[brandon272]

I have always had this notion that buying a Mac is the "premium" option, not just in quality, but maybe in price too.

I am in the process of trying to find a business notebook for my spouse who is a Windows user. The goal is to have something that is as close to a Macbook Air as possible in terms of price, weight, performance and durability.

What I am learning is that nothing that like that exists in the PC world. It's a minefield of tradeoffs: plastic chassis', bad screens, weird keyboards, bad trackpads, questionable reliability, etc.

The current contender is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon which even after a bunch of business discounts is still a good $300 more than a Macbook Air and appears to come with a pretty poor trackpad in comparison.

Apple has an incredible strength in distilling what a product or series of products should be down to its essence and selling it. You could argue that there is more "choice" among Windows PCs but the reality seems to be that it is an illogical mess of tradeoffs.

[_kulang]

“Choice” is funny because consumers never choose what the products are, only from the existing products. People harp on choice as a boon for windows laptops but you cannot choose an affordable laptop with great build quality and speed and battery unless you buy a Mac. Framework is the closest company to providing real choice to consumers but you have to be technically minded to approach that product (and I’m glad it exists).

I think consumers’ expectations regarding what they can get is coloured by ages-old reddit opinions which have circulated into household knowledge. The answer is so clearly whatever apple is making at the moment yet no other company (except maybe Microsoft with the surface line) can string together direct competition

[george_max]

Framework recently released their Laptop 13 Pro; their goal is to match Macbook quality while being fully open. The key issue is the price.

I definitely agree with your statement -- it's unlikely the price to performance and quality ratio on Macbooks are going to be outperformed soon.

[pdimitar]

I would not mind if it was +50% more expensive... if it was TRULY a competition to f.ex. a Macbook Air. Many more techies would not mind it. But I don't think we ware there yet.

I am rooting for Framework myself.

[protocolture]

Yeah I was an X1 Carbon True Believer for a while but I cant justify their current prices.

It used to be 1200 bucks or so cheaper than the equivalent macbook (probably saying as much will piss off the "Thinkpads were never cheap weridos but thats fine)

[noir_lord]

There was a time the T series where the go-to if you wanted a good Linux laptop as well.

I'm typing this on an old T470P (7700HQ/32GB/2560x1440) that is running my TV - it's uptime is measured in months (usually for a kernel upgrade).

Just a stellar machine but the new ones don't seem to be worth the price.

It is somewhat remarkable that no one has managed to get close to Apple quality by now.

I think the major manufacturers just have too many SKU's with too much differentiation instead of focussing on making 4-5 good SKU's.

[cozzyd]

I'm happy with my P14s (AMD, Gen6) (running Linux, obviously). Fortunately I got it last fall with 64 GB of RAM before that was exorbitantly expensive...

[protocolture]

I think they can get to apple on quality or price but not both anymore.

And its not Wintel holding them back, Lenovo has their ARM experiment too, and its a bit average.

[prmoustache]

> appears to come with a pretty poor trackpad in comparison.

What is this trackpad obsession with macbooks? Granted I use mostly a mouse when on my desk but I am mostly a thinkpad user (but I've used dell and hp professionally in the past too) and to me trackpads have been a solved problem for around 2 decades. They work fine. I slide my finger and the pointer move. I use 2 of them and it scrolls, etc.

What is so different on apple trackpads and what do you do with them? whenever I had my hands on a macbook I didn't really felt any significative difference.

[jogu]

The size, texture, precision, functionality (tapping, multi-finger), palm rejection are all just about flawless on Macbooks. Other manufacturers have good trackpads that are great at some of these things but never all of them.

[bronkic]

I'm used to a macbook trackpad and recently tried to use a cheaper windows laptop, and the trackpad drove me crazy. It's basically not possible for me to type something without my palms constantly moving the mouse cursor and doing random clicks. Had to return it because of it.

[wildzzz]

There's typically an option in Windows to disable the trackpad automatically when typing.

