this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Technology
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8GB for this price in 2023 is a SCAM. All Apple devices are a SCAM. Many pay small fortunes for luxurious devices full of spyware and which they have absolutely no control over. It's insane. They like to be chained in their golden shackles.
That’s too simplistic. For example, the entry level M1 MacBook Air is hands down one of the best value laptops. It’s very hard to find anything nearly as good for the price.
On the high end, yeah you can save $250-400 buying a similarly specced HP Envy or Acer Swift or something. These are totally respectable with more ports, but they have 2/3rd the battery life, worse displays, and tons of bloatware. Does that make them “not a scam”?
(I’m actually not sure what “spyware” you’re referring to, especially compared to Windows and Chromebooks.)
The bloatware really isn't an arguement because it takes all of 30 seconds to uninstall it all with a script that you get off GitHub. Yeah it's annoying and it shouldn't be there but it's not exactly going to alter my purchase decision.
The M1's ok value for money, but the problem is invariably you'll want to do more and more complex things over the lifetime of the device, (if only because basic software has become more demanding), while it might be fine at first it tends to get in the way 4 or 5 years down the line. You can pay ever so slightly more money and future proof your device.
But I suppose if you're buying Apple you're probably going to buy a new device every year anyway. Never understood the mentality personally.
My cousin gets the new iPhone every single year, and he was up for it at midnight as well, I don't understand why because it's not better in any noticeable sense then it was last year, it's got a good screen and a nice camera but so did the model 3 years ago. Apple customers are just weird.
I think you're basing your general estimation of the Apple customer on the iPhone customer a bit too heavily. E.g., I have never had an iPhone and wouldn't ever consider buying one, considering how locked down and overpriced it is, and how competitive Android is as an alternative OS.
Meanwhile, I've been on MacOS for something like 7 or so years and cannot look back, for everyday computing needs. I have to use Windows occasionally on work machines and I cannot emphasise enough how much of an absolute chore it is. Endless errors, inconsistent UX, slow (even on good hardware), etc. It is by contrast just a painful experience at this point.
And one of the reasons people buy MacBooks, myself included, is to have longevity, not to refresh it after a year (that's insane). It's a false economy buying a Windows laptop for most people, because you absolutely do need to upgrade sooner rather than later. My partner has a MacBook bought in 2014 and it still handles everyday tasks very well.
I think you missed my point.
You want to keep laptops for ages regardless of what OS it was it runs (really not sure how that would have any bearing on spec fall off), but the MacBook M1 is only competitive now, but it won't be competitive in 4 to 5 years. The chip is good for its power consumption but it isn't a particularly high performance chip in terms of raw numbers. But the laptop costs as if it is a high performance chip.
There's no such thing as a Windows laptop you just buy a laptop and that's the specs you get so not quite sure what you're comparing the MacBook too.