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I suspect you'll get downvoted into oblivion for your PoV by the pro-Apple HN crowd and even though I do agree with you to some extent on the the high pricing (

I suspect you'll get downvoted into oblivion for your PoV by the pro-Apple HN crowd and even though I do agree with you to some extent on the the high pricing (a basic M1 MacBook is half my NET take home pay as a dev in Europe, and double my rent costs) but value is subjective to most people, and for most, buying into the Apple ecosystem the value the ecosystem brings to their lives is justified, otherwise they wouldn't buy it in the first place (it's not a Prada handbag). Especially for high income earners from wealthy western countries, the cost of ownership can be easily justified for the convenience it brings. But if you're not currently into the Apple ecosystem, and consider going all-in, the total costs of ownership are indeed a bit eye-watering for those without six figure jobs, if you disregard or don't need or don't care about the whole ecosystem and just look at the specs to price ratio of the laptop on it's own (I got a 13 inch QHD thin and light laptop with an 8 core Ryzen 5800U and 16GB RAM and 1TB NVME removable!!! SSD and 8 hour battery life for 750 Euros, where I can dual-boot Linux and Windows and run absolutely any (non-Apple)SW I could ever need). So, since I don't need any component of the Apple ecosystem, I can't justify spending double the money to get more limited functionality in return, though I am tech savvy enough to use Windows and Linux and create for myself a similar (and subjectively better) ecosystem to Apple's for cheap/free using various OSS and proprietary SW. However, lost of doctors I visit and most high-earners I know seem to own Macs and iPhones, so for them most likely it's worth the extra penny for the magic of the ecosystem where everything Justworks(TM) and they don't have to spend extra time learning and fiddling with tech related stuff they don't care for. And TBH, if I didn't have to worry about money, and didn't have a career and hobbies that required the need to run X86_X64 binaries and Android apps, then I'd probably go all-in on the latest Apple MacBook Pros with extra-ports plus iPhone ecosystem for the convenience and time savings.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
well, truth is Apple MacBook Air 13 with 16 GB of RAM is listed at € 1.429 on the Italian Apple web site. My sister bought a Lenovo thinkbook with a Ryzen 7, 16 GB of RAM (upgradable up to 32) for € 729 My 3D artist friend an Asus ROG 14 with an NVidia GPU and 32GB of RAM for € 1.780 and he's using it to render complex scenes. Does the increase in performance justify the ridiculous price? It doesn't, in my opinion. Also, Apple doesn't want to be a mainstream company, their market is never gonna be huge, premium prices are only justifiable if the product is somewhat exclusive.
- dijit 5y ago
  The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. Dell XPS and HP Elitebooks often meet or exceed the price of comparable MacBooks.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. How many times people said that the Air is the "entry level" "low budget" Mac? Which one is true? Is it a luxury product or an entry level one? I can quote many comments saying both things in the same thread. Anyway, no company pays Lenovo full price and their discount policies are far more aggressive than Apple's. There's a reason: Apple doesn't undersell, they don't care. Lenovo, Dell, HP make volumes, they don't care to be a luxury brand. The X1 carbon, paid full price, is for people who have money to waste.
    - simonh 5y ago
      Why can’t a luxury product range have entry level models? Even Ferrari has cars ranging in price from $220k up to $1m. Search for “Ferrari entry-level” and you’ll get plenty of hits using that phrase for various Portofino, Spider and Roma configurations.
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        That's not what they say: they say it's cheap. Luxury is never cheap. An M1 can't be both entry level and better than high end models at the same price tag, at the same time (that's what they say). They are not in fact. Please leave Ferrari alone, they actually make cars that last for decades. Apple doesn't.
        dijit 5y ago
        I can’t make this comment without seeming condescending, but please understand me when I say that I don’t intend it that way. You’re having an emotional reaction to a brand and a product, and this is not ideal. I struggle to deal with people who are emotional about brands, both love and hate because I find that there’s no room for objectivity or discussion. There are circumstances where interacting with a brand can be wholly toxic (Oracle) or largely good (Linux, if you can call it a brand). But when you only respond in an emotional way it prevents an intellectually curious discussion. Stop thinking of these as “Apple” computers and instead look at them as.. computers. It makes the trade offs a lot more obvious when you remove the emotive element.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
The other thing is that specs alone don’t tell the whole story. There’s plenty of x86 laptops that on paper have better looking specs than the MacBook Air, but few or none of them are as good at what makes a laptop a laptop — mainly, battery life and heat output. There are laptops that are thinner and lighter, like the Thinkpad X1 Nano that I own, but that thing can’t touch an Air in battery life, heat output, and in some aspects performance.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  > but few or none of them are as good at what makes a laptop a laptop — mainly, battery life and heat output Meh, my Ryzen laptop, while not M1 level, handles performance, heat and battery just fine for my needs, considering it costs well under half the price of an equivalent M1, and, as a major necessity for me, is easier to repair/upgrade but most importantly, it runs both Windows and Linux plus all X86 binaries I could ever want natively and I have full control over it (on Linux at least), instead of the manufacturer dictating what I'm allowed to run on it. M1s are great but they aren't the magic silver bullet that solves everyone's problems, as I have no use for benchmark topping chips that can't run the SW I use. <shrug>
gigatexal 5y ago
Yes they're expensive. But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? My 2013 MacBook Pro with an i7 and 16GB of ram still screams. The trackpad works, no keys fail, the screen is still good being retina. The amount of money paid divided by how long it has lasted me makes it a ~300 USD computer!* *if replaced every year ... or a 900 usd computer if replaced every 3 years.
- nopenopenopeno 5y ago
  And you can no longer install the latest macOs, and linux still has battery/sleep problems with it. I know. I have the same one. Truly incredible hardware. I wish I wasn’t forced to replace it.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? many I don't see many old macs around, because they're harder and more expensive to repair. > if replaced every year that's a big if. The assumption is that Pro market will drive general adoption. It's a false premise. Pro market, especially Apple Pro market, it's predictive of exactly nothing.
  - gigatexal 5y ago
    > But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? >> many I find that hard to believe. You're claiming plastic race-to-the-bottom laptop pc makers are building machines that last as long as all aluminium premium Macs? Fat chance. Re the software issue, yeah, that's a pain. I do plan on putting Linux on it when I replace it with another Mac laptop, probably a M1. But that just furthers my point that Apple makes the best, longest lasting hardware. But to each their own.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      > find that hard to believe. You're claiming plastic race-to-the-bottom laptop pc makers are building machines that last as long as all aluminium premium Macs? Fat chance. I'm not saying that, at all. I am saying that people keep reasonably priced hardware for longer than Mac owners because they don't have money to waste and can actually repair and upgrade them for cheap.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
I think if you get snarky with the HN crowd and tell them they're bad people and living life the wrong way they will get snarky back. HN isn't a unimind, there are lots of opinions here. Look at the way you approached it, you did well, you had nuance, you didn't assault the reader.
kaba0 5y ago
The thing is, I’m not sure your laptop is better than an M1, let alone the newer gen ones. Apple is really ahead in the CPU game and I say that as someone who was never there fan.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be better than an M1 when it's under half the price. It needs to fulfill my needs with minimum compromises, which it does admirably. The limitations of the Apple HW, OS and ecosystem would nullify any performance benefits the M1 could ever bring for me (A Ferrari might be the fastest car on the road but if I need a 4x4 to get to the top of the mountain where my work or leisure is, then owning a Ferrari is not much use for me, is it?) Therefore I am more comfortable buying something that, while not the fastest in the world at topping benchmarks, is plenty fast enough (faster than anything Apple ever made pre-M1 which many users still use just fine), fits my needs better, is easier to repair/upgrade, and as an added bonus, is significantly cheaper than an M1, so I can take the difference in money I would have spent on an M1 and buying into the Apple ecosystem and put it into Apple stock and I'd be even better off in the long run :)) Everybody wins.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    My biggest gripe with laptops have been the battery life. They were basically glorified PCs with like few hours inside them when not plugged in. This is solved by the M1, that’s all I say. Your laptop is still much more expensive than a significantly better desktop PC.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      >My biggest gripe with laptops have been the battery life. They were basically glorified PCs with like few hours inside them when not plugged in. Online reviews show multiple laptops with near full-day battery life (>8h) exist if you do some googling, so that's almost a non-issue ATM if that's your main concern. >Your laptop is still much more expensive than a significantly better desktop PC. Of course it is, but so what? I need a laptop, not a desktop.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

