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Comment by localghost3000 | Hacker News Reader

I am sure I will get all kinds of hate for saying this: despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value.

Lets take device lifetime: I have a 2013 MBP 15 and 2015 MBP 15. I use them for intensive things like music production. Both devices work flawlessly. I also a System 76 Oryx Pro which cost more than any mac I own. The webcam failed 5 months in, several keys don't work anymore, and it gets hotter than the surface of the sun when I ask it to do even moderate workloads. Its also ugly as shit. I don't really use it anymore.

There is also resale value: I've been able to get at least a few hundred bucks for pretty much any apple device I've owned when I've sold it. My Oryx? No one wants that thing. Its gonna end up in a landfill at some point.

In my experience, you pay more up front but you get more for your money in the long run.

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> despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value

What extra up front cost? The Macbook Air costs $799 at BestBuy. Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less?

Only Samsung makes computers that are comparable to the Macbook. This Samsung [2] arguably has a better screen but costs $1450. (There are cheaper Samsungs but they don't have 200% screen resolution.)

[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/macbook-air-13-3-laptop-apple-m...

[2] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-galaxy-book3-pro-14-3k-...

> Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less?

These days, the extra cost is (mostly) for the quality. (Some of it is also for some of the capabilities, which a given user may not need all of, but the selection is very limited.)

So much of the time, when people are comparing a Mac to a PC on price and complaining that the Mac is overpriced, they're comparing it to a PC whose build quality is very obviously inferior. For them, that may not matter, because they're fully price-focused, or because they're only planning on having it for 2-3 years anyway, or because they just don't believe that build quality matters...but it's still a real thing, and it does make a difference for many people.

The opening test: Open a PC laptop, the keyboard obnoxiously holds on to the screen to about 10cm, at which point your grip fails and it slams against the table. That’s all the treatment it deserves, and the rest of your experience will be similar; It may sound like a joke but there are many situations where this is useful: When you’re on the phone, when you’re in bed, when you’re holding the power adaptor in the other hand, etc.

Hmm, I'd say the Surface line are the direct competitors, and have real nice quality. Better keyboards and a nicer screen form factor 3:2. Was quite a fan of the Surface Book 2, and recently picked up a Laptop Go which is great, for less than a Macbook Air.

Surface Laptop 5 costs $899. Still no sign of "extra up-front cost" of Apple. For me, Surface Laptop isn't even in the running because of poor screen resolution.

The old Surface Book has 3000x2000 resolution which is 200%, but the Surface Laptops have 2256x1504 resolution, which is only 150%. As Steve Jobs said when he introduced iPhone 4, the only resolution that looks good after 100% is 200%. I have tested screens with 150% and 300% resolutions, and they all have display artifacts (such as horizontal 1-pixel horizontal lines appearing to have different widths).

I think Mac and surfaces are in the same price bracket definitely. My surface book was a cool 4k in NZD when I grabbed it, comparative to a similar MacBook pro.

You were being asked about Surface vs Macbook Air - why're you bringing MacBook Pro into it? There's no extra upfront cost for Apple. It is mind boggling how good a computer you can get for USD$800 from Apple compared to anything else on the market.

No I wasn't, but if I was it works like this: Surface Go = iPad, same rough price and specs, Surface Laptop Go, Surface Laptop vs Macbook Air or low-end Macbook Pro, same rough price (Laptop Go is a few hundred cheaper), Surface Book vs medium-high-end Macbook Pro, same rough price.

Right now a entry level Macbook Air in NZ is ~1600, 1400 on special, and a Surface Laptop Go 2 is ~1400. Same size, same ram, same hdd, higher res on the air, touch screen on the surface, m1 on the air, intel x64 on the surface, basically same target market.

> What extra up front cost? The Macbook Air costs $799 at BestBuy.

Only if you go with the absolute lowest specs. Which means you cannot upgrade them and will have to chuck that MacBook Air much sooner than any Windows laptop because it’s unable to keep up with you.

Maxing out the specs on any Apple hardware is practically required for maximizing usable lifespan, and unfortunately, represents a massive barrier to entry for a majority of people. Since these products are not upgradable after the fact (as most Windows systems are), you have to choose between a much shorter expected lifespan or a much more expensive product.

