoint.

I do something similar with my personal laptops/PCs too — any actual files are in cloud storage[1], and mounted[2] so that they don't actually sync to the device, therefore not taking up space...

Honestly it feels very freeing having your data just be in server(s) somewhere, not having to worry about moving it between devices, or having to copy it over if you need to format/get rid of the device, or forgetting to copy over a file you need to your phone when going out, etc...

[1] Nextcloud rented from Hetzner https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/

[2] Nextcloud client has a feature called Virtual Files on Windows, and on Linux I just use the Nextcloud integration which uses WebDAV under the hood

[znpy]

> they only need sufficient RAM to run a browser and browser-based apps.

browser-bases apps are notoriously memory hogs, your point doesn't make much sense.

the truth is that apple get away with cheating a lot on their OS as they swap aggressively and do very aggressive swap compression.

the part about swapping aggressively is essentially overlooked by the entire industry: swapping to flash storage will wear it out faster, which is a huge issue when the flash chip is soldered and not replaceable. this will essentially create more e-waste (but they get to (happily) sell you a new laptop). so long for being green.

[sunshowers]

Everyone already knows this is what they do, they're just pointing out that it's abusive.

[usefulcat]

Abusive is a stretch. If you don't like it.. you're free to not buy from them?

[TheDong]

I'd be free to not buy from them if they released iMessage and facetime for android so people wouldn't get kicked from groupchats and prevented from being able to video call their grandmother when they switched phones.

Google hangouts / gmail works fine on iOS and android. Same for whatsapp, zoom, signal, etc. Heck, even microsoft teams.

Apple has more money than any of those companies, and yet also has the wildly most anti-competitive restrictive software, ensuring almost all of its services (apple music/books/iMessage/facetime/etc etc) more or less require all your devices to be apple devices.

I don't know if it's abusive, but it's certainly putting more chains on the user than any of the other similar ecosystems.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

This seems wildly overblown.

I'm running Windows laptops / desktops these days, and drive an iPhone and the sun hasn't exploded.

[sunshowers]

I don't buy from them and consider it abusive at the same time. What a concept.

[usefulcat]

I think "egregious" would be a fairer, more accurate adjective.

I know people who have been victims of actual abuse; it's not remotely the same thing as paying too much for a laptop.

[sunshowers]

I've been repeatedly abused for big parts of my life, and I have a CPTSD diagnosis from it.

It's not just paying too much, it's one of the world's most valuable mega-corporations asking you to pay too much. If it were a boutique shop I wouldn't call it abusive. It's a combination of the bad behavior and the exercise of raw power that makes it so.

[ivanmontillam]

Yes, but it's perceived as abusive when two of the most feared devils come into play against you in a two-flanked attack: Network Effects and Vendor Lock-in.

I feel cornered when my social circle all use iPhones and then they want to Airdrop me something and I just can't receive it. I'm an Android man, I cannot stand the blue pill Apple feels to me.

Peer pressure is a serious threat, presented in the form of... abusive behaviour indeed.

[Keyframe]

I'm in another, bizarre camp. I'd pay double whatever they're charging for if I could run linux on it utilizing all of the hardware. Also, if notch went away, but that's another story. Unless someone knows of laptop hardware that comes close to both performance, comfort, and battery which can run linux.

[petesergeant]

Oddly enough I'd probably accept a much cheaper, shittier laptop if it ran OS X, but, I've been all-in on Apple hardware since 2006, so maybe I don't understand how bad the non-Apple laptops really are. Conceptually I'd be fine with Linux on the desktop -- hell I used to use OpenBSD as a daily driver -- but OS X is in my veins now.

[carlosjobim]

Hackintosh

[vvillena]

You can make the notch go away with third-party apps. On the Pro laptops the screen has miniLED backlighting, so the dark area stays purely black. Removing the notch this way leaves you with a 16:10 screen, so you still have more screen real state than in most other laptops.

[Kerrick]

Yep, it's not a notch cut into your available space. It's "wings" of extra pixels taking up what would otherwise be unused space.

[russelg]

This point is normally conveniently ignored by notch detractors.

[mrheosuper]

no, it cuts into your available space, because every other premium laptop makes use of that space

[_2d30]

Where do they put the camera?

[achandlerwhite]

don't even need third party apps -- just pick a 16:10 resolution and the menu bar will shift down.

[usefulcat]

The notch has gone away, at least as of Sonoma on a 15" M3 Air, but at the cost of some real estate at the top of the screen. Basically they just don't draw anything at or above the lower edge of the notch, so it looks like the screen ends there even when it doesn't.

