this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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You can use alternatives to Apple’s phones, tablets, desktops, headphones; but there is no Macbook alternative. It is just too good for mobile usage. Fortunately it ain’t restricted as iPhone’s.
I hear this all time to time and I just don't understand it.
My 9-year-old Windows laptop does literally everything I need a mobile notebook to do (which unfortunately includes a bunch of software like AutoCAD which just gives a double middle finger to Linux). It's reliable, boots quickly, doesn't frequently bug out, has more than enough battery to never make me stressed and scrambling for outlets, and all these things. It's windows 10 and not signed into an MS account. It can run powershell, python scripts, all those little sugar things that make computers less horrible to use. I'm not forced into any weird proprietary rabbit holes by the OS and have all MS telemetry shut down on it.
If not for bad actors like AASHTO or AutoDesk, I'm quite confident the notebook would be working just as well with something like Mint Linux on it.
What the hell is it that Macbooks are doing that my notebook can't? I just don't get it.
I'm full-time arch user btw but sometimes I need/want to go to office or a place like coffee shop. There I'm using Macbook. My pros are:
There are different laptops that have some of these features, but I have yet to find one that has them all. I hope this situation will improve with ARM laptops.
Well, I certainly don't get 10 hours, more like 5-6, but have also never in my life and hopefully never will need to sit in the same public place for 10 continuous hours using my notebook. God help me, my life is so off the rails if that ever happens that I don't even want to consider it.
The rest of those things my budget notebook does just fine. Maybe if I used these touchpad shortcuts that the Mac offers it would change my life, but I've always massively preferred navigating the OS with the keyboard and have always found the way Mac application windows and taskbars work totally unitiutive and fighty.
On the whole though, even if I accept everything you said at face value, it's still just... not an argument for "there is no alternative". Seems to me my ancient ASUS is a perfectly reasonable alternative, especially considering it was a less than a third the price of the Macbook even when it was new. Plus it's repairable. I can open it up and change out components myself, with just a screwdriver.
I don't sit in front of the computer for 10 hours either :D However, convenience of not carrying a charging cable with me is cool. I think we can agree that the Macbook does some things differently than other laptops. While these features seem useful to me, they may be inconvenient for you.
Macbook has its own unique UX and is not generic like other laptops. When I say "there is no alternative", I actually mean that there is no laptop with Macbook-like usage. Of course, hardware can be better or worse.