14 ms·

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figu

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doesn’t suck, and display isn’t a 300nits POS unusable even in a bright room. You want the same performance as a MacBook Air without one of these fatal flaws? You’ll hand to spend $1500+ anyway so you save nothing. Then the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage “gaming-optimization-tool” or driver tools taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes.

hutattedonmyarm 7mo ago
I recently helped a friend picking a new laptop. Just going through the options at the websites of manufacturers was a nightmare. Huge amount of choices, shitty filtering, separated into multiple product lines were I often enough had no idea what separated the lines from each other
- drcongo 7mo ago
  If they're your friend, why didn't you just tell them to get a Mac?
  - gabrielhidasy 7mo ago
    Why would I inflict that to my friends?
  - retired 7mo ago
    15 years ago this comment would have been a troll. Nowadays it’s solid advice. The current Mac line-up is a step ahead of the competition. App compatibility is hardly an issue anymore with the exception of some very niche software.
    - ecshafer 7mo ago
      Niche software, and almost all video games.
      - drcongo 7mo ago
        A laptop is for getting work done, I'm not a child.
      - retired 7mo ago
        15 years ago I couldn’t file my taxes on a Mac. That is the type of applications I am talking about. For games I have a console.
    - skibidithink 7mo ago
      OS X / macOS has been ahead of Windows for a long time for anyone who lives in a web browser.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
  - ryandvm 7mo ago
    Cute, and while I will agree that Apple hardware is generally superior or at least an excellent value, and OS X is miles beyond Windows in usability, I can't in good conscience recommend a Mac on principle. They impose obsessive control over their walled garden, constant pressure to use Apple ecosystem products, and they are staunchly opposed to interoperability regardless of it being an obviously anti-consumer tactical moat. Buying a Mac in spite of such anti-consumer behavior reminds me of voting for a bad person because you like their policies.
    - Kirby64 7mo ago
      As opposed to Microsoft, the good guys right now? I don’t see how incessant privacy violations, selling your data, and general shovelware behavior of Windows 11 is better. In many ways, it’s much worse in my view.
      - benjiro3000 7mo ago
        [dead]
      - ryandvm 7mo ago
        Nah, as opposed to Linux (for me).
        Kirby64 7mo ago
        Linux isn't a real choice for 99.9% of the population. If you're advising someone else on buying a laptop in an authority sense, rather than a colleague sense... telling someone to buy a Linux laptop (or, buy a laptop and put Linux on it), is a recipe for being tech support for them forever.
    - bell-cot 7mo ago
      > voting for a bad person because you like their policies. These days, you're lucky if you get to pick from "Bad", "Very Bad", and "Worst". (BTW, does Mr. Bad look like he'll competently implement and honestly administer his policies? 'Cause without those, "good" policies ain't worth squat):
  - hutattedonmyarm 7mo ago
    They did end up getting a Macbook. I wouldn't have suggested it, because I don't want to make people switch operating systems if they themselves don't want to. But they threw it into the mix, so I did include it in the list of suggestions
mastermage 7mo ago
Inarguably one of the great things done by apple is the rather easily overseeable models. And no mattter the processing power in the models you get a rather great experience from the haptics, audio and visual in all of them. And I would be very much in the Apple Camp for personal laptops, if Gaming was in any way shape or reasonable. Thats the only downside of apple. They tried to fix this before but that really did not work out.
- remuskaos 7mo ago
  I've only recently gotten a MacBook after using Linux Pretty much exclusively for over twenty years. And I have to say I'm really surprised how much I like it. For gaming it's all right, but not great. Factorio works but not much else. But for that I still have my Bazzite or Steam Deck. I really encourage you to try Linux for gaming. It's incredible what Valve has achieved on that front.
  - mastermage 7mo ago
    Oh i have a steam deck and am in the process of migrating to linux latest when Win 12 hits. Just some problems with some software like Fusion 360. I do like Linux alot.
    - fxtentacle 7mo ago
      It really is a pity that there’s no working business model around open source maintenance for software like wine. I’m the guy who fixed the wine bug that blocked new iTunes versions, because I like to keep my music in iTunes for easy iPhone sync. I also have Fusion 360 working flawlessly in wine, but the setup process required multiple sessions stepping manually with a debugger to avoid crashes and packaging that as scripts and/or just documenting all the little issues and their fixes and keeping that up to date with fusion updates would be serious work. So nobody is doing it.
      - jitl 7mo ago
        CrossOver sells WINE and WINE consulting; I've been a happy customer on and off for about 20 years. If you're bothered by open source WINE i'd say give them a shot. In my experience it's worth the $70 or whatever to get a well-paved GUI path and support.
rramadass 7mo ago
> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. > Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if ... Truer words were never spoken! I gave up on PCs years ago because of this very reason. The irony is that it is well known from psychology that giving consumers too many choices is actually counter-productive. Most people do not have the time nor the knowledge to research and configure their "perfect" PC. They just know their usecase and want the best for their money. I had hoped Microsoft Surface series would become the standard in the Windows world (i still have a 1st gen model) but they don't seem to read the market.
- mmcnl 7mo ago
  I had high hopes for Surface as well, but the pricing is ridiculous. The Surface Laptop 7 is more expensive than a MacBook Air, with the added benefit of having worse battery life and performance. Pricing hasn't come down in almost 2 years either. Availability is almost 0, I've never seen one in real life.
cromka 7mo ago
> It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful This, so much this! I run Asahi on M1 Air but wanted to upgrade to something with fuller Linux support. After trying Thinkpad T14s, trackpad quality has rosen to my attention, something I never thought about before. Turns out glass, haptic trackpads are still only available in probably about a dozen laptops on the market and it's not easy to actually know which ones are these!
- ZiiS 7mo ago
  To me clear the Neo dose not have a glass, haptic trackpad.
  - selectodude 7mo ago
    It’s glass but not haptic. Honestly the fact that they figured out how to make the entire pad clickable without haptics is pretty impressive.
    - philistine 7mo ago
      Their trackpads were that way since the move to aluminium for the chassis until the release of the 2017 Macbook. Apple had solved the issue around 2012 and still PC manufacturer refuse to spend on trackpad quality.
      - Kirby64 7mo ago
        Not really, not exactly. The older “clicky” MacBook trackpads couldn’t quite be “clicked” anywhere. They were levered at the top of the trackpad, so if you tried to click on the very top edge then they wouldn’t really click. Anywhere else, it felt fine, but maybe the top inch didn’t feel good. Not really a problem in normal use cause most people don’t try to click on the very top edge, but perhaps this new trackpad fixes that (I haven’t tested one myself). The current gen haptic ones have the same exact click feeling no matter where you press, of course.
      - dhosek 7mo ago
ryandrake 7mo ago
> it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Don't forget, one is going to be the "Business" version and the other identical one is going to be the "Consumer" version. God help whoever buys a "business" category laptop for personal use. The world will come to an end!
- syntheticnature 7mo ago
  Or, in actuality, the Dell business model will be designed for repairability. I tend to always advise friends who want Windows/Linux laptops to buy from the business lines, especially if a 1- or 2- year refurb will work.
