Mac hardware is just so damn good though. And everywhere. I absolutely agree with what you're saying... but man, Linux working well on an M1 Mac would be my ideal machine.
All in all, I am glad to dislike Macs with their abysmally bad keyboards and actively hostile and negatively productive touch bar. WSL is pretty nice.
Personally, I would love an M1 Mac Mini that ran Linux well. Very exciting development.
The butterfly keyboard era Macs took a nosedive in this metric, because they were bad computers.
I have what turns out to be the last Intel 16" MacBook Pro which Apple will ever build. I suspect the Intel part of it will make its resale value kind of grim, but the keyboard, speakers, monitor, build quality: all great.
MacBooks traditionally resell at a significant premium, because they're good computers with a long useful life. I expect this will be true for the M-series as well, although it's too soon to know.
No intention to sell but I suspect resale value will stay OK as there is likely to be ongoing demand from those who want a Mac for x86 cloud development (and non-technical users probably don't care if its x86 or M1).
I needed a Mac for iOS development so I went all out since I do all sort of development - and this is by far the worst premium device I owned.
With that said M1 Macs look really good and I'll probably upgrade if they refresh the 16 inch.
But still:
1) After a few months, the screen of the thinkpad started to get permanent scratches from the keyboards. This is a common problem, see [1]
2) The keyboard is better, totally agree. But the trackpad is much, much worse. I managed to adapt to the bad keyboard on the mac, I didn't manage to adapt to the trackpad on the X1.
3) The quality of the screen has no point of comparisson. Color gamut, calibration, resolution, etc. I like the WQHD screen, but it is not available for the X1 on many countrie outside the US. In my country (Spain) you only have the UHD which is a fantastic battery draining mirror or the FHD which reminds me of the nintendo 64 when looking at it. Let's not talk about scaling hi dpi resolutions, and deciding if using Wayland or Xorg so that I can plug an external screen with different resolution, etc.
4)Battery usage is not as optimized
5) I think nowadays this is better, but at the time (around 3 or 4 years afgo) I had lots of problems on Linux with bluetooth, resuming after suspending, and the fingerprint reader. Hopefully this has improved since then.
6) Price wise, they are as expensive as an equivalent macbook
A being "good" or "bad" has a lot of aspects to it. It is not just "It has the same CPU freq and the same amount of memory then they are equivalent" (not what you're saying but something many say when doing this comparison). Build quality matters, integration/support with the operating system matters, support matters, upgradeability matters, resale value matters.
And also, just compare the f*ng mess the Lenovo website is. Every time I think about going back to thinkpad, browsing such a terrible, slow, clunky, outdated, terrible thought out website makes me regret it and just close the tab.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=thinkpad+screen+keyboard+scr...
Battery life is about equal on this MBP - it's just a terrible CPU for a mobile device. But more importantly I use battery about 1-2% of the time - ergonomics are just not good enough for it IMO.
X1 Yoga with an AMD CPU would be my ideal laptop but unfortunately it seems like AMD gets pushed to gamers and budget laptops still
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-14-3/
..but I also don't want to see Linux get left in the dust. I'm more likely Intel or AMD crush the M1 in their next few generations.
Of course, now with TouchBar, I have no idea if that is even supported on Linux at all. I assume it's not, and if it is, it's a complete pain in the ass. (but honestly - could possibly be GREAT, if it weren't for the loss of the 'esc' key).
I seem to recall getting Debian running on my dual PPC Mac Pro was also difficult; with power management - but on the other hand, I was using it as a server and ran it full-blast 24x7 anyway. Damn that thing was loud.
I only see the M1 making power management that much more complicated, (due to custom chipset and lack of support from tools that are standard on x86-based linux distros). The main thing you'd stand to gain from the M1 platform is power and heat management. So I am cautiously optimistic that anyone wanting to port linux there will possibly pay close attention to putting together a package of tools that will work.
But the Pre-2015 MacBook Pro and M1? They are great. ( Although M1 still have shitty keyboard )
Far superior to my 2019 MBP my employer got me.
The only thing I have had break was a 2009 MagSafe charger, the insulation somewhere in the middle started getting brittle, probably some sort of chemical reaction causing it to lose its flexibility. But since I only have 1 MagSafe first revision device left it doesn't matter that much. (and I don't use it that much either)
Curious have you used the new M1 keyboard? It's a totally different mechanism, and feels completely different than the ~2019 MBP I have for work. I would go so far as to say that the 2019 keyboard was hands-down the worst keyboard I have ever used, but the new one is really excellent. I really enjoy mine. It seems to me to be one of the better laptop keyboards I have ever used. Maybe not quite as nice as some of the better lenovo models, although I'm not quite sure.
If you have used the new keyboards, what do you dislike about them?
Key Travel. And Spacing between Keys although I could cope with that a little easier. I find Most people who like the new M1 / Magic Keyboard are either
a) Those that actually like / have no problem with the butterfly keyboard ( Macbook 2016-2019 )but much prefer to have the reliability of old scissor ( Macbook Pre 2015 )
b) Those that didn't like butterfly Keyboard but was forced to use it for work, and got a new scissors / Magic Keyboard ( 2020 / M1 ) would find it to be so much better than butterfly.
But then if you have an old scissors to compare to the key travel is just so much better.
Butterfly Keyboard - 0.7mm New Magic Keyboard - 1.0mm Old Scissors Key - 1.3mm
( Key Travel means the distance pressed downwards before the keystroke is recognised )
It is not like I didn't spend time trying the Butterfly and the New Magic Keyboard at work. And it just didn't work out. My MacBook Pro at home is Pre 2015. And the old scissors just give me so much more responsive feedback for only a cost of 0.3mm thickness.
On the contrary, much like the 16" 2020 MacBook Pro, this is probably among the best MacBook keyboards ever created. Apple definitely stepped it up when they finally responded to the criticism of the 2016-2019 MacBook keyboards.
Edit: Whoops, I broke the first rule of the Cult... Here come the downvotes.
1. Linux
2. Not Intel
3. Good screen for text, "13 inch"
4. Pen input, for writing and drawing
5. Battery life
My dreams are modest; fuck you universe!