For example, I can easily put together a Windows machine for $3,000 that can do much the same things that a $2,000 Mac Mini can. But get the entry-level Mac Mini, and any Windows machine which matches that price is relevant for more than twice the time span thanks to its ability to be upgraded.

This is not really true. While the base spec won't meet all needs, you don't need to max out the spec to get a usable machine with a long life.

Yeah, but the base models really are crippled by a lack of storage. I've had to help a couple of family members with their 128GB Macs and 16GB iPhones and I hated every second of it. I bought my partner a Macbook with maxed out storage just so I don't have to deal with that shit again.

I don't think they sell 128GB macs any more do they? They shouldn't!

512GB seems to have been enough for me for the last ten years or so, if I need more storage than that, it goes on a different machine or cloud storage of some form. I haven't found it restrictive at all.

I had my 2013 MBP (i5/8/512) in active use until 2020 when lockdown hit and I stopped needing a laptop for a while. Now I'm on a M1/16/512 Air, and two years in I'm still very happy with it. Hopefully I'll get 7 years out of this one too.

They don't sell 128GB any more but 256GB isn't much better. Pretty much everyone apart from the most casual users is going to fill that up.

My 256GB Air, which is my work+personal computer, shows 94 GB free. That's my whole job, my paperwork, Apple Photos library with 5 years worth of data, all my apps and personal projects, all my ebooks, memes, notes, screenshots, cached music from Spotify, everything is in there.

I do have a 4 TB NAS at home, but that's backups and childhood photos, no daily-driving stuff. I don't consider myself a casual user.

I have a 150GB temp directory on my laptop, and I don't consider myself a power user (no video/audio editing, no modern games, etc.). 256GB is really tiny, even for my mother who just keeps local copies of photos and documents etc.

("temp" like "stuff I occasionally need", not literally /var/tmp)

> I don't think they sell 128GB macs any more do they? They shouldn't!

The base model m1 macbook air has 256GB of storage.

Yeah the latest M1/M2 Macbooks have made them a nobrainer.

I can’t find any laptops in my country with the same screen resolution, brightness, weight, and trackpad combo as a base Macbook for a cheaper price.

My wife’s M1 Macbook Air feels faster than any laptop I’ve ever used, and outside of 3D rendering, even faster than my Ryzen 5900x desktop.

I’m mind blown just how much better the MacBook trackpad is compared to any non-Apple trackpad.

Dells and Macs seem to have insane upgrade prices vs. market for parts.

Are prices that different in the US? An M2 MacBook air starts at 1500€ here (more than double of your price) and that is with the infamously crippled storage and just 8gb ram. Fix both and the price is 2000€. It no doubt is a nice machine, but at 2000 that is to be expected.

If you buy a laptop with good Linux support, e.g. a ThinkPad. It should be fine for well over a decade in my experience. That is better value than Apple offer.

Thinkpads are solid devices but they’re really falling behind in screen and trackpads.

Most higher end Thinkpad models have 1080p screens with 300-400 nits of brightness at most.

The base M2 Macbook Air is 2560x1664 with 500 nits brightness. And it’s cheaper than a Gen2 Thinkpad T14.

And of course, all Thinkpads can’t hold a candle to Macbook trackpads

This has been discussed ad nauseum, trying to find objective truth to subjective device is a bit silly, isn't it?

Slightly higher resolution and brightness doesn't matter if you can't see anything because of Macbooks's glary screen. And of course, Macbook's trackpads can't hold a candle to Thinkpad's trackpoint.

The only objective truth here is that open software makes devices age better.

If you buy customized from Lenovo instead of a retailer you can almost always choose to upgrade the screen to something like 2560x1660. You have to wait longer for production and delivery though.

I don't need 500 nits when instead I can have a non glossy screen

That is just wrong? Most of them have "3k" or "4k+" displays, aka more than macs. Heck, my 5year old Thinkpad has a 2560x1440 500 nit display. You can get 1080p as an option, but why do you want to?

It also has a very nice glass track pad, which as far as hardware is concerned is arguably better than the mac one. The difference is software support, which is better on Mac.