softfalcon 7mo ago
This... so much this. > too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. And yet, I just watched a YouTube video where a "PC guy" was like, "adding the Neo just completely confuses the Apple product line. Are we heading towards having too many Apple options that confuse the buyer here?" I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops. I run both PC's and Mac devices in our house, we use what fills the job. Recommending PC laptops for family members feels like a total crapshoot though. Every time, I do all I can to find the right device for their needs and there are just so many trade-offs. Maybe I get all the right specs, ensure it doesn't thermal throttle, keyboard/trackpad are A-OK... but the webcam is trash. Ooof... now Mom is complaining about how no one can see her properly at bridge club call. I brought up how the Neo might do to the PC industry what the Air did to Ultrabooks back in the day. The amount of hate I got on YouTube/Verge with copy-paste, "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!" was expected, but also disappointing. There is clearly a market segment happy to continue to put up with the mess that Dell/Lenovo are selling (anything but a Mac). Wild how tribal we are to our corporate computer overlords. The era where something like Framework with its fully customizable, repairable, modular laptops becomes the standard can't come soon enough. For the time being, I'll let Apple/PC continue to duke it out. Hope some competition helps in the long run. :shrug:
- hackyhacky 7mo ago
  > I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops. Yep. I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly isn't going to tell me. I keep on buying T series because I'm honestly afraid of trying anything else. To say nothing of Lenovo's non-ThinkPad laptop brands, including Ideapad, Legion, Yoga, ThinkBook (!), and LOQ. I really don't know what laptop to recommend to a friend. One friend showed me specs for an Asus they found at Best Buy, and it looked okay, so I said "It's probably fine." Turns out it was shoddily made and overpriced: they had to sent it back not once but twice because the wifi and then the camera didn't work out of the box, then a few months later the hinge broke. I am not a Mac fan, but it's easy to recommend them because you at least know they are universally well-built machines.
giancarlostoro 7mo ago
Yeah, for a while my favorite laptop was the Surface Book 2. Decent specs, does what I want it to. Then Microsoft started going through "Marketing Driven Development" for Windows and its just been downhill for my experience with that laptop. It's not just the marketing trash, the OS has gotten noticeably slow despite me keeping it pretty vanilla. It's downright insulting. As for my desktops, I just smoosh over Windows and install Linux over now, I don't care about anything on Windows enough to keep it. I can play all my games on Linux just fine. I can do all my dev stuff on Linux too.
- whycome 7mo ago
  lol i just posted about how I was also scorned by MS/Surface Book 2. What a potentially amazing device. I hated that if you were playing a game or doing many video encodes, the charger (100w?) could not provide enough power -- so your battery drained. And make sure you don't let your base drain completely after being stored for a while -- the main computer won't be able to recognize it to even charge it again. And these were all known faults with no solution for the consumer other than to "buy the newer model." And you could never disable the damn windows update nag screens entirely. And you knew that you'd lose functionality if you upgraded something.
  - canuckintime 7mo ago
    I had a Surface Book 2 WITHOUT the base i.e. just the screen. Best tablet I've ever had. 15" and yet thinner (then) and lighter than an iPad Pro which still doesn't come bigger than 13". Two useful accessories I had were 'surface connector to USBC' adapter (to mitigat the small battery) and a ring mouse. Scrolling on touchscreen for Windows has been as good as MacBook haptic trackpads, certainly better than most Windows oem trackpads. There was brief moment in time where Panay was poised with the Surface Book and Surface Studio (just wish they made a monitor version of the studio) to give Apple a run for their money. But they replaced the Surface Book with Surface Laptop studio, devolved the OS with ads and AI and now I'm mainly only on the Mac...
- brewdad 7mo ago
  I put Linux on an old Surface tablet. Works better than Windows on the same device. The only thing that isn't working under Linux is the camera. Built in extra privacy as a bonus!
timcobb 7mo ago
> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models and as far as I know, they do this on purpose!
- orbital-decay 7mo ago
  What's the purpose?
  - drysart 7mo ago
    The more SKUs you have, the more digital shelf space you get on a shopping website. When your sole differentiating factor from your competitors is that your laptop has an "HP" logo on it and theirs has a "Dell" logo on it, your only effective strategy is to try to make sure fewer laptops with "Dell" logos on them show up above the fold in Amazon search results by creating lots of distinct SKUs to try to eat up as many of the slots on that first page of search results as possible. Apple doesn't have to exist in that type of competitive environment. If you want a Mac, you're either getting it right from store.apple.com; or you're searching for Macs specifically -- in both cases, Apple owns all of the shopping screen real estate.
everdrive 7mo ago
This is my advice anyone asks me about a laptop. The specs don't matter (at least if you're asking me, it means you don't know computers and will mostly just use a web browser, and therefore nearly any specs on the market will be fine) and the things that do matter are just never on a spec sheet -- keyboard, trackpad, speaker, screen quality. Some stuff won't be discovered until years later: for instance I had an Acer laptop in 2007 which was designed with insufficient cooling, and cooked its thermal paste in about a year or two. Once it was cooked, you couldn't play games or do anything intensive without rebooting the machine. I hadn't thought to research that issue since I figured cooling was a solved problem. But, I'm sure Acer saved a few dollars per unit. (and of course, the screen, trackpad, speaker (yes, singular!) and keyboard were all awful as well.)
- whilenot-dev 7mo ago
  I bought my last Acer around 2010 (Aspire 4820TG I think, good machine). Their notebooks were always on the cheaper side, where its price just sat right with the offered value. Cooling issues were always present and weren't a big problem as long as the machine was maintainable. Unfortunately maintainability in notebooks (and electronics in general) all changed around 2015-ish and from there on it was used ThinkPads only for me.
- basch 7mo ago
  Specs only really matter to many relative to battery life. A higher specced system may unnecessarily burn energy.
Someone 7mo ago
> IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - I see your point, but as a counterexample, look at the TV industry, at PC monitors, at washing machines, etc. There manufacturers have, for decades, created SKUs left and right, sometimes only so that a large dealer can offer to match lowest prices because no other dealer has access to the same SKU. > it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers.
- pxeboot 7mo ago
  > I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers. Apple is guilty of this too. For example, two iPhone's purchased at the same time can have displays from different manufactures, with noticeable quality differences between them.
  - mikestew 7mo ago
    And unless you looked it up, you'd never noticed the difference (save comparing the two side-by-side). Whereas the cheap laptop requires one to know the difference so you can get the right driver, or other jackery because your WiFi card was a mid-year change. It reminds of me of mid-year production changes on cars, where VINs XXX-YYY need part number ZZZ, but VINs AAA-BBB need part number CCC.
    - doubled112 7mo ago
      What colour is the stripe on the spring? I can't look this up, not even by VIN. Wore off eight years ago. Can we guess?
- imglorp 7mo ago
whycome 7mo ago
