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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

The average Mac is in use for far longer than your average upgradeable windows laptop from Walmart/Costco. One strong evidence for this is that macOS market share is actually 20% on desktop/laptops despite Macs selling only about ~8-10% of total PCs worldwide. [0]

So yes, on average, Macs are significantly better for the environment. Having less RAM does not mean people replace their Macs more often than Windows computers.

If people truly cared about the environment, they'd buy Macs over Windows computers.

With that said, could Apple extend the lifespan of Macs even more by making the base RAM higher? Yes. Not going to argue against that. But Macs are already much better than Windows computers in this regard.

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

[0] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51020623

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Given that this comparison is with quite expensive Macs vs lots of cheap Windows laptops I'm not sure your conclusion makes sense.

For the "if people truly cared about the environment" they would probably get the same use out of a similar expensive PC.

It's also a bit tone deaf to gatekeep environmentalism behind a $1000++ purchase, especially one that many can't afford.

>For the "if people truly cared about the environment" they would probably get the same use out of a similar expensive PC.

I really don't think so. I used to buy $800 - $900 Windows laptops. They often lasted 2 years before some hinge is broken or the display suddenly gets corrupted or it comes unbearably slow.

I had a 2013 base Macbook Air that lasted until 2019. None of my Windows laptops ever lasted that long. The data seems to back up my anecdote experience.

Do you get more RAM on a Windows laptop for the same price as a Mac? Yes, usually. But everything else around the Windows laptop is poor.

What on earth are you doing to your laptops that has you convinced that six years is an exceptionally long lifespan!?!?

Anyways even though it's literally not a Windows laptop my system 76 lemur ultra i bought in May 2013 works fine after a decade of regular use with no hinge or screen problems. I came close to replacing it recently because i need a laptop with vulkan support but then it turned out that mesa actually has a vulkan implementation on ivy bridge (albeit with a warning that it's not entirely functional) so ill be holding onto it for at least a few more months, maybe longer.

>What on earth are you doing to your laptops that has you convinced that six years is an exceptionally long lifespan!?!?

When I was a poor college student, I kept buying $500 Windows laptops and they kept breaking after 1-2 years.

Weren't they $800-900 a second ago?

Perhaps it was $900 new, then a $400 discount would explain the mysterious hinge damage. ;-)

Next we'll find out that the system didn't have an SSD, had all manner of crapware installed and had its intake ducts filled with dust. Typical fanboy comparisons.

Yeah my opinion and experience as well. I also use Apple stuff but the level of dishonesty and lying coming out of typical Apple fans is absolutely unreal.

One hilarious thing I have noticed about those type of peoples, is that they will defend their overpriced MacBook to the teeth but also go for the cheapest nastiest food possible and defend their stingy choices with a "it's the same thing" type of argument even though you can clearly taste a difference and it is clearly nutritionally worse.

It makes you wonder... I try to avoid those peoples nowadays, always more trouble than they are worth...

>Weren't they $800-900 a second ago?

These also break much faster than Macs in my experience.

My wife’s computer was getting slow so I stuck another 16GB of RAM in it for like $30. that upgraded added years to its life.

I have a stack of old MacBooks I can’t use because they only have 256GB SSDs that can’t be upgraded and I was constantly running out of space on them.

There is something to be said for being able to upgrade a machine to lengthen its usable life.

>My wife’s computer was getting slow so I stuck another 16GB of RAM in it for like $30. that upgraded added years to its life.

Not disputing this. But the vast majority people don't upgrade their laptops. They just buy a new one when it's slow.

I can't find it right now but there's been studies done showing that most people never upgrade their RAM/storage even though they could. They just buy a new computer.

And then I buy their used laptop on ebay for dirt cheap, buy a cheap stick of RAM, and have a really useful server.

> I have a stack of old MacBooks I can’t use

For real? With prevalent cloud storage and cheap tiny external devices it's hard to believe they're totally useless.

I still use my Windows laptops and Linux netbook bought around 2009.

Why? Because they are upgradable in what matters, battery, memory and disk space.

The display man, so good. Using a 2015 i7 mbp still.

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