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Comment by Spartan-S63 | Hacker News Reader

Ultimately, this is what I found since switching from Windows to macOS back in 2014. The build quality of their computers is second to none. There are some manufacturers that get close to Apple build quality, but their price is right up there, too.

Not to mention, the warranty coverage and support from Apple is second-to-none. I've had a few issues with laptops over the years (the late 2016 model, but not the keyboard), and both ways, the laptop was overnighted and the fix took a day, so I was without it for three days. With anyone else, it would be weeks of turnaround time.

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I've never had to use my Dell (or Lenovo) warranties, because their laptops have never failed me. And they're all cheaper than their Apple counterparts of the same class.

OTOH, everyone I know with an Apple raves about their customer service (in the US)...because they've all had to replace their Apple laptops at some point. Every. Single. One of them.

Apple customer service is great because it has to be. If Apple didn't so readily fix/replace its hardware, nobody would buy a second Apple product after the first one failed on them.

> And they're all cheaper than their Apple counterparts of the same class.

I'm not really sure this is true. Last time I shopped for a laptop, the premium series ThinkPads (T or X series or so) cost pretty much the same as a similarly specced MBP. A Dell XPS didn't differ that much. The Apple hardware might even had a bit more oomph than a similarly priced ThinkPad or XPS, e.g. by having a CPU with a higher TDP.

An X1 Carbon from Lenovo would have cost more than almost any other laptop with similar specs.

Of course things might have changed in recent years, or pricing could be somewhat different in different markets (I'm in Europe). Cheaper series (such as ThinkPad E or L or whatever they've got nowadays) would of course also be cheaper. But based on what I saw, the old trope about Apple laptops being especially expensive didn't seem to hold if you compared it with premium models from other manufacturers, and not with value models.

FWIW, I ended up with Lenovo in any case and haven't been disappointed. But price wasn't really the reason.

This is true, retail Thinkpads are targeted at businesses so they’re priced fairly high. I’m sure many companies negotiate lower rates. Most of the reason you see these laptops so widely recommended is the secondhand market. Once those businesses buy new machines, the used market gets flooded with the old ones. This, combined with the repairability and upgradability of many models makes them pretty competitive machines if you shop for a used one that isn’t the latest model. Macs hold value better, which means used models are comparatively quite expensive.

I’ll second your experience though. I’ve used many machines, including daily driving both a Mac and Thinkpad currently for work, and find I prefer the Thinkpad. It has excellent Linux support (even fingerprint reader works on latest Ubuntu) and an excellent keyboard. The trackpad isn’t as good, but I prefer the nipple mouse.

I'm fine with the trackpad. It might not seem as high quality (feels a bit floppy somehow), but the click sensitivity is fairly consistent and it feels comfortable to me. Some other laptops I've used e.g. for work have had trackpads where clicking required too much force to feel comfortable, or the force required felt inconsistent. I prefer this one over those.

Some older ThinkPad model I used at a previous job had a horrendous trackpad, though.

I picked the ThinkPad for personal use largely because of Linux compatibility, too. MacOS might be fine, but if you end up not wanting to use that, going back over to Linux might require way more effort than I was willing to put up with, even if the hardware itself would probably have been a fine choice.

Also, matte screens.

Their customer service was not great for me: my work mbp16 failed within 6 months due to apparently some display cable breaking. Apple kept the laptop for over a month and I had to plead for status updates, which generally fell on deaf ears. When they did ship the laptop back, they got my name and address wrong in spite of confirming it multiple times, which caused further confusion and delays. I remain convinced that a vendor on Alibaba would have done better than Apple in a similar situation.

> With anyone else, it would be weeks of turnaround time.

I've had Dell repair techs out to my house through warranty services for same day repairs. Apple offers no such thing.

Was that part of an individual purchase, or a corporate account? I think Dell treats companies really well.

You can buy that warranty coverage as an individual for very little money.

I recommend Dell to my friends because the warranty coverage is so exceptional.

My experience with Apple (in Germany) was mostly opposite: when I ran into hardware issues it made more sense to go to Apple's long term exclusive partners in the region, than into an Apple store, where I'd run into completely disinterested and barely competent Genius Bar interns.

Apple support in the US is second to none, in my experience. My experience with Apple support outside the US has been hit-or-miss but mostly miss.

I warn people against going to Apple authorised service providers in Singapore.

Most of them haven't been very ethical in their business — I've heard numerous cases of the authorised providers charging for additional labour and parts to replace an out-of-warranty MacBook battery, while the Genius Bar does it for a flat fee [1].

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-sg/mac/repair/service

Don't get me started. The ones I had experience with in The Netherlands were also terrible. On a MacBook Air 2012, my 'f' key would always get stuck. I went to our local Apple authorized service provider, which was also the store where I bought the MacBook Air.

First they tried to put the blame on me, arguing that I removed the keycap before (I didn't). When they were finally willing to repair the laptop, they first gave me a lecture about how I should thank them for making an exception, because they were not obliged to repair the keyboard if I damaged the key by removing a keycap (which again, I didn't).

I've used my Lenovo warranty to get my x220 main board replaced. I've had that laptop for probably close to a decade now and it still works well.

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