I had a Microsoft surface book 2. The provided charger could not provide enough power to the device when it was under heavy load and there was no higher charger option either. That shit should be illegal. And if the battery for the base/GPU died? You can't use the computer w the gpu even with a charger attached. The device itself could have been a dream and something i could have seen Apple doing : a touchscreen monitor that was also a computer and could be detached from the keyboard/gpu.
- pier25 7mo ago
  For a couple of days I had a Surface Book 1 before returning it. The keyboard was really good but otherwise just a terrible device and experience. The touch screen was completely useless. Super laggy and sometimes the pen would still believe it was touching the screen even at like 1cm away. Windows 10 had almost no features for touch based interaction. It was just regular Windows with the same microscopic buttons for mouse. Plus a ton of display ghosting, GPU glitches, etc.
  - keeda 7mo ago
    I still have a Surface Book 1 that I occasionaly use and I never encountered any of those issues. I even used it for some sketching and there was no lag or spurious touching from the pen. In fact, sketching was why I was "drawn" to it (heheh), largely influenced by this review: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/11/16/surface-book# https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/11/16/surface-bo... My big problem with it is that the battery got swollen a few years ago, pushing out the bottom panel, and the device is way our of warranty to get it replaced. I'm waiting to find time to get that replaced.
mikestew 7mo ago
Then the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage “gaming-optimization-tool” or driver tools taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes. But inevitably, some chucklehead comes along "wut? I can get <proceeds to type spec sheet> for half that! Have fun paying the apple tax, lol." Someone posted that on Ars yesterday, with a random Amazon link from Naikan, your name for quality computing. Or rather, "Naikan, your name for a quality trackpad, screen, and high-quality ABS case! Be sure to check out the $12,000 of 'bonus' software add-ons, no extra charge!". It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness.
- bigyabai 7mo ago
  > It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness. It's amazing that people attribute it to lacking self-awareness. You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. There are damn good Chromebooks in the $200-300 territory that I can genuinely recommend to people. If you just need to do your taxes or answer a Zoom call, why would you get a Macbook Neo? macOS itself has been declining in quality since at least Mojave; people don't rave about it anymore. The Macbook Neo will 100% continue the trend of people showing up at Best Buy and comparing the Lenovo machine to the Mac that costs 3x as much. This will not sway the average Joe any more than the Macbook Air did. It's not even seriously competing with the iPad price bracket that might tempt students.
  - rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
    Better integration with your iPhone is a very compelling reason to buy a Macbook Neo. The edu price is $499. Of course that seriously competes with the base iPad ($329 without keyboard).
  - mikestew 7mo ago
    You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. Again, the trackpad will suck and the screen will be a dim, binned display panel, etc. If that works for you, fine, but that's not the conversation. The conversation everyone else is having is that your plastic $400 laptop with the bargain-bin components isn't the equivalent of $MACBOOK, no matter what the spec sheet says.
ho_schi 7mo ago
The last competitor remaining is Lenovo with the ThinkPads and pre-installed Linux [1]. But even Lenovo cripples them: * You need to be very careful. Select alwaysCTO build with the best available display. But even then, Lenovo *removed* the HiDPI display from the X13. The only actual competitor to the MacBook Air is the ThinkPad X13. * Lenovo added useless camera humps protruding out of the panel. There is a thick bezel and enough space for a much better camera. And for opening the laptop used to be a dent in the (round!) palmrest, nothing protruding. * AMD, Intel and Lenovo fail to ship a fanless X13 and T14. I would happily keep same performance for two years, just getting rid of it. * Lenovo is drowning us in Yogas, Z13 or whatever Legion. They still have huge advantages (keyboard, maintenance manual, replacement parts, Linux compatibility, much more ports in case of the X14 and T14). Apples keyboards are nowadays “acceptable” but not even comparable to a good ThinkPad keyboard. [1] By the love of god. Don’t order them with Windows! You are putting 80 to 130 euro right into Microsoft’s stock owners. And they will use it to harm Linux. And of course, making Windows even worse. They use it to harm you. Select Linux. Donate the rest (Fasst, GNOME, KDE…) or use it for the better display.
- whalesalad 7mo ago
  Lenovo's website is a disaster. Not only do they appear to have 100 sku's but on a 27" 5K Apple Studio Display I can see four laptops in the grid[1], which are actually cut off with their prices below the fold. Every single grid item has a "Katapult" lease to own offer, a "My Lenovo Rewards" offer (who the fuck is collecting rewards points from Lenovo, and what customer prioritizes the rewards they might earn over literally every other piece of information about the laptop?). There are 30 copies of the "®" symbol on the page. It's honestly a lesson in how not to design an e-commerce site. - [1]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/subseries-results/?visibleDatas=698:ThinkPad&IPromoID=LEN969625 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/subseries-results/?visi...
  - eahm 7mo ago
    Use PSREF: https://psref.lenovo.com https://psref.lenovo.com
- 7mo ago
whalesalad 7mo ago
It gets worse when you look at Intel/AMD's CPU naming schemes. Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. Clown show all around.
- wtallis 7mo ago
  The CPU model naming is silly, but definitely not as bad as laptop naming or monitor naming. Intel and AMD at least pick a structured naming scheme and stick with it for two or three years, and almost all of the OEMs tell you which processor you're getting so you can comparison shop between brands.
  - eldaisfish 7mo ago
    Not really. Both AMD and intel have several models where the names are similar but differ in an important way such as one being pervious generation.
    - giantrobot 7mo ago
      I'll just get a Pentium Gold CPU, with a name like that I bet it will be the best model!
- sys_64738 7mo ago
  It's the marketing depts that go mental with these schemes.
varispeed 7mo ago
In my opinion PC industry is also cooked because of fans. I simply cannot use any recent PC laptop, because the moment you do something it engages fans in the most obnoxious way. Every time someone turns on their PC laptop next to me, my ears feel assaulted. My Mac does engage fans from time to time, but I never notice the noise.
- cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
  How little attention cooling gets in the laptop industry outside of expensive gaming laptops is crazy. I have a ThinkPad that gets huffy when I plug it into a 2560x1440 external display while otherwise idle (yes, under Linux too) which shouldn’t even be possible.
  - sys_64738 7mo ago
    Even the Intel MBP laptops had fans firing up the afterburners to keep the Intel CPU cool when monitors were plugged in. Intel CPUs of the past were just massive heating elements.
    - LPisGood 7mo ago
      I think a big part of this is the RISC vs ARM architecture, unless RISC has improved more than I know in this area
ngrilly 7mo ago
Exactly. PC manufacturers have so many SKUs and are changing so many things from one model to another that their brand doesn't mean anything anymore. Buying a Dell, HP, Lenovo or Asus branded laptop doesn't say anything meaningful about what you're actually going to get. Unlike Apple (or Framework) where the brand still means something.
jclardy 7mo ago
In addition to your research categories - is the fan going to sound like a jet engine when just opening slack? Is the case going to wobble and creak after a few weeks? Is it going to tank performance when unplugged? And if not - is battery life going to be a concern?
- cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
