But why not just manufacture a high-end made-in-China laptop that can compete with Apple's post 2020 laptops?
It would be less expensive, overall.
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.