well, truth is Apple MacBook Air 13 with 16 GB of RAM is listed at € 1.429 on the Italian Apple web site. My sister bought a Lenovo thinkbook with a Ryzen 7, 16 GB of RAM (upgradable up to 32) for € 729 My 3D artist friend an Asus ROG 14 with an NVidia GPU and 32GB of RAM for € 1.780 and he's using it to render complex scenes. Does the increase in performance justify the ridiculous price? It doesn't, in my opinion. Also, Apple doesn't want to be a mainstream company, their market is never gonna be huge, premium prices are only justifiable if the product is somewhat exclusive.

dijit 5y ago
The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. Dell XPS and HP Elitebooks often meet or exceed the price of comparable MacBooks.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. How many times people said that the Air is the "entry level" "low budget" Mac? Which one is true? Is it a luxury product or an entry level one? I can quote many comments saying both things in the same thread. Anyway, no company pays Lenovo full price and their discount policies are far more aggressive than Apple's. There's a reason: Apple doesn't undersell, they don't care. Lenovo, Dell, HP make volumes, they don't care to be a luxury brand. The X1 carbon, paid full price, is for people who have money to waste.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Why can’t a luxury product range have entry level models? Even Ferrari has cars ranging in price from $220k up to $1m. Search for “Ferrari entry-level” and you’ll get plenty of hits using that phrase for various Portofino, Spider and Roma configurations.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      That's not what they say: they say it's cheap. Luxury is never cheap. An M1 can't be both entry level and better than high end models at the same price tag, at the same time (that's what they say). They are not in fact. Please leave Ferrari alone, they actually make cars that last for decades. Apple doesn't.
      - dijit 5y ago
        I can’t make this comment without seeming condescending, but please understand me when I say that I don’t intend it that way. You’re having an emotional reaction to a brand and a product, and this is not ideal. I struggle to deal with people who are emotional about brands, both love and hate because I find that there’s no room for objectivity or discussion. There are circumstances where interacting with a brand can be wholly toxic (Oracle) or largely good (Linux, if you can call it a brand). But when you only respond in an emotional way it prevents an intellectually curious discussion. Stop thinking of these as “Apple” computers and instead look at them as.. computers. It makes the trade offs a lot more obvious when you remove the emotive element.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