I actually wanted to get the notch back so I could have as much vertical screen real estate as possible and was disappointed to find that there doesn't appear to be any reliable way of doing this.

[rafram]

It sounds like you've changed your screen resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/17j5zo5/i_think_ive_fo...

The notch is definitely still there by default.

[usefulcat]

No, from the time I bought it last year I never changed the resolution until I noticed the notch was gone and was trying to get it back, but to no avail. I also don't have anything unusual installed, definitely nothing display-related. It's pretty much as I received it from Apple, modulo whatever updates have been released since then.

Currently it's set to 1710 x 1107, which is labeled "Default", and no notch. When I look closely at the right angle I can clearly see the notch dipping into the screen, but the OS does not use any of the area to either side of the notch--it's completely dark there.

Just now I ticked "Show all resolutions" and tried at least a dozen other available resolutions and none of them use the screen above the notch bottom. Sonoma 14.6.1, 15" M3 Air.

[rafram]

OK, I have no idea what setting you could have set, but this is not stock behavior on any MacBook with a notch.

[culopatin]

That’s not normal. Are you sure you don’t have an app that’s doing that or toggled a setting in so,etching like Onyx and forgot?

[usefulcat]

Quite sure. SyncThing and mosh are the two most unusual apps that are installed. And I've spent a fair amount of time researching to find out what setting could cause this. The only thing I've found that could supposedly affect the notch is the display resolution, and changing that makes no difference for the notch.

One thing that did occur to me though is that it was a 'refurbished' MacBook. Bought it from Apple, and it looked brand new, but it does seem possible that someone could have done who-knows-what to it before I got it. Or perhaps there is some defect in the display near the top and Apple did this intentionally to conceal it.

[adastra22]

I have exactly that setup, and I see a notch. Are we talking about something different?

[chippiewill]

You really don't notice the notch on the macbooks, I can't even see it normally. Might be different on a Linux DE though.

[fenced_load]

xps 13? Comes with linux and has comparable battery to m3 (at least on windows).

This review says it beats M3 by 2 hours: https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/dell-xps-13-9350-review

[sfcl33t]

I used Asahi on my company's M2 MacBook pro and it was incredibly nice. Had to return the laptop to them and Asahi is not supported on m3+...

[Tteriffic]

The notch was a big reason I was reluctant to upgrade from my M1 Air. But I hardly notice it. Only when it splits the menu bar items.

[glial]

It's true that seeing that number next to $400 next to 16GB is agony, but a 32GB 1TB 15" M4 Air for $2k is a hell of a deal. I have the upgraded M1 Air and after using it for a few years, (1) I still have no reason to upgrade and (2) it's worth more to me than whatever paid.

[nsbk]

I’d love to buy that config as my personal laptop, but the problem is that my 512/16 M1 Air still works so well for my use case that I can’t find enough reasons to justify the expense. M6 Air maybe!

[natnatenathan]

I think you are crazy. The performance difference between MacOS and WSL is like night and day. I was just shopping for a Linux laptop and I have found that the top end models from Microsoft, Lenovo and Dell to be as or more expensive than Apple (with the exception of having user replaceable SSDs). There is nothing in the PC world that compares to Apple Silicon. If the price is too much, look at the refurb or used market where you can get really significant discounts.

[emrah]

100%! I find that folks like this are comparing specs on paper but have no clue what the real life differences are like in practice, hence missing out. Or maybe they are trying to justify not spending the money but still life is short, go for the best

[mcgrath_sh]

If I am spending $1700+ on a machine, it is going to be my primary machine. I know exactly what "the real life difference" is between 256 GB storage on my primary machine and 2TB storage on my primary machine. My personal Dropbox sits at 850 GB. It is simple math. It is egregious that going to 2TB storage costs $199 less than buying an entire second laptop. No thanks.

[ant6n]

Apple doesn’t have a lightweight laptop with a matte screen. Their MacBook Air is light but has a reflective screen. The Pro has a matte screen (upgrade option) but is pretty heavy.

A true portable laptop, one that can be used not just at home where lighting could perhaps be controlled, needs to by lightweight and have a non-reflective screen.

[kccqzy]

Of course. Apple wants you to purchase their iCloud offerings and put your documents on iCloud Drive.

I just buy lots of storage on my desktop and access it remotely. Tailscale makes it easy to do so.

[mcgrath_sh]

True, I guess they do want to push iCloud. I just can't justify the pricing. Comparing the 15" to System 76, I get a bigger screen, TWO 2TB M.2 drives, and 64 GB RAM for $150 cheaper than a 15" with one 1TB drive and 32GB RAM. And the System 76 comes with a bunch of ports, too.

