Comment by prmoustache | Hacker News Reader

Comment by prmoustache | Hacker News Reader

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It depends on individual requirements. Most Apple laptops have better battery life than all of my laptops, but current ones have less memory available to run virtual machines unless I pay a huge premium which raise would raise the price 7 x over what I paid for my current Thinkpad E580. Also the later has a matte screen which I can't have on a Macbook nor can they fold like my Lenovo Yoga to be used as a tablet and drawing board.

If I was travelling a lot and spending a lot of time outside home I guess the battery life would trump any other factor and it would be a better option. In my case this is not a deciding factor as my laptops spend most of their time at home and as long as battery last a couple a few hours they will be plugged before it gets empty. I still benefit from the laptop form factor as I can still move them from one room to another easily or use them outdoor.

Besides premium price + sustained higher price in the second hand market make it so that at an average of around 350€ the cumulative price of all the computers (5) in my household is lower than the asking price of a single Macbook Pro with only 8GB of memory and a single 1TB hard drive.

It depends on individual requirements. Most Apple laptops have better battery life than all of my laptops, but current ones have less memory available to run virtual machines unless I pay a huge premium which raise would raise the price 7 x over what I paid for my current Thinkpad E580. Also the later has a matte screen which I can't have on a Macbook nor can they fold like my Lenovo Yoga to be used as a tablet and drawing board.

It's quite a requirement that to be considered overall best, a product must be best at every conceivable niche. You wouldn't disqualify Lionel Messi from consideration of being the world's best football player by saying that he is (probably) not a very good goalkeeper? Not to say that a MacBook is the Lionel Messi of laptops, but just that a laptop can overall best, while also being a bad fit for a particular role.

I also think price while obviously relevant when it comes to a purchasing decision, is irrelevant when talking about which product is better. To determine which tool is best for hammering nails, it's irrelevant that a rock is cheaper than a hammer. The only relevant criteria is which you would pick if you were free to choose. And, it would frankly be strange if the better product weren't also the more expensive product.

My personal opinion is that Apple has been killing it with their laptops since the introduction of the first M1 MacBook Air. This seems to also be the universal sentiment in the Apple community. I'm aware of no product in the PC space that seem so universally acclaimed, let alone could plausibly serve as basis for a claim that Apple is somehow behind in this category.

> I also think price while obviously relevant when it comes to a purchasing decision, is irrelevant when talking about which product is better.

Well, a brazing toch is certainly a better and more precise tool to apply a flame and heat stuff, but this is not the device you would choose primarily to lit a cigarette.

> And, it would frankly be strange if the better product weren't also the more expensive product.

It happens in a lot of domains.

> This seems to also be the universal sentiment in the Apple community.

Well, it would be stupid to buy and continue using something you don't like no?

A Macbook air or Macbook Pro surely fill a lot of checkboxes for a majority of the population. Having said that, the very fact that the macbook is offered in 3 different forms factor shows that you cannot really define any clear winner anyway. A Microsoft Surface is probably (haven't tested personnally) both an inferior tablet and an inferior laptop to the iPad and macbook air respectively, but it might still be a much better option for someone who fit the need for a 2-in-1. There are other better options for people who want to have a gaming laptop and don't want to rely on a cloud gaming subscription. And in my opinion, and until Asahi linux experience is more polished, running a MacOS desktop immediately dismiss any macbook at being the best laptop.

> Well, a brazing toch is certainly a better and more precise tool to apply a flame and heat stuff, but this is not the device you would choose primarily to lit a cigarette.

Yeah well, saw that often enough when I was young... ;-)

When the brazing torch is the tool you already have in your hand and is already lit, it's definitely the best tool to light your cigarette, too.

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