Well, at least in my country, the Lenovo website has 53 Thinkpad models for sale. 23 of these 53 are 1920x1080. 27 are 1920x1200.

https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/dg/LAPTOPS?from=splitter&visibl...

No, they aren't. They are models, which among other resolutions also offer these options. E.g. the first one on your list offers 3840x2400 or 1920x1200 screens.

You should check out what Lenovo is doing currently; I just picked up a X1 Carbon 6th gen for £340 and loaded Ubuntu on it. The machine runs incredibly well, the trackpad is fantastic and it's a very quiet machine. Literally blew me away with the value for money, coming from my experience with Dell / Huawei laptops they're great.

I currently use a Thinkpad T14 :)

Don't get me wrong - I like this laptop, especially it's keyboard.

But it simply doesn't offer enough value compared to the newer Macbooks.

I have a T14s Gen 3 and whilst it's a fine laptop it has minor quirks which make it a compromised experience vs a Macbook Air.

Screen resolution caps out at 1920x1200 which feels blurry coming from the 2560x1600 a Macbook provides.

Its speakers are awful - they use EQ under Windows (provided by the Lenovo Vantage software) to sound vaguely reasonable. Under Linux no such EQ exists (even though Linux is supported by Lenovo on this laptop) so the speakers sound like a smartphone (not exaggerating).

The trackpad is so-so, to get a trackpad in Lenovo's lineup comparable to a Macbook Air you'd have to buy their Z13 which costs £700 more.

Pluses are the AMD CPU and graphics are good enough to actually play games, like Flight Simulator 2020 at 30 fps on low settings, or older titles like Witcher 3 or Arkham Knight on high settings also at a constant 30fps.

The laptop itself is good value, I picked it up on sale for £1200 with 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM for £1200. A comparable Macbook Air (M1) is £1600.

> caps out at 1920x1200.

No? Just opened the lenovo website and it says

Up to 35,6 cm (14") 2,8K OLED (2.880 x 1.800) IPS, 16:10, DisplayHDR™ True Black 500, Dolby® Vision™

So higher res and oled.

> 1tb ssd, 32gb ram. Comparable macbook air m1 is 1600.

Can you even get an air with 32gb of ram? Or what do you mean by "comparable"?

Browser support (including Safari support) is the main reason why expensive desktop Macs eventually become paperweights, as has happened to my father in the last year. Safari, Firefox, Chrome, all stuck at ancient and insecure versions, with the web slowly breaking on these older browsers.

Despite how glossy and powerful the machine still is, if it doesn't have a working web browser it's only semi-valid. Watched my Dad go through this three times in the last 20 years, and no stranger to it myself. My own current Macbook Air is just a thin client for a Remote Windows instance, but I suppose eventually that the browser interface for that is going to become a problem too, when it 'ages out'.

> Browser support (including Safari support) is the main reason why expensive desktop Macs eventually become paperweights.

https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy

Open Core Legacy patcher might help get a few extra years out of your Mac: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

How long would you expect a machine can be kept up to date with the latest OS?

I have a Mac Mini from 2012 that has the security updates from 2022-05 and Catalina, from 2019, but I have the latest version of Firefox that I use.

The machine is perfectly usable and probably performs even better than day one given I put in an SSD in it. I bought it used for less than 300 euros with a wireless keyboard, and given the form factor, ability to use multiple monitors, great integration with my other devices, it wouldn't be fair to complain about a this 11 year old machine that still works as intended.

I had a 2018 MBP that also got as hot of the surface of the sun. Literally SCRIBBLING with the pencil on a blank canvas in Corel Painter for 30 seconds would send the CPU to 90 C. I got lucky with the keyboard on mine but I know quite a few people who weren't or were affected by flexgate.

You're right about about resale value. Cult of Apple and all that.

I get that looks are subjective but personally I find everything they've made post 2003 to be insanely boring with no real character.

I had that laptop. That generation of Macs had thermal issues.

Generation before and after are fine. I'm still happily using a 2012 iMac. No thermal issues.

Yeah there is a big ol asterisk around the 2016-2019(ish) era. I stopped buying apple stuff during that time. Thats why I own the oryx!!

