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Having worked at an electronics retailer, I can tell you that "lots" is doing some heavy-lifting in terms of characterizing how much of the laptop market is tak

Having worked at an electronics retailer, I can tell you that "lots" is doing some heavy-lifting in terms of characterizing how much of the laptop market is taken up by Macbooks, let alone the Air, specifically. Certainly, many college students wouldn't be caught dead with a Windows computer, but most people were happy to walk out with something half the price of a Mac, particularly when they're far more used to Windows at school and work than OS X. Acer and Asus were beginning to take up a decent portion of our sales by the time I left.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
MacBook Airs are cheap, in my opinion. I spent $900 on mine 9 years ago. The amortized cost over its lifetime is very competitive with even the cheapest Windows laptops. Even now, an M3 13in with 16GB ram and 512GB SSD is only $1,300. An M3 13in with 8GB ram and 256GB SSD is $900, and that would be good enough for 90% of people for 5+ years easy. https://www.costco.com/macbook-air-laptop-13-inch---apple-m3-chip%2c-8-core-cpu%2c-10-core-gpu%2c-16gb-memory%2c-512gb-ssd-storage.product.4000225217.html?sh=true&nf=true https://www.costco.com/macbook-air-laptop-13-inch---apple-m3...
- underlipton 2y ago
  And (what to most consumers seems like) an equivalent Windows machine can be had for less than half that. After 2.5 years, you can upgrade. This argument has been had ad nauseum; it's not interesting anymore. I just wanted to point out what seemed like a mistake in your analysis re: sales. If you'd like to discuss that, that's fine.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    >After 2.5 years, you can upgrade. This is a huge drawback for most people. I don’t want to “upgrade”, and spend time and effort transferring to new devices. I want the device I have to work for as long as possible.
    - underlipton 2y ago
      Again, from my experience selling these things: "most people" don't want to be stuck with a laptop with 8gb of RAM soldered to the board. They wait until the cost to repair is more than the price of a new laptop, or for when the time for a repair would be too long, or until their hard drive is full (these people don't bother transferring if they're not getting a device with a higher capacity drive). Then, they buy the cheapest laptop that fits their power needs/brand loyalty and that seems like it'll last 2-4 years. Your wants are atypical.
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        I think the exiting of basically all laptop makers that used to sell non soldered RAM proves what the market wants. People just want stuff to work. They don’t want to think about how it works. I am using 4GB RAM today on a 2015 MacBook Air, and it works acceptably for excel, editing PDF, emails, maps, watching video, YouTube, web browsing, chatting, video calling, and pretty much everything else that the vast majority of people do. An 8GB M3 laptop today will easily last 5+ years for most people’s needs. And they don’t even have to worry about what RAM is or does.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

MacBook Airs are cheap, in my opinion. I spent $900 on mine 9 years ago. The amortized cost over its lifetime is very competitive with even the cheapest Windows laptops. Even now, an M3 13in with 16GB ram and 512GB SSD is only $1,300. An M3 13in with 8GB ram and 256GB SSD is $900, and that would be good enough for 90% of people for 5+ years easy. https://www.costco.com/macbook-air-laptop-13-inch---apple-m3-chip%2c-8-core-cpu%2c-10-core-gpu%2c-16gb-memory%2c-512gb-ssd-storage.product.4000225217.html?sh=true&nf=true https://www.costco.com/macbook-air-laptop-13-inch---apple-m3...

underlipton 2y ago
And (what to most consumers seems like) an equivalent Windows machine can be had for less than half that. After 2.5 years, you can upgrade. This argument has been had ad nauseum; it's not interesting anymore. I just wanted to point out what seemed like a mistake in your analysis re: sales. If you'd like to discuss that, that's fine.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  >After 2.5 years, you can upgrade. This is a huge drawback for most people. I don’t want to “upgrade”, and spend time and effort transferring to new devices. I want the device I have to work for as long as possible.
  - underlipton 2y ago
    Again, from my experience selling these things: "most people" don't want to be stuck with a laptop with 8gb of RAM soldered to the board. They wait until the cost to repair is more than the price of a new laptop, or for when the time for a repair would be too long, or until their hard drive is full (these people don't bother transferring if they're not getting a device with a higher capacity drive). Then, they buy the cheapest laptop that fits their power needs/brand loyalty and that seems like it'll last 2-4 years. Your wants are atypical.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      I think the exiting of basically all laptop makers that used to sell non soldered RAM proves what the market wants. People just want stuff to work. They don’t want to think about how it works. I am using 4GB RAM today on a 2015 MacBook Air, and it works acceptably for excel, editing PDF, emails, maps, watching video, YouTube, web browsing, chatting, video calling, and pretty much everything else that the vast majority of people do. An 8GB M3 laptop today will easily last 5+ years for most people’s needs. And they don’t even have to worry about what RAM is or does.