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Comment by mattbrewsbytes | Hacker News Reader

Your build quality comparison is off, a cheap $500 laptop should be compared to prior years Macbook Air M1 which is $300 more, not $2000 more. A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop, probably better than most $800 laptops. Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft, I choose Apple because its not MS and it does work vs. tinkering with stuff on Linux.

Apple phones are usually behind in whiz-bang features that Samsung and some others have but my opinion is killer features for smart phones are in the rear view mirror by a few years. Any of them are just fine and its more about the ecosystem and purchase history at this point (i.e. switching and you'd have to buy things again).

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>>Its Windows that's the issue for me.

That has nothing to do with build quality

>Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft

Well at least you admit your bias, as someone that works in enterprise and manages 1000's of windows computers i can say i would never want to attempt that with Apple who does not have the enterprise tooling that MS does

before I was in enterprise I felt the same about windows and primarily used Linux, I would never use a Apple which shows my bais... If apple was the last computer on earth I would crush it...

>>Any of them are just fine and its more about the ecosystem and purchase history at this point

I agree with that, and that should change, but I value my freedom too much ever to surrender it for Apple's walled garden

Ironic you talk of a walled garden and work in Enterprise IT creating a ... walled garden for your users (enterprise tooling like pre-installed images, not being able to install apps as admin, etc.) because its easier to support.

Oh I don't for a second think Apple stuff would ever compete with 1000's of devices being managed from an Enterprise IT department. I lived in that environment for a while and would dual boot to linux, run VirtualBox or get a 2nd PC from IT and wipe it and install linux.

>A $800 macbook has far better build quality than any $500 Windows laptop

Took a peak at the apple store, there is no $800 Macbook for sale. So we're comparing, an older (used?) higher-end Macbook to a budget Windows laptop? Why not compare an older higher-end Windows laptop to an older Macbook? Why not compare a new $500 budget Windows laptop to a $500 used Macbook?

>Its Windows that's the issue for me. Having too many bad experiences and strong bias against Microsoft

You have a have a subjective preference - fine - we all do. So why pretend there is some objective measure here of Apple's superiority? Apple sells very expensive higher-end devices. The reality is that the quality of those devices is about on par with other devices in that class.

> Took a peak at the apple store, there is no $800 Macbook for sale

$849

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-air

To be fair if we're talking about used you can get $1200 new windows laptops for $800 used too so not really a fair comparison.

That's true... I guess the argument that as a student you can get an M1 macbook air for 900 or that Mac minis start at 700 (non student) also wouldn't work (because minis aren't macbooks and not everyone is a student).

Comparing a refurb Macbook to a budget Windows laptop doesn't really show that Apple devices are of "higher quality" - which was the argument OP was trying to make.

2020 Macbook Air M1 on amazon, brand new, $800 in ads I see when I google for it: https://www.google.com/search?&q=macbook+air+m1

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