  In low price brackets those awful barrel jack charger ports that get loose at record speeds still appear too, which isn’t something people necessarily think about but will end up dragging down the user experience.
  - fragmede 7mo ago
    How they're still selling laptops with those in this age of usb-c is criminal.
randusername 7mo ago
> The big players are just awful at marketing Apple is great at marketing to consumers. The other big players, I have to assume, are more focused on B2B where the threshold for UX acceptability is lower. The only ads I ever hear from them are on economics podcasts ostensibly aimed at business owners. For "Copilot+ AI PCs" no less, whatever that means. They're chasing a target audience of approximately 3 people in the world that are improbably held back from achieving their wildest AI dreams by not having a commodity laptop with an NPU.
cannolicannon 7mo ago
The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup: - Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants) - Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants) - Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 16 inch variants) - Dell Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Essential (with 14 and 15 inch variants) - Dell Pro (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Plus (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max Plus (with 14, 16, and 18 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) It's maddening trying to sift through the differences at this level. Then when you select a model, there can upwards of 8 different pre-built options to review.
- asimovDev 7mo ago
  at our company we just pick the most current X1 13in Thinkpad 32/1000 for the windows preferrers.
- Reason077 7mo ago
  Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.
  - DaanDL 7mo ago
    Especially with things like: will my pencil work with this iPad.
  - enraged_camel 7mo ago
    >> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. One of the first things Steve Jobs immediately did after returning to Apple in 1997 was to kill most of Apple's product line-up, which had exploded in his absence. Too bad he's not around to save them from the same over-segmentation anymore.
kwanbix 7mo ago
As much as I like the performance and the power consumption of the current apple lineaup, the problems is I can not install Linux on the Neo. I can beraly install it on the M1, M2, and M3. And not everything works. If I could install Linux and have everything working, I will buy a Macbook (not a Neo) right away.
- lordgroff 7mo ago
  Linux will always be a second class citizen on Apple hardware. I have the M1 and have tried Linux a few times at different stages of maturity. As it is right now, it's still a far cry from the experience of a Linux on x86 hardware, and specifically Thinkpads. Bottom line is, even though I really like my laptop, I do NOT like Mac OS (and with every update I like it _less_) and will probably go back to a thinkpad for my next laptop. It's a big shame.
  - kwanbix 7mo ago
    I hope that at least this wakes up AMD/Intel/PC Manufacturers. I don't expect a 600 usd x64 laptop, but I could surelly use an 800~1000 one.
    - bitwize 7mo ago
      A used ThinkPad with way more than 8 GiB of RAM can cost way less than $600. I picked two up for $300 each. You're not gonna run frontier open-source models on it but it's a very nice dumb machine for basic tasks, or even the archaic practice of programming by hand.
      - kwanbix 7mo ago
        That is what I have for me. Refurbished thinkpads, returns from banks and such, for 1/3 the original price.
izacus 7mo ago
After growing up in eastern Europe it's still wild to see young Americans stupidly demand less choice and more monopolies in their market. Like seriously, having laptop choice is causing you crippling issues? Is other people having a laptop to choose based on preference causing you distress when you go to Apple store?
- lurking_swe 7mo ago
  I don’t think you fully understood their argument. The problem is not that other manufacturers offer choices – the problem is that for a typical consumer it’s IMPOSSIBLE to really understand which computer in the lineup is appropriate for their needs. It seems most of them are focused on B2B sales. Of course, if you are a gamer or a nerd like myself, you don’t mind spending a week finding the perfect computer. But that’s an exception.
  - dhosek 7mo ago
    Indeed, it’s a simple matter to figure out what you want if you’re buying a Mac. Laptop vs desktop. For desktop: integrated screen or not, for laptop, screen size, weight, then pick your processor, memory and storage and it’s done. There aren’t confusingly named and positioned overlapping models that it’s unclear what you’re gaining or losing for each one.
    - diffeomorphism 7mo ago
      The apple pricing ladder is all about the confusingly named overlap. The Air with more ram costs just a bit less than the pro non-pro. But then maybe you want the pro pro? Or do you need the pro max? Oh, and the ultra will come later but not for laptops. Also it will then be a smaller number M but ultra. Oh, and the iPad air is, of course, heavier than the pro because "air".
  - izacus 7mo ago
    I fully understood their argument and found out how ignorant it is by just looking at a huge list of all MacBook models on sale in local Apple Store which isn't all that different from an Asus or Dell list. The posters are ignorant of how much they internalized Apple complexity and then uses that to crap on products they don't even know.
asdff 7mo ago
Is the laptop market even choosy or discerning? Very few people I know would actually understand specs. Especially when you step outside people who majored in fields that require some programming. I assume they must buy laptops, if they still even buy laptops, based on things like yearly sales periods at retailers, since you do see a surprising amount of square footage reserved for laptops to sit open on tables (not just apple's) in places like best buy, costco, target, etc. So there must be buyers. Maybe their comparison only goes as far as whatever bullet points Costco highlights on the price tag I suspect, in a "bigger number is better for the price" sort of way vs understanding a persons own compute needs.
grvdrm 7mo ago
Not just PC industry! Feels that way in auto too. I go to Tesla, Lucid websites. Breath of fresh air. Clear choices. Porsche website: WTF. (just one example, there are many)
- NetMageSCW 7mo ago
  Porsche is about BTO and customization. If you want a Porsche, go to a dealer and have them walk you through building the one you want. Or become knowledgeable in all the options and find a used one with 85% of what you want.
  - grvdrm 7mo ago
    Of course. I own one! But, I think they could ease the process somewhat with some obvious defined package sets.
Ferret7446 7mo ago
The consumer laptop industry has been dying for a while now IMO. The average person doesn't need a computer. They have a smartphone, and if they need a bit more screen then they have a tablet. If you're a power user or gamer a desktop is preferable.
- sys_64738 7mo ago
  The Neo is targeting the cheap laptop market for those people that DO need it. Again, another totally pointless comment by somebody who sounds clueless.
- carlosjobim 7mo ago
  Casual users prefer using their smartphone instead of their laptop, because the smart phone unlocks instantly and is ready to go. Meanwhile, a PC laptop takes a few minutes to boot up, then when Windows has loaded it will hog all CPU and memory and all the internet bandwidth to download and install updates, while blasting the fans. The user will make a pathetic attempt to open the web browser to do the hotel or flight or event reservation they wanted to do. Or open a document in Word. Everything is extremely slow because of the update running. When the user has finished her task, she will close down the computer. Windows will cancel the update which was in progress, so that the user can have that same joyful laptop experience next month when she needs to use it again. Is it any wonder that people prefer doing things on their smart phones, even with the tiny displays and no keyboards? This is how the majority of consumers experience using a laptop. Then they try a Mac, where you just open the lid and go. If people knew this, then the consumer PC laptop market would die in three months.
blemblemblam 7mo ago
The secret is to buy a used ThinkPad on eBay. I have two of them. I think the ridiculous MSRP for them combined is $7000 and I paid $1600 in total for a p series and an x1 carbon (3 years old, but essentially new). These neos are for college and high school students.
