Palmer Luckey: pay 20% more for US-made computer vs. Apple Chinese-made?
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"Would you buy a Made In America computer from Anduril for 20% more than Chinese-manufactured options from Apple?"
I think there's absolutely a place for a high-end made-in-America Windows laptop that can compete with the quality of Apple's post 2020 laptops. Honestly, Dell and Lenovo's laptops are uninspiring and it's entirely possible that a competitor could eat their lunch. But whether I buy one? It's entirely contingent on the laptop's quality meeting or exceeding Apple's current standards.
It would be less expensive, overall.
I'm OS agnostic - I don't have a strong preference and I'm productive in macOS, Windows and Linux. In the problematic 2016-2019 days of the terrible Apple butterfly keyboard, I auditioned several Windows/Linux laptops from different manufacturers as my "next" laptop. They were all sub-par in terms of build quality than my five year old pre-butterfly MBP.
I'm not a huge fan of macOS, and I'm certainly not a fan of iOS, but I use Apple gear these days because the build quality is so good. Would I buy a higher quality laptop than Apple's built in either China or the US? In a heartbeat. Even with a 20% markup! I find it bizarre nobody's pulled it off, regardless of country of manufacture.
Because the [Windows] market is driven by price (or cost). There's no appetite in a large enough volume to produce a "high quality" [Windows] laptop. Or at least that is what OEMs believe, likely based on some form of market research.
Today, we all know that wasn't the case, as (often pricy) mechanical keyboards are (thankfully) back in vogue.
It was just lack of availability the whole time.
(Yes, my purchasing decisions are very keyboard-driven.)
They're great, but still a niche. And extremely rare on laptops.
Perhaps a niche, but it is strange how objectively bad keyboards got before literally anyone complained, even though in retrospect we all look back at those terrible keyboards with disgust.
Yes, the question didn't fit in HN length constraint, so I had to adjust it.
> I think there's absolutely a place for a high-end made-in-America Windows laptop that can compete with the quality of Apple's post 2020 laptops.
The responses to his prompt are interesting, with many saying it depends on:
- OS (with vocal opposition to Windows)
- build quality
- degree of US-ness of supply chain, including raw material
Honestly, I'd pay a premium to avoid supporting Anduril.
That’s the real reason for this anxiety re: Chinese manufacturing, it’s not price it’s quality and scale.
Buying less expensive brands that fail about as quickly as the warranty expires was an exercise in frustration.
If you want a desktop it's completely straightforward to build your own out of parts and there are plenty of system builders in your town who'll do it for you, and even make a laptop.