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Comment by chuckadams | Hacker News Reader

What keeps me in the Appleverse is the hardware, and the software that Just Works with the hardware (I find that "Just Works" has been rapidly eroding in general, but naturally it still handles the hardware well). The alternatives are Linux on much worse hardware, or the non-starter that is Windows on anything whatsoever.

I'm told ThinkPads are getting to parity and have primo Linux support, but barring accident, my M3 MBP will probably last me a decade. Another reason I prefer Apple hardware.

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Almost any Linux distro will work find with any Thinkpad and has done so for almost two decades now.

I switched as a heavy Linux user to a MacBook because of this reason.

1. Battery is better than any other laptop out there

2. Touchpad is better than any other laptop out there. I don't even use a mouse anymore

3. Sound is better than any other laptop out there.

There is no other laptop that comes even close to this hardware.

Yeah Apple's hardware team still has the sauce. As someone who will not buy Apple products, I do have to give kudos where they're due. Their software is an ever-evolving dumpster fire. I just wish their hardware was friendly to Linux. And no, herculean reverse engineering efforts that will always be behind on feature parity and efficiency, do not count (impressive and respectable though it may be). I would totally buy a MacBook if running MacOS wasn't a requirement for it be fully capable.

Apple Silicon was as potent a crack as SSDs and Chrome (both immense steps up from what we had before). I nearly left the Apple ecosystem but the M chips pulled me back...

HP Zbook G1a (Ryzen AI max+ 395) is getting closer and has an M.2 SSD slot. But Macbooks undeniably have better battery life (touchpad, sound and display). I selected this over Macbook because I value linux and openness more. But it's true Apple managed to make some really good devices with apple silicon and the competition has a hard time catching up.

Before apple silicon, I was making fun of apple fanboys as CPU specs were mostly bad and it didn't make sense for the price. Apple silicon changed that. And it doesn't look like it will change very soon, sadly. I would like to see more really viably alternatives.

Linux runs well on M2 (and hopefully also M3 in the future)

If you're OK with it draining 3% battery per hour when you close the lid, sure.

https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m2/

still too many missing bits for me.

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