- sys_64738 7mo ago
  Who is going to do that except a nerd looking for a specific type of laptop? Buying two of them for the price of 3+ Neos at EDU discount. You are so off in the weeds with your comment that I had to point it out.
rubslopes 7mo ago
> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Yes!! It's awful. I'm a long time Mac user and my wife needs a Windows laptop because of a specific software. I've tried three times to pick a computer for her, but I always give up after 10min and postpone the task...
colechristensen 7mo ago
>IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Existential crisis? This kind of nonsense has existed for the entire history of the laptop market. One of the major reasons Apple is a trillion dollar company is they don't sell dozens of versions of their product. When it was a mystery which Dell laptop was the good one (or insert any other brand) you just picked the size of Apple that you wanted and it would be the good one. The last Dell laptop I bought I really liked... except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor that if you held it at the corner it would force reboot because the circuit board flexed to much and shorted or unplugged something.
throwawayq3423 7mo ago
PC laptops have been dead outside of jobs that give them to you for years.
bartread 7mo ago
> taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes. And don't forget significantly shortening the usable battery life. Windows 11 and the crapware it typically ships with are all very hard on battery life, and sleep support is unreliable so you can often find significant battery drain even when the machine is supposed to be sleeping. For me it means that if I'm having to use a Windows laptop (and quite literally thank god that hasn't been true for 2 years now) then I've got to have the power supply and cables with me at all times, and I've got to be somewhere I have a realistic chance of plugging in just in case the worst has happened.
andai 7mo ago
I bought a $50 ThinkPad last year and put Linux on it. I'm obviously not the target market, but this seems to me like the "correct" way to use a PC laptop, and solves all the problems you mentioned. (I don't game though, which seems like the only reason most people get a PC in the first place.)
muyuu 7mo ago
For me right now, there are a bunch of Strix Halo unified memory laptops offering 64 to 128GB of unified memory that are the current best value. This will probably spill into next generation (Strix Medusa IIRC). They're just very versatile and performant, and they're usually very good value. As a big plus you can run very decent models locally. Framework are among my current top choices. Hearing good things about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7a as well, and HP rather surprisingly. But there are a bunch of Ryzen AI Max+ 395 based laptops supporting up to 128GB of unified memory, and it looks like you can hardly go wrong with these.
nine_k 7mo ago
> the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage Running Windows in 2026 is either a mistake, or a sad necessity. Fortunately, unless you need The Right Kind of Excel, you can choose either Linux on a PC (best, IMO), or a Mac.
andrepd 7mo ago
Takes 1 hour to open notebookcheck?
eitally 7mo ago
This is how I ended up with my first MacBook in >10 years. I'd been a Thinkpad (T series) guy in the early days, the tried a MacBook in 2015... couldn't get used to it and used a Chromebook for the next 8 years. Needed to buy a new laptop in 2023 and ... the entire Windows laptop industry turned me off. Yes, something like System76 is an option, and so is installing Linux on a Windows OEM machine, but then you still have to deal with the hardware. Apple isn't perfect, but MacBooks are consistent and reliable, with minimal telemetry and no advertising or upselling. That's enough for me.
snowwrestler 7mo ago
To what extent is there still a “consumer PC industry?” You mention Dell; for like a decade I think I’ve only ever seen Dells that were company-issued. My sense is that consumers spend most of their tech money on phones, tablets, headphones, watches, services. People who really want a laptop get a Mac or Chromebook. Gamers buy / build PCs, for gaming. Linux geeks buy Linux machines for Linuxing. I’m not saying no one buys PC laptops at consumer retail. I guess I’m just wondering how big that market is anymore after consumer discretionary spending on tech has been hollowed out by the above list. (I’m sure most people reading this have purchased a laptop. I think the HN audience is a tech outlier compared to most consumers.)
- itomato 7mo ago
  Take a look at a Sam's Club or Costco. The Windows PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo outnumber the Macs 4:1 or more. I have never seen a shopper testing out the wares.
  - slashdave 7mo ago
    I think it depends where you are, at least for Costco.
wlowenfeld 7mo ago
The SKU proliferation is truly awful. I honestly had to use Claude to understand the current landscape for daily driver Windows laptops when I finally needed to replace my old one.
socalgal2 7mo ago
too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Same for Apple, especially as you can't upgrade them so if you get a 8gig Nano, you have a 8gig Nano, That's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano. And if you get 16gig Nano with 256gig storage, that's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano with 512gig of storage. Apple has 48 SKUs at their stores, not included adding in color and custom configurations
bandrami 7mo ago
I'd really love it if the manufacturers would just say what wireless chipset they use in a given model but the unfortunate truth is even they don't always know for a given run
thefz 7mo ago
It's a false comparison, because you are aggregating hardware and OS vendors in the same category while Apple is actually the one doing both.
wazoox 7mo ago
A very important point is the RAM and flash shortage. With their humongous volumes, Apple is certainly a member of the happy few with preferential contracts with guaranteed volumes and prices. No other PC maker can remotely compete with Apple on volumes, and now they'll get their already thin margins crushed even more. In the past Apple had constantly sold high-margin products and grabbed 70 to 80% of the whole industry's margins. Now they're coming for the rest !
maybewhenthesun 7mo ago
I fully agree. Ann then try to buy a nice linux compatible laptop. The research period climbs to days. It's ridiculous. I don't even really mind spending 1500 (well , I do, but if that's what it takes) but 'just buy apple' doesn't work when you want a linux laptop, with apple trying to sabotage running linux on their hardware at every opportunity.
_giorgio_ 7mo ago
Often I don’t purchase anything because I have to sift through a billion different options. Model identifiers are often unique to specific stores, because they carry laptop configurations made just for them. Apple, AmazonBasics, and a few others, by contrast, understand the consumer and offer a very limited—though often configurable—selection.
chadash 7mo ago
The base model of the MacBook Air is $1099 now. That has 16GB ram and 512gb disk. And it’s a hell of a computer. The crazy thing is we often cite an Apple Tax, but in this case, I think they actually have a cheaper product.
nielsbot 7mo ago
People may not remember that Apple once had a product lineup like this (before SJ returned) with tons of different model numbers nobody could tell apart. > Remember Apple in the late '90s? The tech giant was facing significant struggles until Steve Jobs returned and pinpointed the crux: a lack of innovation and focus. Jobs took bold steps to streamline Apple’s bloated product line. He cut down on the excessive range of choices, simplifying the product lineup to focus on quality and innovation. Jobs famously asked his team, "Which ones do I tell my friends to buy?" When he didn’t get a simple answer, he decided to reduce the number of Apple products by 70%. This move included cancelling projects like the Newton digital assistant and focusing on just four key products: the iMac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3, and PowerBook G3. https://strategeos.com/f/how-your-business-can-focus-on-the-strategic-crux-to-succeed https://strategeos.com/f/how-your-business-can-focus-on-the-...

