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Comment by nogridbag | Hacker News Reader

People choose a Macbook because they can walk into an Apple store and walk out with a quality product. Compared to the average PC a macbook has:

  * Better display
  * Faster hard drive
  * Better battery life
  * God-tier touchpad :)
  * Premium build quality and materials
  * Better sound
  * Better resale value
  * An Apple store nearby where they can get factory support

Sure there are laptops which are superior in certain aspects if you are willing to do some research or are very knowledgable in tech. If the average person walks into Best Buy and limits their options just to Lenovo and a device with the word "Yoga" in the name, they may walk out with an X1 Yoga, X380 Yoga, L380 Yoga, Yoga 260, Yoga 11e Chromebook, Yoga 920, Yoga 730, Yoga 720, or Yoga 710. I couldn't tell you the difference between most of these and I spent a long time researching convertible laptops.

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Most of the regular (as in non-tech) people I know even though they like Macs (because they are beautiful) don't buy them (even if they have the money) because they don't think they're worth it. The people that do buy them are the ones that already bought into the Mac eco system, mainly because of the iPhone.

About the technical aspects you listed, I think most of them are debatable. But I do believe that none of them are the driving factors that explain why people but these computers.

What I don't understand is why we, technical people, are afraid to admit that we are also vulnerable to the extremely effective marketing campaigns of Apple.

You wanna talk about quality? I spilled a full cup of hot tea TWICE on my lenovo, and nothing happened. It turned off because it has a circuit that closes when it gets wet (to protect itself) but other than letting it dry, the computer is working just fine (I don't put sugar in my tea :) ). I dare you to try that in your new Macbook!

I don't think anyone will deny that Apple has effective marketing. But they also deliver a product that is above average in almost all factors, except for repairability. For PCs you need to research quite a bit and select the right configurations.

It seems you favor repairability over all other factors: display quality, touchpad, HD speed, battery life, weight, a physical store for support, etc. I used to repair laptops over a decade ago and at that time I would also put repairability at the top of my list. That was a time with failure prone mechanical hard drives, CD-drives, and chassis made of cheap plastic. Most laptops even back then survived water or tea spills fine though they didn't fare so well with soda, coffee, and urine. Perhaps that history is what's driving your personal bias. These days machines are more reliable and I personally would prefer a smaller and lighter machine even if the tradeoff is repairability.

It's the same for Android vs iOS as well. With Android you have so many options that it's overwhelming, with an iPhone you'll have a product that is better than most Android phones and you don't have to worry about the chance of choice.

For a lot of people that's comforting.

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