> 2018 MBP that also got as hot of the surface of the sun.

Mine has dust, Apple store guys cleaned it and issue was gone.

I don't think dust buildup was an issue out of the box. It always ran hot.

Any Intel/AMD mobile processor is going to get hot doing simple things - new or old. It has always been this way. M1/M2 is the way to go if you want cool operation on virtually all workloads.

Oh baloney. Doing the same thing on my Ryzen 5650U won't crack 50 C, it regularly idles around 30-40 C whereas the MBP I don't think I ever saw below 45. And my prior Skylake system was way cooler too. Usually was around 70 C gaming. The 2018 15" MBP chassis is particularly terrible for the chips they put in there. The i9 infamously would perform worse than the i7 in benchmarks for long duration tasks.

What do you mean? There was no M1 system in 2018. Only the Intel machine with cooling problems.

My MBP M1 Pro is usually compiling big chunks of software. (Granted, not as intense as rendering video but definitely more challenging than most games) three to four times as fast as my desktop i9, and after almost 2 years, I have yet to see it reach 40°C. It’s got some hefty fans that simply never have turned on yet, as far as I’m aware.

Those old MacBooks can't reliably play 4k and will struggle with 1080p YouTube without running the fan due to software decoding. I think the newer ARM-based Apple products will have much better resale value than the Intel ones. I wouldn't buy an Intel MacBook ever again after having used M1, the difference is night and day. The cheapest M1 MacBook Air with 8GB RAM will do literal laps around any equivalent Intel machine.

I've only ever had second hand ThinkPad T series laptops and a brand new 2015 MBP. The MBP had by far the most hardware issues of any devices I ever had (second screen only on power, running hot enough to cook on it, battery life was mediocre from the start, ...). Every single ThinkPad I ever owned is still ready in my drawer. My ~15yo T420 still has like 6 hours battery life and works like a charm

The build quality thing is only true if you compare them with cheaper laptops. In the same price class you find more interesting devices IMO

True of older ThinkPads but Lenovo seems to have finally broken them. My current T14s Gen 3 AMD has modern standby problems. Fails to resume from sleep about once a week. Trying to get Lenovo to do something about it.

Sadly yes. My newest device is a T480s that I use as daily driver (without issues) but I likely will never get that shiny ThinkPad carbon :/

Is that under Windows or Linux?

Windows. I haven't tried installing Linux yet because I wanted to make sure it works with the factory OS first. Other people have issues with GPU drivers in Linux. There's also the issue of the removal of the S3 sleep option in the uefi.

Yeah there are at least two known issues with it under Linux:

Display flickering if you have the low power LCD: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Fedora/Random-screen-flickering...

Microphone is very quiet: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Other-Linux-Discussions/T14s-Ge...

As someone who replaced a 2014 MacBook Pro with a system 76 oryx pro. The oryx does get warmer and has terrible battery life, but mine is currently 4 years and and working fine. It’s significantly faster than the mac (it’s newer) and can play games (it has a fairly decent video card). You can do unreal development on it.

A more apt comparison would be that MacBook with a pangolin amd 5600? machine. It’s much better on battery, has the same ports. It’s been my daily driver work machine for almost a year. I’m not going back to Mac or windows if I can help it.

The 2015 MacBooks were the greatest apple machines, but I doubt they’ll get any support in a couple years

> It’s much better on battery

This is not my experience. At best I'd get a few hours. If I'm using the GPU? An hour or so.

The system76 amd computers “pangolin” don’t have a separate gpu. Battery life is good to great, I’ve easily gotten 6 hours. New ones even better.

The M1 MacBook Pro is the best Mac made since the turn of the century.

I switched from Mac to Surface in 2017, and was moderately happy. I bought an M1 air when they came out, it’s essentially a different kind of product.

Surface and M1 Macs aren’t even in the same universe of utility.

Hear hear.

I have a Macbook Pro M1 Max. I upgraded from a 2015 MBP, which had previously been one of my all-time favorite Apple laptops (and I've had cough a lot).

The MBP M1 Max - to my surprise - destroyed the 2015 on virtually every level.

