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If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. Most people want their laptop to be reasonab

If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. Most people want their laptop to be reasonably fast, get solid battery life, and have a nice display and ergonomics. Also important is power saving technology (sleep, hibernate, etc.) and storage size/speed. Most commodity laptops that are competing in the raw specs wars have major deficiencies in one or more of the above areas. If you are a Windows user, you have taken on the task of dealing with a broken, polluted driver ecosystem and lots of malware, as well as an OS that shows you ads on the desktop. If you are a Linux user you take on the task of making sure your bleeding edge hardware works with linux. This is no small task and in many cases it's over a year after release that linux support for new technology becomes anything approaching reliable. A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. It is a reliable work horse that does its job without complaining. The hardware and ergonomics fade into the background and you just focus on your work. I suppose if you are a gamer there is a case to be made for running Windows on bleeding edge hardware, but such gamers are a very small percentage of laptop users.

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wwweston 10y ago
> If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. This argument works reasonably well for the "MacBook" side of the equation, but it doesn't fare so finely on the "Pro" side.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
Logically, you're right. However, when people spend a lot of money, they want to feel that they're getting a good deal, and they want to feel that they it will be useful for long enough to get their "money's worth". It's these two mostly psychological factors that are coming into play here.
trurl 10y ago
> If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. Yeah, I think they call those people developers. > A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. It is a reliable work horse that does its job without complaining. The hardware and ergonomics fade into the background and you just focus on your work. Except MacBooks max out at 8GB of memory. At this point 16GB doesn't cut it anymore for my development, so MacBook Pros and iMacs are out too. I have entertained the idea of getting a Mac Pro, except they are even more woefully out of date at this point.
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- taylodl 10y ago
  Technically the Retina iMac w/27" display now support 32GB of memory, but it's not cheap.
  - trurl 10y ago
    Thanks, somehow I had missed that when looking at the tech specs.
- paulrpotts 10y ago
  I'm having a hard time understanding the idea that a developer needs some kind of massive AV workhorse with 32 GB of RAM. Do you mean animator, graphic artist, or video editor? How much RAM does a compiler, debugger, IDE, and database need? If you are a web developer, are you running a clone of your whole server stack on your laptop, including databases? I'm a developer, and what I want from a laptop is, mostly, a big clear screen and a port to connect another big, clear screen when I'm at my desk. Since my work products are largely text files, I don't even need a large hard drive. A fast CPU helps build large codebases but since I have incremental compilation in my C/C++ toolchain, it's not like these days I spend a large part of my time compiling. Genuinely curious -- what kind of a developer needs more than 16 GB of RAM to make a machine viable for development? I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives and a big screen too, but I use that for audio and video production where it is helpful.
WayneBro 10y ago
> If you are a Windows user, you have taken on the task of dealing with a broken, polluted driver ecosystem and lots of malware, as well as an OS that shows you ads on the desktop. I've had more problems with hardware not working on OS X than Windows. I've never had a problem with malware in 20 years of using Windows. The only virus I ever got was the NY Boot Virus and that came on a floppy disk. People on HN keep talking about how "Windows is adware"...I don't see it. At all! I have been running Windows 10 on my entertainment machines since it has been released and on my workstations for the past 6 months. What exactly are you talking about? > A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. My Surface Pro (first version) and my Dell Venue Pro 8 both just work and extremely well. My desktop workstation just works too and it's extremely fast compared to my Mid-2012 Mac Pro that I paid twice as much for. (Although even running Windows on my Mac Pro is faster than OS X.) Also, my Surface Pro battery is lasting longer than my Early 2008 Macbook Pro battery did (although at least I could replace the latter) and my Surface Pro never shocked me in the winter time like my MBP (which froze a few times after such an occurrence). I've also had plenty of PC laptops that have outlasted, outperformed and "just worked" better than my Mac laptops. So, your viewpoint sounds way off to me and I am suspicious as to whether you've actually used Windows for any length of time.
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wwweston 10y ago

> If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. This argument works reasonably well for the "MacBook" side of the equation, but it doesn't fare so finely on the "Pro" side.

bryanlarsen 10y ago

Logically, you're right. However, when people spend a lot of money, they want to feel that they're getting a good deal, and they want to feel that they it will be useful for long enough to get their "money's worth". It's these two mostly psychological factors that are coming into play here.

trurl 10y ago

> If you buy a laptop based only on raw specs, you are in a different market than the vast majority of laptop users. Yeah, I think they call those people developers. > A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. It is a reliable work horse that does its job without complaining. The hardware and ergonomics fade into the background and you just focus on your work. Except MacBooks max out at 8GB of memory. At this point 16GB doesn't cut it anymore for my development, so MacBook Pros and iMacs are out too. I have entertained the idea of getting a Mac Pro, except they are even more woefully out of date at this point.

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taylodl 10y ago
Technically the Retina iMac w/27" display now support 32GB of memory, but it's not cheap.
- trurl 10y ago
  Thanks, somehow I had missed that when looking at the tech specs.
paulrpotts 10y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding the idea that a developer needs some kind of massive AV workhorse with 32 GB of RAM. Do you mean animator, graphic artist, or video editor? How much RAM does a compiler, debugger, IDE, and database need? If you are a web developer, are you running a clone of your whole server stack on your laptop, including databases? I'm a developer, and what I want from a laptop is, mostly, a big clear screen and a port to connect another big, clear screen when I'm at my desk. Since my work products are largely text files, I don't even need a large hard drive. A fast CPU helps build large codebases but since I have incremental compilation in my C/C++ toolchain, it's not like these days I spend a large part of my time compiling. Genuinely curious -- what kind of a developer needs more than 16 GB of RAM to make a machine viable for development? I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives and a big screen too, but I use that for audio and video production where it is helpful.

WayneBro 10y ago

> If you are a Windows user, you have taken on the task of dealing with a broken, polluted driver ecosystem and lots of malware, as well as an OS that shows you ads on the desktop. I've had more problems with hardware not working on OS X than Windows. I've never had a problem with malware in 20 years of using Windows. The only virus I ever got was the NY Boot Virus and that came on a floppy disk. People on HN keep talking about how "Windows is adware"...I don't see it. At all! I have been running Windows 10 on my entertainment machines since it has been released and on my workstations for the past 6 months. What exactly are you talking about? > A Macbook, on the other hand, just works, and works extremely well. My Surface Pro (first version) and my Dell Venue Pro 8 both just work and extremely well. My desktop workstation just works too and it's extremely fast compared to my Mid-2012 Mac Pro that I paid twice as much for. (Although even running Windows on my Mac Pro is faster than OS X.) Also, my Surface Pro battery is lasting longer than my Early 2008 Macbook Pro battery did (although at least I could replace the latter) and my Surface Pro never shocked me in the winter time like my MBP (which froze a few times after such an occurrence). I've also had plenty of PC laptops that have outlasted, outperformed and "just worked" better than my Mac laptops. So, your viewpoint sounds way off to me and I am suspicious as to whether you've actually used Windows for any length of time.

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