hutattedonmyarm 7mo ago

I recently helped a friend picking a new laptop. Just going through the options at the websites of manufacturers was a nightmare. Huge amount of choices, shitty filtering, separated into multiple product lines were I often enough had no idea what separated the lines from each other

drcongo 7mo ago
If they're your friend, why didn't you just tell them to get a Mac?
- gabrielhidasy 7mo ago
  Why would I inflict that to my friends?
- retired 7mo ago
  15 years ago this comment would have been a troll. Nowadays it’s solid advice. The current Mac line-up is a step ahead of the competition. App compatibility is hardly an issue anymore with the exception of some very niche software.
  - ecshafer 7mo ago
    Niche software, and almost all video games.
    - drcongo 7mo ago
      A laptop is for getting work done, I'm not a child.
    - retired 7mo ago
      15 years ago I couldn’t file my taxes on a Mac. That is the type of applications I am talking about. For games I have a console.
  - skibidithink 7mo ago
    OS X / macOS has been ahead of Windows for a long time for anyone who lives in a web browser.
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
- ryandvm 7mo ago
  Cute, and while I will agree that Apple hardware is generally superior or at least an excellent value, and OS X is miles beyond Windows in usability, I can't in good conscience recommend a Mac on principle. They impose obsessive control over their walled garden, constant pressure to use Apple ecosystem products, and they are staunchly opposed to interoperability regardless of it being an obviously anti-consumer tactical moat. Buying a Mac in spite of such anti-consumer behavior reminds me of voting for a bad person because you like their policies.
  - Kirby64 7mo ago
    As opposed to Microsoft, the good guys right now? I don’t see how incessant privacy violations, selling your data, and general shovelware behavior of Windows 11 is better. In many ways, it’s much worse in my view.
    - benjiro3000 7mo ago
      [dead]
    - ryandvm 7mo ago
      Nah, as opposed to Linux (for me).
      - Kirby64 7mo ago
        Linux isn't a real choice for 99.9% of the population. If you're advising someone else on buying a laptop in an authority sense, rather than a colleague sense... telling someone to buy a Linux laptop (or, buy a laptop and put Linux on it), is a recipe for being tech support for them forever.
  - bell-cot 7mo ago
    > voting for a bad person because you like their policies. These days, you're lucky if you get to pick from "Bad", "Very Bad", and "Worst". (BTW, does Mr. Bad look like he'll competently implement and honestly administer his policies? 'Cause without those, "good" policies ain't worth squat):
- hutattedonmyarm 7mo ago
  They did end up getting a Macbook. I wouldn't have suggested it, because I don't want to make people switch operating systems if they themselves don't want to. But they threw it into the mix, so I did include it in the list of suggestions

mastermage 7mo ago

Inarguably one of the great things done by apple is the rather easily overseeable models. And no mattter the processing power in the models you get a rather great experience from the haptics, audio and visual in all of them. And I would be very much in the Apple Camp for personal laptops, if Gaming was in any way shape or reasonable. Thats the only downside of apple. They tried to fix this before but that really did not work out.

