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Comment by js2 | Hacker News Reader

I don't really understand who's buying the two-port 13" MBP with its 8th generation CPU over the MBA or the four-port MBP, both with 10th gen CPUs. Now I really don't understand it. Maybe Apple is trying to guide people toward one of those other two models. You're at $1500 by the time you've upgrade it to 16GB. The four-port which comes with 16GB starts at $1800, but gets you a current generation CPU which is faster (2.0 Ghz vs 1.4 Ghz), has double the CPU, double the Thunderbolt ports, and double the memory. Seems like a no-brainer for $300 more.

I personally just purchased a maxed-out MBA. I went with the MBA because I prefer the form-factor and don't want the touch bar. If I'd been willing to accept those, I would've gone with the four-port MBP. At no point did the two-port MBP make any sense to me.

Edit: it's $200 to upgrade the RAM in the MBA as well. I wonder why the MBP was only $100 in the first place.

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Huh? The 13" MBP has 4 ports, not 2. And you can buy it with the 2.0GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor as an option if that matters to you.

The top option on a MBA is a 1.1GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor.

There are two versions of the 13".

Three versions. My point is that you can get the 13" with a 10th gen CPU. I know because I ordered one like a week ago.

This was your point:

"Huh? The 13" MBP has 4 ports, not 2."

There are only two current versions[1] of the 13" MBP:

1. "MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)"

2. "MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)"

The two-port version comes only with the 8th gen CPU[2] and the four-port only with the 10th gen[3]. So you ordered the four-port version. That's not the model I was commenting about, nor is it the model this article is about.

1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300

2. https://support.apple.com/kb/SP818

3. https://support.apple.com/kb/SP819

Could you please explain why you would choose an Apple anything over a much more reasonably priced and specwise better PC? Not trying to be a dick, I'm a sysadmin genuinely trying to wrap my head around it.

macOS, and great hardware.

I love the MacBook touchpad, no other laptop really compares in that regard. The screen is also amazing on the MacBook Pro.

I don't like Windows, and Linux is hard to get completely stable on a laptop (battery life, standby, webcam, touchpad gestures, etc.). Thus, macOS is the best alternative for me.

Not everything is about price to performance ratios for me. It's about the overall experience I have when interacting with the device. Plus, the 15" MacBook pro I have is more than powerful enough.

I agree with all of the above, but would also like to add the ecosystem to your list. With my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro I get some really nice integration of Keychain, Handoff, Continuity, etc.

Yeah, personally I use an Android phone so that stuff doesn't apply to me but it's definitely a big part of the value prop for a lot of people as well.

Apple ecosystem is nice. Everything just works, or at least that's been my experience.

Except macOS Catalina when it hits WDT panics.

10:16 screen, perfect HiDPI scaling.

Specs aren't everything, it's a holistic thing. So long as the specs are good enough to do the work you need, things like the overall experience can take priority.

One of the standard things to mention in this area is that Macbook trackpads are nice. This doesn't show up in a spec comparison, but if you get used to having a really good trackpad then you might not want to switch to a laptop where the experience is worse. (I've heard positive things about the XPS and Surface trackpads -- not that they're better, but that they're maybe in the same hardware ballpark, with software just not being quite as polished.)

It best suits my needs and taste. I wrote a bit more why here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23323927

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