Your computer always has been limited by the intentions of the system designer. It’s not malice, it’s market-fit and optimization.

Look at those x3d variants that amd has been putting out. Fantastic for gamers, but relatively niche for general computing tasks. If I were an OEM, would I pick those parts for my workstation prebuilts? Fuck no, they’re overpriced for someone using office and a web browser. But for my gaming line, maybe, if I could get a deal.

All computers have many of these price/performance/size/power draw/availability decisions to make, and portables even more so. Apple knows that most of their users need xyz, and they build for that. Everyone else’s needs go into the pile of lower priority, some of which will be supported if they feel like it.

Go on then…

The issue I have with non-Apple laptops is that comparable performance requires an active cooling system that is often distractingly loud. I am willing and able to pay extra for a platform that lets me focus, and lets me watch some Netflix without having to crank the volume to drown out the fans. Then the all-metal exterior is also quite durable, the trackpad and speakers are top-notch, the Pro comes with that XDR screen, and the battery life is hard to beat. Plus I can take it to a nearby Apple store if I'm having a problem with it, instead of having to mail it to a regional support shop and wait potentially for weeks without the device. It's more than the sum of its parts--and that is reflected in the resale value as well. Some Windows laptops will do specific things better (chiefly game support), but I didn't find anything that was as good overall as an M1 Macbook Pro, and I say that as someone who had never owned a Mac of any kind, despite using PCs since the early 1980s and building them for the last 25 years.

I would have preferred a laptop that could run Windows or Linux, but I just couldn't find anything that was a complete package like the M1 MBP.

You cannot understand the quality of apple unless you use it as a daily driver.

Are they a shitty company? Yes.

Do they design their products to be hard to repair? Yes.

Do they provide half baked products? No.

Can you find product that matches the performance, battery life, build quality, and weight? I don’t think so.

Nothing will come close with similar build quality. The XPS 13+ is probably the closest competitor to the 13" pro/air. But it has a 12th gen Intel CPU which will get awful battery life in anything but the most ideal scenarios.

With an Apple silicon Mac you have to try to get bad battery life, with an Intel Machine I can't get it to have good battery life and do anything other than sit idle. AMD will come close, but few manufactures make a premium AMD laptop.

That’s a rather narrow set of use cases. For example, they are audio and video editing powerhouses. Audio in particular is exceptional because of core audio in MacOS.

And upgradable components aren’t something 95% of the population is worried about. Max out what you need when you buy it. My last Mac lasted 8 years with no trouble. And by the time I was ready to upgrade, the bottleneck was mainly the cpu, which in a case of 8 years, that means a new motherboard, and at that point you might as well upgrade the whole computer, as standards have changed and updated.

I have a colleague that spends 90% of their time out of the office on trains and on airplanes. They need to connect to an RDP server, answer emails, and do some InDesign work. Our IT dept manager has the same attitude as you and will only issue them a beefy laptop that weighs twice as much as a macbook and has half the battery. My colleague has tried to explain that compute power is not their primary concern but the IT manager won't listen because he doesn't have the perspective to imagine what it's like to do someone else's job.

a same performance machine for the same/lesser price with Dell/Thinkpad and use Linux

With that software support...?

The Mac can run MacOS. That was the point of this thread, that MacOS is less junked up than Windows.

It's not about not being able to do it, it's about being able to do it well, and have a nice experience.

My $200 Thinkpad T14 will browse the web, but I get about 4 hours battery life at best doing that. My M1 MBP gets 15 doing the exact same thing.

The Adobe suite. Even big Figma files would give a cheap ass laptop trouble. Obviously if you’re planning on coding iOS Apps then you need Xcode unless you want disgusting performance.

Also the build quality on a cheap laptop is a joke these days. They try to make their laptops Apple-like but use the cheapest components even in the $1000 price range.

For the average power user who doesn’t game or have some design or audio job, then it’s better to go with Linux, but either way MacOS is way more solid and reliable than you’re giving it credit for.

I’ve yet to find a PC laptop that can replicate a Mac TouchPad. They’ve gotten better in the last few years, but are still miles off Apple.

They’re not better for everything, but some stuff they’ve absolutely nailed over the competition and it’s not even close.