[GuB-42]

The first reason is price. Macs are expensive, you may argue that it is worth it but it is still a lot of money. The Macbook Neo change the deal somewhat, really good value, but even with that, it is not the cheapest laptop by far.

The second reason is compatibility. Apple does a pretty good job with x86 emulation, but it still a problem for many Windows games, Linux support is not the best either.

And then, there may be plenty of specific reasons, maybe you are missing some connectivity, maybe you don't like Apple, maybe you want a Nvidia GPU, etc...

[maxbrt]

I have to disagree with you on the price. The cheap price was one of the reasons I ended up going with it. It's an M4 Air with 24GB of Memory. I got it for around 950 Euros, and at the time I could not find anything close to it that combined the same amount of processing power, memory, battery and overall built at that price.

The compatibility yes I fully agree. This is sort of a trial for me to see how well it works with Linux VMs and a comparable setup, but if I cannot get it to work as well then I will switch back. So far it is working well though

[GuB-42]

It sounds like a pretty good deal, so I assume you got it before prices went crazy, like mid-2025.

At that time, you could get a decent entry-level Windows laptop for around 700 euros that can do pretty much everything you want a laptop for if you are not a power user. More than that and for most people, it is "expensive". At 950 euros, you are paying for options, and it turns out that the package offered by that M4 Air is what you want, but it is likely that a gamer would want a different package for these 950 euros. Personally, I went for a 1000 euro ThinkPad because it was a better fit for my needs at that budget. In particular, I wanted more than the 256 GB of storage you most likely had (1 TB).

[maxbrt]

True, storage wasn't really a concern, my M4 has 512GB. Enough for my everyday tasks, and anything larger I store on my NAS anyways. I got it in April 2026, but afaik they also raised prices since then again. Also yes as far as gaming goes, I really only need it to run Factorio well so that also was not a concern.

[datadrivenangel]

you can get a laptop shaped device for a hundred euros. A real laptop will still cost several hundred, and it won't be as good, but it's cheaper.

[jimnotgym]

An ex rental Thinkpad that can run Linux was around £200 a year ago...

[mcmcmc]

That’s more computer than most people need though. The barrier to entry is still far above a barebones PC with Windows or Linux

[cestith]

Macs don’t compete with the low end laptops. Even the Neo competes more in the middle of the laptop market. When you compare the specs and real-world performance of a MacBook, Mac Mini, or Mac Studio to other equivalent models the price might be slightly higher but not out of line. Compatibility, lack of upgradeability and the OS choices come into play, but an honest comparison between systems otherwise puts Macs just on the slightly expensive portion of the market.