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Comment by vishnugupta | Hacker News Reader

Due to things like this I’m quite wary of buying a high end Apple machine as workhorse even though I’ve become a big fan of their products. Though I’m currently using an M1 and 2018 MacBook Pro without any problems they are company issued so I haven’t paid anything.

Of late I’ve been getting this idea of building a high end desktop PC with Linux as a daily workhorse and use the lowest end MacBook for cases when I have to move around the house or work from office. When I’m paying $3000+ I expect local shops to be able to repair and service them without the manufacturer throwing a tantrum.

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Yep that is exactly the feeling which prevents me from buying Apple products for private use. I have no motivation of paying a premium if the manufacturer is going to make things more difficult for me. I want to make my experience easier, not harder, when I pay more.

In contrast, I had no problem buying a Steam Deck the moment it came out (even though I had never bought gaming hardware before) because I had confidence that the customer experience is going to be better.

You are falsely equating repairability with customer experience as a whole.

In an imperfect world where things break repair is a part of customer experience.

The bigger issue for me with having a MacBook as a professional is the turnaround time for a fix. I once had an SSD problem on my fairly new MacbBook Pro. The machine kept getting write errors and eventually they started leading to daily kernel panics. When i sent my machine in the repair shop had to order a new SSD from Apple, this only took a day or two, but the new SSD was DOA and they had to order another one. The distribution center didn't have any more in stock and had to order a new one from China, which would take about a week to arrive, and at this point it had already been almost a week.

The big issue was that the repair shop wasn't allowed to keep any parts in stock. They always had to order a part from Apple and then promptly return the defective one.

Well, when you have enough time to maintain custom build system it is no issue. Most people I know whether lower or higher income level can't spare enough time to repair or get the system repaired.

I mean companies pay significant amounts for trivial software because of maintenance costs.

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