The other thing is that specs alone don’t tell the whole story. There’s plenty of x86 laptops that on paper have better looking specs than the MacBook Air, but few or none of them are as good at what makes a laptop a laptop — mainly, battery life and heat output. There are laptops that are thinner and lighter, like the Thinkpad X1 Nano that I own, but that thing can’t touch an Air in battery life, heat output, and in some aspects performance.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
> but few or none of them are as good at what makes a laptop a laptop — mainly, battery life and heat output Meh, my Ryzen laptop, while not M1 level, handles performance, heat and battery just fine for my needs, considering it costs well under half the price of an equivalent M1, and, as a major necessity for me, is easier to repair/upgrade but most importantly, it runs both Windows and Linux plus all X86 binaries I could ever want natively and I have full control over it (on Linux at least), instead of the manufacturer dictating what I'm allowed to run on it. M1s are great but they aren't the magic silver bullet that solves everyone's problems, as I have no use for benchmark topping chips that can't run the SW I use. <shrug>

gigatexal 5y ago

Yes they're expensive. But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? My 2013 MacBook Pro with an i7 and 16GB of ram still screams. The trackpad works, no keys fail, the screen is still good being retina. The amount of money paid divided by how long it has lasted me makes it a ~300 USD computer!* *if replaced every year ... or a 900 usd computer if replaced every 3 years.

nopenopenopeno 5y ago
And you can no longer install the latest macOs, and linux still has battery/sleep problems with it. I know. I have the same one. Truly incredible hardware. I wish I wasn’t forced to replace it.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? many I don't see many old macs around, because they're harder and more expensive to repair. > if replaced every year that's a big if. The assumption is that Pro market will drive general adoption. It's a false premise. Pro market, especially Apple Pro market, it's predictive of exactly nothing.
- gigatexal 5y ago
  > But how many HP/Dell/Lenovo etc laptops do you have from 2013 that still run like new? >> many I find that hard to believe. You're claiming plastic race-to-the-bottom laptop pc makers are building machines that last as long as all aluminium premium Macs? Fat chance. Re the software issue, yeah, that's a pain. I do plan on putting Linux on it when I replace it with another Mac laptop, probably a M1. But that just furthers my point that Apple makes the best, longest lasting hardware. But to each their own.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > find that hard to believe. You're claiming plastic race-to-the-bottom laptop pc makers are building machines that last as long as all aluminium premium Macs? Fat chance. I'm not saying that, at all. I am saying that people keep reasonably priced hardware for longer than Mac owners because they don't have money to waste and can actually repair and upgrade them for cheap.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I think if you get snarky with the HN crowd and tell them they're bad people and living life the wrong way they will get snarky back. HN isn't a unimind, there are lots of opinions here. Look at the way you approached it, you did well, you had nuance, you didn't assault the reader.

kaba0 5y ago

The thing is, I’m not sure your laptop is better than an M1, let alone the newer gen ones. Apple is really ahead in the CPU game and I say that as someone who was never there fan.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
It doesn't have to be better than an M1 when it's under half the price. It needs to fulfill my needs with minimum compromises, which it does admirably. The limitations of the Apple HW, OS and ecosystem would nullify any performance benefits the M1 could ever bring for me (A Ferrari might be the fastest car on the road but if I need a 4x4 to get to the top of the mountain where my work or leisure is, then owning a Ferrari is not much use for me, is it?) Therefore I am more comfortable buying something that, while not the fastest in the world at topping benchmarks, is plenty fast enough (faster than anything Apple ever made pre-M1 which many users still use just fine), fits my needs better, is easier to repair/upgrade, and as an added bonus, is significantly cheaper than an M1, so I can take the difference in money I would have spent on an M1 and buying into the Apple ecosystem and put it into Apple stock and I'd be even better off in the long run :)) Everybody wins.
- kaba0 5y ago
  My biggest gripe with laptops have been the battery life. They were basically glorified PCs with like few hours inside them when not plugged in. This is solved by the M1, that’s all I say. Your laptop is still much more expensive than a significantly better desktop PC.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >My biggest gripe with laptops have been the battery life. They were basically glorified PCs with like few hours inside them when not plugged in. Online reviews show multiple laptops with near full-day battery life (>8h) exist if you do some googling, so that's almost a non-issue ATM if that's your main concern. >Your laptop is still much more expensive than a significantly better desktop PC. Of course it is, but so what? I need a laptop, not a desktop.