This is my current "from my cold dead hands" machine.

Pricepoint: $2,499.00 for 16 inch MBP, M2, 12-Core CPU, 19-Core GPU, 16GB Unified Memory, 512GB SSD Storage (which is very small storage, and 1Tb starts at $2699).

This probably goes without saying, but I feel it needs to be said anyway: 16GB must be a joke by the market segmentation folks in Cupertino. I can just barely do comfortable development with the 32GB version. If docker was native, mayyyybe 16 would be almost fine…

> 16GB must be a joke by the market segmentation folks in Cupertino.

Isn't Microsoft still selling laptops with only 4GB of RAM?

For 2500? Nope.

Ever heard of ZRAM under Linux? KVM settings with RAM deduplication?

The M1 Max MacBook is the best computer I've ever owned, period. I upgraded to it from a 2012 MBP. The hardware is top-notch (pun intended).

> I am sure I will get all kinds of hate for saying this: despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value.

No it isn't better value, it's expensive for what it is, especially when you can find $200 refurbished Asus Vivobooks out there with a Ryzen 5/7 APU and run linux on them. Apple products are insanely expensive and are often plagued by specific problems due to Apple obsession with (thin) design at the expense of usability.

Yeah . If you are comparing Apple to a company that sells less than 10k units a year, then sure Apple would hold better value. I had to look up what is a system 76 oryx.

I own two thinkpads as well.

Same here, first time I'm hearing of a System 76 Oryx.

Link for the lazy: https://system76.com/laptops/oryx

Right up until you need to repair anything, and Apple disables sleep mode because it detects a part that wasn't cryptographically mated to the motherboard.

I have a 2016 MBP 15 that is struggling with anything other than browsing. It cost $2800 new (luckily bought by my employer). I also bought an Asus ultrabook in the same year (2016) for under $700 for my wife and it's still going strong (neither it nor the mac's batteries last as much as they used to, but otherwise no issues).

In my experience, I pay less upfront for a Windows machine and get to enjoy it just as much (if not longer).

Unfortunately 2016 was the worst year to buy a MacBook Pro in the last 10 years. 2016 models still only had a 4-core CPU and DDR3 RAM. 2018 models saw a big improvement in performance (6 cores, DDR4), 2019 models fixed the keyboard, and then 2021 the M1 chips arrived.

We are getting close to the best of both worlds, low-power high-performance Apple ARM laptops plus freedom to run Linux on them, if you want to, with great support.

Great support is a stretch.

A lot of the Apple ARM hardware is a black box.

Plus, good luck if you need to run legacy x86 software, for example games, on the Apple stuff.

It's brave new world or nothing, more or less.

I was born in the late 80s. As I grew up, my parents worked on Windows Machines, and so did the teachers at my school. Macs were just these funny, cute and colorful machines, curiosities more than serious workstations. Even Linux I mostly used to have a system to tinker with. When the first OS X Macbooks and later the iPhone came, I developed the opinion that they're mostly over-expensive status symbols, and I hated Apple for forcing themselves into the education system, especially the arts. I would never stoop so low to support a company with such questionable drive and social impact.

This opinion has not necessarily changed as much as Windows has just descended into full blown subscription-trap-ridden spyware with more ads than your average website.

My next laptop will probably be a mac, and my desktop workstation will stay on win 10/linux as long as possible, a repeat of the XP era. I'm honestly tired of fighting the OS I want to work on at every step. (and yes that also includes fighting all the little problems you have trying to make linux usable: audio, bluetooth, x/wayland)

Ever seen a thinkpad?

Yes. I own two. A t410 and a t450. Definitely more durable but no resale value. I use them for experimental linux installs these days.

I tend not to see thinkpads for resale value, but I think they do fit with the "lasting the test of time" test.

The parts are easily available, cheap, and virtually everything is user replaceable. It's great.

Yeah they are pretty much the only non apple laptops I'll buy now.

I had one once. I honestly thought it was awful.I respect that your experiences may have been different but I found it painfully slow and bulky. The detachable battery broke as well and had to be held in place by tape. I opened it once and it looked like a bunch of bits arranged to look like a laptop. Anyone who has seen the elegant neatness of the inside of a Mac will understand what I mean.