remuskaos 7mo ago
I've only recently gotten a MacBook after using Linux Pretty much exclusively for over twenty years. And I have to say I'm really surprised how much I like it. For gaming it's all right, but not great. Factorio works but not much else. But for that I still have my Bazzite or Steam Deck. I really encourage you to try Linux for gaming. It's incredible what Valve has achieved on that front.
- mastermage 7mo ago
  Oh i have a steam deck and am in the process of migrating to linux latest when Win 12 hits. Just some problems with some software like Fusion 360. I do like Linux alot.
  - fxtentacle 7mo ago
    It really is a pity that there’s no working business model around open source maintenance for software like wine. I’m the guy who fixed the wine bug that blocked new iTunes versions, because I like to keep my music in iTunes for easy iPhone sync. I also have Fusion 360 working flawlessly in wine, but the setup process required multiple sessions stepping manually with a debugger to avoid crashes and packaging that as scripts and/or just documenting all the little issues and their fixes and keeping that up to date with fusion updates would be serious work. So nobody is doing it.
    - jitl 7mo ago
      CrossOver sells WINE and WINE consulting; I've been a happy customer on and off for about 20 years. If you're bothered by open source WINE i'd say give them a shot. In my experience it's worth the $70 or whatever to get a well-paved GUI path and support.

rramadass 7mo ago

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. > Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if ... Truer words were never spoken! I gave up on PCs years ago because of this very reason. The irony is that it is well known from psychology that giving consumers too many choices is actually counter-productive. Most people do not have the time nor the knowledge to research and configure their "perfect" PC. They just know their usecase and want the best for their money. I had hoped Microsoft Surface series would become the standard in the Windows world (i still have a 1st gen model) but they don't seem to read the market.

mmcnl 7mo ago
I had high hopes for Surface as well, but the pricing is ridiculous. The Surface Laptop 7 is more expensive than a MacBook Air, with the added benefit of having worse battery life and performance. Pricing hasn't come down in almost 2 years either. Availability is almost 0, I've never seen one in real life.

cromka 7mo ago

> It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful This, so much this! I run Asahi on M1 Air but wanted to upgrade to something with fuller Linux support. After trying Thinkpad T14s, trackpad quality has rosen to my attention, something I never thought about before. Turns out glass, haptic trackpads are still only available in probably about a dozen laptops on the market and it's not easy to actually know which ones are these!

ZiiS 7mo ago
To me clear the Neo dose not have a glass, haptic trackpad.
- selectodude 7mo ago
  It’s glass but not haptic. Honestly the fact that they figured out how to make the entire pad clickable without haptics is pretty impressive.
  - philistine 7mo ago
    Their trackpads were that way since the move to aluminium for the chassis until the release of the 2017 Macbook. Apple had solved the issue around 2012 and still PC manufacturer refuse to spend on trackpad quality.
    - Kirby64 7mo ago
      Not really, not exactly. The older “clicky” MacBook trackpads couldn’t quite be “clicked” anywhere. They were levered at the top of the trackpad, so if you tried to click on the very top edge then they wouldn’t really click. Anywhere else, it felt fine, but maybe the top inch didn’t feel good. Not really a problem in normal use cause most people don’t try to click on the very top edge, but perhaps this new trackpad fixes that (I haven’t tested one myself). The current gen haptic ones have the same exact click feeling no matter where you press, of course.
    - dhosek 7mo ago

ryandrake 7mo ago

> it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Don't forget, one is going to be the "Business" version and the other identical one is going to be the "Consumer" version. God help whoever buys a "business" category laptop for personal use. The world will come to an end!

syntheticnature 7mo ago
Or, in actuality, the Dell business model will be designed for repairability. I tend to always advise friends who want Windows/Linux laptops to buy from the business lines, especially if a 1- or 2- year refurb will work.

softfalcon 7mo ago

This... so much this. > too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. And yet, I just watched a YouTube video where a "PC guy" was like, "adding the Neo just completely confuses the Apple product line. Are we heading towards having too many Apple options that confuse the buyer here?" I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops. I run both PC's and Mac devices in our house, we use what fills the job. Recommending PC laptops for family members feels like a total crapshoot though. Every time, I do all I can to find the right device for their needs and there are just so many trade-offs. Maybe I get all the right specs, ensure it doesn't thermal throttle, keyboard/trackpad are A-OK... but the webcam is trash. Ooof... now Mom is complaining about how no one can see her properly at bridge club call. I brought up how the Neo might do to the PC industry what the Air did to Ultrabooks back in the day. The amount of hate I got on YouTube/Verge with copy-paste, "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!" was expected, but also disappointing. There is clearly a market segment happy to continue to put up with the mess that Dell/Lenovo are selling (anything but a Mac). Wild how tribal we are to our corporate computer overlords. The era where something like Framework with its fully customizable, repairable, modular laptops becomes the standard can't come soon enough. For the time being, I'll let Apple/PC continue to duke it out. Hope some competition helps in the long run. :shrug:

hackyhacky 7mo ago
> I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops. Yep. I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly isn't going to tell me. I keep on buying T series because I'm honestly afraid of trying anything else. To say nothing of Lenovo's non-ThinkPad laptop brands, including Ideapad, Legion, Yoga, ThinkBook (!), and LOQ. I really don't know what laptop to recommend to a friend. One friend showed me specs for an Asus they found at Best Buy, and it looked okay, so I said "It's probably fine." Turns out it was shoddily made and overpriced: they had to sent it back not once but twice because the wifi and then the camera didn't work out of the box, then a few months later the hinge broke. I am not a Mac fan, but it's easy to recommend them because you at least know they are universally well-built machines.