[cosmic_cheese]

As someone who’s been laptop shopping recently, the problem with most non-Apple options is that in exchange for RAM and storage been cheap and/or upgradable, they make significant sacrifices in various areas compared to MacBooks. This is insanely frustrating to me, I don’t know why generic PC manufacturers can’t seem to manage to build a small laptop that is as good of an all-rounder as the Air is and not also come with aspects that suck for no good reason.

[mcgrath_sh]

I still occasionally use a 2013 Air when I need a laptop. How no PC manufacturer has been able to get close to Apple's touchpad in two decades is crazy to me.

[cosmic_cheese]

Near-MacBook trackpads can be found in nicer x86 laptops these days, but as always the monkey’s paw curls and some other aspect(s) of these laptops invariably sucks. Fan runs too often and/or is noisy, heat isn’t effectively managed, battery life is bad, screen becomes a flickery mess at low brightness, build quality is poor, laptop uses off the wall chipsets that Linux doesn’t like… it’s always something.

[evilduck]

To add to the litany of failures by laptop PC makers:

Utterly garbage speakers, poor microphones, inferior screen hinges, coil whine, structural flex, light leak from the keyboard backlights, poor keyboard PWM dimming, poor keyboard switches (admittedly, butterfly keyboards were a bad era for Apple), slow or missing sleep management, terrible idle power usage, slow wake time, poor weight distribution, more ports but they're stupidly placed or don't work as you'd expect or want, uneven heat distribution, strange aesthetic choices (like fake vents) and dumb case designs that snags when slipping it into a bag.

In my experience with PC laptops for every hardware spec benchmark that exceeds something Apple does, you'll lose out on three other aspects of the laptop that aren't commonly discussed in reviews. The most frustrating part is that besides buying from Apple, money cannot solve this problem. There just isn't a PC maker that gives a shit.

[chippiewill]

Most premium laptops these days have decentish touchpads. I can barely tell the difference between my Dell XPS touchpad and my macbook touchpad.

[sleepybrett]

the fact that a macbook doesn't have storage on an m.2 slot is incredibly frustrating. My m1 drive failed and they had to replace the whole damn motherboard because they soldered the storage in. Just incredibly wasteful practice just to, i guess, shave a mm or two off the things depth.

[benterix]

Since their whole pricing strategy depends on users not being able to do RAM and storage upgrades, you can be sure they'd rather make the integration even more tight in the next models.

[sleepybrett]

My understanding is that the ram is basically in the Mseries die and therefore can't really be upgraded. The storage is pure malice or marketing pushing for 'thinnest laptop'

[cosmic_cheese]

My preference is for slotted storage too, but it seems difficult to get that without trading off any number of other qualities in the process.

[ed_mercer]

What if your desktop fails?

[kccqzy]

I have RAID and offsite backups.

[e40]

There are kits to upgrade the mini and studio to max out storage for reasonable prices. I've watched YT videos on the process and it doesn't look too hard.

As for the laptops, probably not feasible.

I will say that unlike laptops/desktops I used to buy before I went Apple, I use them for a really long time. When I ran Windows, I'd upgrade every few years. I had my Mac Pro 2012 for 9 years before upgrading to a Studio. Yes, I maxed out the storage, and it was annoying how expensive, but amortized over 9 years? Not as bad.

EDIT: if I was purchasing a Studio now, I'd likely do the 3rd party upgrade to 8TB (what I saw in a YT video). That's double what my M1 Studio maxed out at.

[znpy]

Not sure about your use-case, but nowadays i don't do anything fancy with my laptop.

So far I've decided that going forward I'll likely be getting a cheap baseline laptop (curretly eyeing a 16gb/512gb macbook air m4 or the upcoming framework 12) and then get some beefier desktop to remote into. i don't even need a gpu, the heavy stuff i do largely revolves around running virtual machines.

I did most of my work in a screen session running emacs on a 48cpu/192gb ram machine in a previous job, and I did some tests and remote desktop nowadays is pretty good (way above the "usable" threshold).

> That is essentially doubling the $999 cost.

yeah, it sucks.

[bufferoverflow]

With thunderbolt 5 you can use fast external SSD enclosures. They end up working nearly as well as internal SSDs. And much cheaper.

[sfilmeyer]

Yeah, but I don't want my hard drive in an external enclosure for my laptop. I'm writing this comment from a macbook air, which is comfortably in my lap, thankfully only plugged into power.

[12345hn6789]

You're comparing desktop prices to laptop prices. Yes they're ridiculous but you're not the target market.

[p_ing]

No, they're not. SODIMM prices aren't radically different from DIMM prices and laptops (usually) use the same M.2280 NVMe drives desktops do.