The modularity and keyboards of the older Thinkpads (e.g., X220) were worth the extra bulk. But the new laptops sure are pretty, thin and light.

Replying on my X220, which is my go-to device for writing, non-graphic intensive gaming, and general web use. It's light enough for my needs, and is built like a tank. Plus, I cannot stand more modern laptop keyboards, and I'm hooked on pointing sticks. I've got my desktop for anything that really needs processing power.

I enjoy how my X220 really is a laptop of Theseus; over the years I've replaced everything except the LCD rear cover, bezel, hinges, and base. The biggest problem is getting decent batteries.

FWIW, this battery was recommended somewhere. I bought a couple, and they work:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R7FKDGQ

>elegant neatness of the inside of a Mac

I get your point but this is pretty irrelevant to many people who want the machine to work. Function over form or some such. I'd rather have a durable, repairable machine than a "pretty" machine that allows me virtually 0 upgrades or I have to eat the cost of hundreds of dollars every time I have to send it to Apple care.

The thonkpads I have are fairly repairable, durable, and fast. Yes, they're bulky but weight is generally not an issue for me.

OTOH my current Thinkpad T14 is the most beautiful laptop I’ve ever used. It’s sleek and definitely has “elegant neatness”.

I think most people who write these comments are just comparing a 2002 thinkpad to 2023 mac.

My high-end thinkpad X1 carbon died after 2 years... Not repairable, and they don't sell any motherboard that could allow me to repair it myself.

Also the CPU and RAM were soldered on it, which makes it even less repairable.

The X1 is an ultrabook (or at least the continuation of ultrabooks) and not so repairable. The T series though sacrificed a little weight and thickness for more durability, expandability and servicability. The sacrifice was pretty small though - I thought it was worth it when choosing a work T490 over the X1 a few of years ago.

The bonus was that for the same budget as standard Macbook Pros at work, I got 32GB RAM and the top i7 plus a thunderbolt dock.

Yeah sadly that's what they've started doing with the X1 Carbon series. But T(xxx) series is still pretty solid. Not to mention older x(xxx) units are still great.

I use computers until they are ready to go into laptop graveyard, no need for resale value.

Also still have a 2015 MBP that is going strong. Never changed the battery, but I probably should (though I usually use it on charge anyway). Best laptop I've ever bought.

I wish more people could have the experience of using Mac and Win11 on a daily basis for real work. I've been developing on Mac/Win11/Linux for 8 years. Win11 vs Mac/Linux is night-vs-day. But you really can't get a sense of how awful windows is without spending serious work time on both Mac & Win. It's not an exaggeration. The simplest things, like remembering settings, switching displays, or setting up hardware, Windows is just garbage. There is such a cumulative cognitive load to using windows vs mac, that it is exhausting. And don't even get me started on developing in windows: the command line always has been and always will be shyte. WSL is a facade.

TL;DR: without actually committing to using both OSes for a solid period, I don't think developers have a clue about how bad Windows is compared to MacOS.

There's also a substantial difference in quality when developing between Mac and Linux. Less than Windows, but it's still very noticeable and often most developers make this tradeoff not because of the OS, but what exists outside of that - higher quality hardware, better apple support, more GUI solutions, etc.

It's quite unfortunate that I assume many developers within the Windows team can see what needs to be changed, but are given the cold shoulder unless their solution comes bundled with another surface for ads.

I didn't rant further, but Linux really is the best universal dev platform. I mean this in terms of examples, support, and tendency for developers to create tools, toolchains, and ecosystems from the commandline. This is because serious developers need CI/CD flows, and that is something that can only be done efficiently from the commandline, and the Mac POSIX system (with brew and macports) can emulate Linux almost sufficiently as a replacement, but not quite. There's a reason why everything in the backend ultimately lives on a Linux variant. It's just that powerful. Of course, if you're an iOS, Android, or Windows dev exclusively, my words mean nothing. :) There are plenty of CI/CD pipelines for those platforms, but they often tend toward ... Linux-like flows.

You are saying that Linux is best for Web Developers and server management. But not necessarily anything else.