[joseda-hg]

Mac trackpads (And even the Magic Trackpad itself) is AFAIK best in class Good enough that some people even do trackpads on desktop

[ffsm8]

Tbf, The main reason for that is the ram shortage, because apple is essentially the only one that hasn't adjusted their prices as this point, wiping out the price advantage the others had in spades.

That alone is already a $400+ upcharge that apple is currently not leveraging

[adrianwaj]

I don't know why there isn't a standard form-factor where parts from different manufacturers can't be mix and matched. It just seems so obvious.

A fully aluminum shell with air channels drawing air from the base unit through the back of the screen (via convection) seems like a good idea too.

Another interesting design would be "vertical laptops" - like an ipad but with a fold down keyboard/pointer slab to keep it upright. That would be good to get airflow moving up through the screen vertically. There could be space between the screen slab and the processor slab for the air to rise.

[20after4]

A used ThinkPad from eBay is often the best value.

[wildzzz]

That's what I do and did through college. I didn't have a lot of money to spend so Thinkpad X series tablets from ebay were my go-to. First one I had to stop using when Altera Quartus II dropped 32bit support and the second one I used until it was basically falling apart. I bought a used max spec X280 a few years ago and it's held up very nicely, I can even play my old games on it. I don't see myself replacing it for a long time because it's mostly just used for web browsing and writing code for microcontrollers so my personal laptop needs are very minimal. It also just sits next to my bed so it's not like it's getting smacked around all day like my work laptop.

[canpan]

I am totally a linux user. But even on the high end, the build quality of laptops more expensive than apple is often worse than apple.

Or it's hit and miss and you need to hope to get the good one. I want a lightweight, non-plastic laptop with good keyboard, solid battery life, and no hinge problems. Apple is consistently delivering it. Good luck finding that outside apple.

[gedy]

Agreed but would recommend looking at Framework laptops, my son has one and it's great

[aidenn0]

At a certain level of build quality the Mac has at many times in this century been a good value. Except maybe if you load it up with RAM and/or storage which always seems to have a much higher marginal cost than non-MAC hardware.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Panasonic Toughbook FZ-55, either Mk2 or Mk3. They can be had cheaply on eBay, and you can buy parts directly from Panasonic if you want to.

If you have money to burn, the new FZ-56.

[jogu]

The Panasonic Toughbook range isn't even the same class of device as Macbooks. They're like twice the size and significantly heavier.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>The Panasonic Toughbook range isn't even the same class of device as Macbooks.

You are precisely correct, which is why you should evaluate them. Not only will it run any code you want it to, it's extremely well supported in Linux, built solidly, and you can buy parts directly from Panasonic.

Not all of them are as bulky or heavy as the fully-rugged models. This one is "semi-rugged", not that much thicker than a ThinkPad.

[wildzzz]

If someone is considering a Macbook Air or a Thinkpad X1, why would a Toughbook even be part of that conversation?

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Not all of them are fully rugged; the FZ-55 and FZ-56 are quite a bit slimmer and lighter than the "full fat" Toughbooks.

[bombcar]

I had high hopes for the Surface but between the confusion (is it arm is it x86 will your printer drivers work?) and some questionable decisions, it fell flat.

[jimmydddd]

I just got a refurbished Surface laptop for like $350 on Amazon. I only bought it for traveling, but after I set it up for work, I've been using it now for three weeks and it's a pretty nice machine. I don't do gaming or graphics stuff though. And I use an external mouse.

[spullara]

which is crazy since the Mac has no problem running all kinds of old x86 junk

[Wowfunhappy]

...huh?

Rosetta works very well, but only for those apps that are still compatible with modern macOS at all, and furthermore Rosetta is going away soon.

[bombcar]

I don’t know what it was but the x86 version of Postman somehow got installed on my M1 and it was slow like a dog.

[acomjean]

Intel this year seems to have something competitive with the core ultra cpus. The “wildcat” cpus are being released now in budget friendly machines. We’ll see how they do.

I’m not going back from Linux but I’m glad there is competition again.