Note that from a support/warranty perspective, this still uses the normal consumer paths. This is something we're exploring business-focused versions of for the future.
Maybe it isn't a necessity, but it is extremely nice to be able to go into the office without having to worry about having to charge the device at any point throughout the day at all. I legitimately stopped carrying a charger in my backpack. Sounds like a trivial non-issue, but it makes a difference to me.
I once had a day filled with 5 hours of interviews through videocalls on Google Meet, and my Macbook Pro (M1 Max) battery dipped only from 100% to 70%.
It is hard to overstate how freeing, at least personally to me, it feels. Maybe I don't need all the M1 power on a daily basis. But not having to worry about charging my laptop at any point during the day, regardless of the workload, is always welcome. Add the fact that I've never even heard the fans on my MBP (and neither have I felt it heating up much at all), and you got a pretty solid proposition to switch.
Also, if you are trying to build any large Node project on Windows, you are going to have a bad time. Node is just straight up not as efficient on Windows and takes multiples of time it takes to build on macOS/Linux.
Most people are deskbound and use their provided external monitor via the also provided TB3 dock. So charging is a non issue.
With our industry currently being extremely strained (industrial manufacturer in Germany), I think it’s fairly worrying that people spend money on a 2500€ upgrade that’s not justified by any productivity gains, but that’s also approved by the supervisor.
The part about the industry-specific situation is something I legitimately haven't even considered. That upgrade is indeed a very "nice-to-have", but feels pretty moronic if the company finances are strained.
Out of curiosity, did they have any explanation for their reasoning? Is it just due to some accounting magic, where the upgrade budget was allocated a long time ago, and it was more like "use it or lose it" (without a chance to just "save" that upgrade budget money regardless)?
Macbooks provide best in class displays, keyboard, touchpad, and battery life.
Not to mention many non-macbook laptops apparently not sleeping properly. No idea how widespread that one is but I see it in like every laptop thread including this one.
In your case though that definitely sounds like a huge waste of money. For that reason, we order from the following matrix to not waste too much.
Engineering/Developer Advocacy/Product: Macbook Air - M2, 16GB RAM, 500GB Disk or Linux/Windows, Framework 14", 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Disk
People/GTM/Facilities: Macbook Air - M2, 8GB RAM, 250GB Disk
Granted there's probably money to be saved on the non engineering side but those folks tend to be comfortable with macs already and those purchases will last a very long time.
The other note I'll make is IME macbooks are significantly easier to maintain via MDM tools.