[mcgrath_sh]

Fair. A better comparison would be System 76. Comparing the 15" to System 76, I get a bigger screen (16"), TWO 2TB M.2 drives, and 64 GB RAM for $150 cheaper than a 15" with one 1TB drive and 32GB RAM. And the System 76 comes with a bunch of ports, too. For the same specs, it is $550 cheaper.

[gefriertrockner]

What comparison are you trying to make? You are not painting a full picture, leaving the weight, CPU and battery life out of the equation. If you personally care about neither, yes the Air will not be the machine for you.

[knowaveragejoe]

I've yet to find a non-apple laptop that's as ergonomically comfortable _as a laptop_ as the recent Airs. That's a premium unto itself, I don't know if it's $500 worth, but that's a less tangible part of the equation over raw horsepower.

[mcgrath_sh]

I don't even necessarily object to paying a premium. If it was $200 to go to 1TB or 32GB RAM I'd probably be annoyed but still pay it. There is a difference between paying a premium and wholly unjustifiable prices.

[kllrnohj]

Lenovo charges $70 to go from 16gb to 32gb LPDDR5x and $45 to go from 512gb to 1tb nvme.

[lastgeniusua]

most non-Mac laptops have a spare slot for an SSD (and the original one is likely replaceable), with RAM being replaceable too. Why wouldn't the desktop prices apply here too?

[carlosjobim]

The purpose of a professional machine is that it pays for itself when you make money using it. If that's not your case, then why do you need professional equipment?

[mcgrath_sh]

I don't think 1TB of storage makes something professional equipment. I have well over 500 GB of photos. I want each of those stored locally where I control the data. Nor do I think 32 GB of RAM makes something professional. I'd prefer to future proof such a large purchase, and because I can't even go back to Apple in 3 years and purchase more RAM I have to decide right now what might be useful in 5-7 years.

[dsego]

You can always use portable drives, cloud, or a NAS to store photos. In either case you need a backup, storing everything on one laptop is a bit limiting.

[mcgrath_sh]

I do use portable drives, Dropbox, and Amazon Glacier. I have four copies of my photos. They are, by leaps and bounds, my most irreplaceable data. I want every single one of them on my main machine, which makes automating backups to the external drives and Glacier infinitely easier. It is a dealbreaker for me, and I don't find $400 an acceptable price to pay to get past said dealbreaker. Well, realistically, $800, seeing as my personal Dropbox is at 850 GB, it would be silly of me to buy an un-upgradeable drive that would be teetering on storage space issues from the jump. Apple thinks it is reasonable to pay $199 less than it would cost for an entire second MacBook Air to upgrade drive space to 2TB.

[carlosjobim]

That's absolutely professional levels that you are demanding both in storage and RAM.

Apple sells computers in the premium/professional market segment. They're not going to change that. If you're not making money from the equipment or if you can't afford it for consumer use, there's probably nothing that they will do for you, you're not in the intended customer segment.

[mcgrath_sh]

Charging a 400+% markup for storage and RAM does not suddenly make a laptop professional. Sure, if there was a significant difference between screen size, chip, battery life, etc, you could argue the $999 one is a prosumer device and the $1799 laptop is a professional device. The only difference between a $999 laptop and a $1799 laptop is 768 GB of storage and 16 GB of RAM. I will even be generous and say that is a $700 difference because Apple tosses in two more GPU cores ($100) when you go over a certain amount of RAM. On Amazon, I can get a 1TB M.2 drive and 32 GB of DDR4 SODIMM RAM for $150 total. A premium from Apple on those components would be $300-$400. They are at $700-$800.

[carlosjobim]

If you are buying professional work equipment, a difference of a few hundred dollars does not matter. Professionals in any field usually have equipment worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

And if you're buying a computer as a consumer because it is a premium machine, well then you eat the price if you really want the machine, or you have to go for non-premium competitors.

You're comparing McDonalds to a nice steak in a good restaurant. The good restaurant will charge dearly for a bottle of water while McDonalds gives you free refills, and so on. The business models are different and the market segments are different.

[mcgrath_sh]

Odd, every steakhouse I have been to gives me as much water as I'd like, free of charge.

I'm not comparing a hamburger from my local go-to to a steak from a steakhouse. I'm comparing the cost of the mash potatoes that comes with my hamburger ($5) and what they cost at a non-Apple steakhouse ($15). I don't go to the Apple steakhouse not because I find their steak unreasonably priced (it is a great value, actually), but because I refuse to pay $60 for mash potatoes, and if I don't get the mash potatoes, the steak has no value to me.

[sunshowers]

A lot of consumers prefer high refresh rates.