Um, no. I'm not saying that at all. In your case: if all you know is web, then that is all you'll see. I've used *nix for: all things cloud, distributed computing, scientific computing, machine learning, any kind of research, embedded, automotive, aeronautical, (oddly not CNC), CAD, physics simulation, circuit simulation, CPU design, etc...

I quite enjoy using windows terminal + powershell + dotnet. I would probably use powershell even if I went back to Linux.

Depends on the person because I use both and prefer Windows 10 over MacOS.

The Windows 10 taskbar with "never combine taskbar buttons" is a lot more productive for me, especially when using multiple monitors.

I tried some apps that emulate this on MacOS, but there were always issues.

This is why I'm still on Windows 10 and not 11.

I also prefer the Windows Explorer view, where the left side are folders and the right side the contents of the folder.

With respect, you're speaking to something thats kind of outside the point I was making. You are talking your preference which is pretty subjective.

A contrary anecdote: I used mac for like 7 years, linux (and bsd) for around the same. Both full-commit, main system. And obviously windows, which was always somewhere in a background all this time.

I settled on windows 10 and do not plan to move away from it. MSYS2 adds the linux part, because I don’t really care about kernel or fs, linux means gnu/coreutils to me. And if you like gaming, fresh or non-standard hardware or are oc/tuning enthusiast, linux is out of the game. (Don’t bother commenting on that anyone, I check linux wrt that biannually, last check was this winter, shortly after yet another “it just works this time” promise. I couldn’t even set up linear mode for my metal-paws precision mouse, or 125% scaling.)

Mac is an off-the-shelf option, but it’s expensive and I get mediocre custom hardware for the same price as top pc. E.g. idk about now, but when my drive failed I had to either buy 2x-priced Apple(tm) ssd or a regular one and install a third-party fan controller. Without it it sounded like a vacuum cleaner. Something latest i7/i9, rtx, etc? Costs like half a premium car. I regularly laugh at my former mac-loving boss who e.g. searched for TB(?)-DP adapter for under $400 and walks with a bunch of cables because his macbook lacks usb ports.

Windows 10 is rock solid on hw support and software in general, for a regular price. I can build a completely silent and cool pc out of best parts. I also know how to set it up so it annoys me less if at all. And few programmers’ things that it lacks are easy to supplement. MSYS provides GNU, Powertoys help with desktop/wm, Windows Terminal is also okay. Start menu and taskbar are tunable enough to stop noticing them. Even Explorer became okay recently.

Don’t get me wrong, windows still sucks by default. But at least “yes, it can do that” and it doesn’t require money to change keyboard batteries, if you know that joke.

> But at least “yes, it can do that”

That's a good point. Hardware failures are far more costly on a Mac that on a windows machine. I'm so far removed from that being an issue (because I'm old) that it is a privilege I forget I have. Duly noted.

Cygwin/MSYS/Mingw are really sad reflections of their source material. Not to take a big crap on the millions of man hours the developers have put into them, but they are not drop in replacements which is what I need. And in multiple cases over the years, they always fail to reproduce what is expected. These tools end up requiring their own special care in scripting, which is what I need them to avoid.

WSL2 should help some? It's not perfect, but can get you a lot of the way there.

WSL2 is the best Linux you can get anywhere. Perfect hardware support.

Never heard about it. Does it run on bare metal ? /s

It's really all about the perspective.

I'm a Windows wizard of many a decades and fucking hate iPhones and iPads, but finally got around to buying a Macbook to try it thanks to the sheer hype surrounding the Apple M chips.

My understanding of Macs now is that I hate them but also respect them. What do I mean by this? Well, I have gripes, lots of them; but I'm a power user and here's the kicker: Macs are not intended for power users, I'm not my Macbook's intended customer.

No, Macs are clearly intended for the moms and pops, the common man who treats computers like any other tool or appliance around the house or workplace. Once I understood that and re-evaluated what I had in front of me, I could not deny that Macs are superior to Windows (and Linux) for their intended audience.

Complete computer illiterate guy or gal come to ask me for advice on buying a computer? I'll tell them to go and buy a Mac. Macs Just Work(tm), and that virtue is invaluable for anyone who can't or doesn't want to mess around with their computers.

Something breaks in the Macbook? Just throw it away and buy a new one. The common man doesn't care for messing with the computer, it's an appliance and he has things that need doing, and Macs will satisfy that demand.

Yes, a Mac user has to subscribe to the One Apple Way(tm), it's a hard requirement of getting into the Apple ecosystem. But the common man doesn't care, he has more pressing matters on his mind.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s users don’t like to tinker — just that they don’t want to mess with hardware.

I am absolutely a tinkerer. But I basically need Unix for that. I have a set of dotfiles and config that basically instantly works whenever I transfer machines, just by doing a “git clone” into my $HOME folder. I have a setup script included in there, which copies my config and installs all necessary programs. I have two Mac laptops and can keep them in sync this way. I’ve used Linux for years also, and can modify the Mac script with some changes to support Linux too.

There’s basically no way to do this on Windows because the terminal is a step removed from the system. I can’t open a brand new laptop and have all my programs and config transfer by just running a script. You need to use the UI during multiple points.

Part of this is because I’ve used all of the OS’s extensively (still have windows too!), and always end up needing to reinstall the system every couple of years for one reason or another — maybe just general clutter. This is regardless of OS. On Windows I always lose multiple days to getting it “back to how I want it”, but on Mac and Linux-based systems, it is much faster because (1) there isn’t a bunch of adware to remove, and (2) most/all of the programs that I need can be installed in the terminal with zero effort

> Macs are not intended for power users,

The fact that you can make that claim with a straight face in the context of Windows, with zero examples, tells me you have little experience with both.

I'll do you one better, used Mac for two years, Windows for most of the rest, and a hell of a lot of Linux all throughout. Found the opposite regarding cognitive load with MacOS - it feels like a ten year old operating system full of weird quirks and I got annoyed with its almost-linux-but-not command line. Win11 with WSL2 is my preferred driver, both for hacking and development (primarily Rust/Go not Node so maybe that makes a difference).

Its all subjective though.

You’re not alone. Windows + WSL gives you the sanity of Linux and driver support of Windows. Best of both worlds, though it takes some work to get there.

>Its all subjective though.

Apart from adverts. From a users or consumers perspective advertising is almost always a bad idea because it is so manipulative. You were sitting down to play a game or get some work done and right away the OS is trying to distract you.

Not really subjective, as there are demonstrable instances where windows just falls over.

One easy example:

Bash/sh works the same on Linux and Mac. Nowhere on windows is that true: cygwin mangles paths in a demonstrable script-braking way.

WSL is not windows. It is literally linux running on windows. Which is even more complicated than running a half-baked shell. You're basically using a different OS which is an admission that windows is so awful. Might as well run VNC on a Linux box.

If you want to objectively compare WSL and macOS, you need to run Linux in a virtual machine on mac, that would be the correct comparison.

Bash does not work the same on Linux and Mac, as the version for Mac is the GPLv2 option which has a different, reduced syntax vs the common version in Linux (or WSL2 versions of linux), so a linux bash script may well fail when run on MacOS. Further more, the binary architectures are different so a linux ELF binary wont work on Mac either.

Your WSL comparisons are incorrect as well: WSL Linux on Windows can not only access and run commands like find over the entire windows file system, but it can also run windows executables - these start in windows even though triggered from bash or whatever in Linux. And vice versa: Windows can run linux binaries which start in WSL (or dual use it like Docker for windows which uses a wsl backend). Furthermore, if that floats your boat, if you start a linux gui application (I occasionally do with browsers or certain recon tools) it runs fine in a window as part of the windows ui experience.

So its not really like a linux vm on mac at all, not even considering the vastly better performance you get from WSL vs a VM.

> I wish more people could have the experience of using Mac and Win11 on a daily basis for real work. I've been developing on Mac/Win11/Linux for 8 years. Win11 vs Mac/Linux is night-vs-day

I never used Win11. I actually prefer Win10 in comparison to Mac.

Linux is much better than any of those anyway.

Perhaps better value hardware-wise - because of resale value. But until Linux is solid, you're still stuck with a lousy OS.

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