giancarlostoro 7mo ago

Yeah, for a while my favorite laptop was the Surface Book 2. Decent specs, does what I want it to. Then Microsoft started going through "Marketing Driven Development" for Windows and its just been downhill for my experience with that laptop. It's not just the marketing trash, the OS has gotten noticeably slow despite me keeping it pretty vanilla. It's downright insulting. As for my desktops, I just smoosh over Windows and install Linux over now, I don't care about anything on Windows enough to keep it. I can play all my games on Linux just fine. I can do all my dev stuff on Linux too.

whycome 7mo ago
lol i just posted about how I was also scorned by MS/Surface Book 2. What a potentially amazing device. I hated that if you were playing a game or doing many video encodes, the charger (100w?) could not provide enough power -- so your battery drained. And make sure you don't let your base drain completely after being stored for a while -- the main computer won't be able to recognize it to even charge it again. And these were all known faults with no solution for the consumer other than to "buy the newer model." And you could never disable the damn windows update nag screens entirely. And you knew that you'd lose functionality if you upgraded something.
- canuckintime 7mo ago
  I had a Surface Book 2 WITHOUT the base i.e. just the screen. Best tablet I've ever had. 15" and yet thinner (then) and lighter than an iPad Pro which still doesn't come bigger than 13". Two useful accessories I had were 'surface connector to USBC' adapter (to mitigat the small battery) and a ring mouse. Scrolling on touchscreen for Windows has been as good as MacBook haptic trackpads, certainly better than most Windows oem trackpads. There was brief moment in time where Panay was poised with the Surface Book and Surface Studio (just wish they made a monitor version of the studio) to give Apple a run for their money. But they replaced the Surface Book with Surface Laptop studio, devolved the OS with ads and AI and now I'm mainly only on the Mac...
brewdad 7mo ago
I put Linux on an old Surface tablet. Works better than Windows on the same device. The only thing that isn't working under Linux is the camera. Built in extra privacy as a bonus!

timcobb 7mo ago

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models and as far as I know, they do this on purpose!

orbital-decay 7mo ago
What's the purpose?
- drysart 7mo ago
  The more SKUs you have, the more digital shelf space you get on a shopping website. When your sole differentiating factor from your competitors is that your laptop has an "HP" logo on it and theirs has a "Dell" logo on it, your only effective strategy is to try to make sure fewer laptops with "Dell" logos on them show up above the fold in Amazon search results by creating lots of distinct SKUs to try to eat up as many of the slots on that first page of search results as possible. Apple doesn't have to exist in that type of competitive environment. If you want a Mac, you're either getting it right from store.apple.com; or you're searching for Macs specifically -- in both cases, Apple owns all of the shopping screen real estate.

everdrive 7mo ago

This is my advice anyone asks me about a laptop. The specs don't matter (at least if you're asking me, it means you don't know computers and will mostly just use a web browser, and therefore nearly any specs on the market will be fine) and the things that do matter are just never on a spec sheet -- keyboard, trackpad, speaker, screen quality. Some stuff won't be discovered until years later: for instance I had an Acer laptop in 2007 which was designed with insufficient cooling, and cooked its thermal paste in about a year or two. Once it was cooked, you couldn't play games or do anything intensive without rebooting the machine. I hadn't thought to research that issue since I figured cooling was a solved problem. But, I'm sure Acer saved a few dollars per unit. (and of course, the screen, trackpad, speaker (yes, singular!) and keyboard were all awful as well.)

whilenot-dev 7mo ago
I bought my last Acer around 2010 (Aspire 4820TG I think, good machine). Their notebooks were always on the cheaper side, where its price just sat right with the offered value. Cooling issues were always present and weren't a big problem as long as the machine was maintainable. Unfortunately maintainability in notebooks (and electronics in general) all changed around 2015-ish and from there on it was used ThinkPads only for me.
basch 7mo ago
Specs only really matter to many relative to battery life. A higher specced system may unnecessarily burn energy.

Someone 7mo ago

> IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - I see your point, but as a counterexample, look at the TV industry, at PC monitors, at washing machines, etc. There manufacturers have, for decades, created SKUs left and right, sometimes only so that a large dealer can offer to match lowest prices because no other dealer has access to the same SKU. > it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers.

pxeboot 7mo ago
> I don’t know how they do things nowadays, but it used to be the case that the same SKU didn’t even guarantee you the same hardware. Two machines of the same order could even be slightly different, requiring different drivers. Apple is guilty of this too. For example, two iPhone's purchased at the same time can have displays from different manufactures, with noticeable quality differences between them.
- mikestew 7mo ago
  And unless you looked it up, you'd never noticed the difference (save comparing the two side-by-side). Whereas the cheap laptop requires one to know the difference so you can get the right driver, or other jackery because your WiFi card was a mid-year change. It reminds of me of mid-year production changes on cars, where VINs XXX-YYY need part number ZZZ, but VINs AAA-BBB need part number CCC.
  - doubled112 7mo ago
    What colour is the stripe on the spring? I can't look this up, not even by VIN. Wore off eight years ago. Can we guess?
imglorp 7mo ago

whycome 7mo ago

I had a Microsoft surface book 2. The provided charger could not provide enough power to the device when it was under heavy load and there was no higher charger option either. That shit should be illegal. And if the battery for the base/GPU died? You can't use the computer w the gpu even with a charger attached. The device itself could have been a dream and something i could have seen Apple doing : a touchscreen monitor that was also a computer and could be detached from the keyboard/gpu.

pier25 7mo ago
For a couple of days I had a Surface Book 1 before returning it. The keyboard was really good but otherwise just a terrible device and experience. The touch screen was completely useless. Super laggy and sometimes the pen would still believe it was touching the screen even at like 1cm away. Windows 10 had almost no features for touch based interaction. It was just regular Windows with the same microscopic buttons for mouse. Plus a ton of display ghosting, GPU glitches, etc.
- keeda 7mo ago
  I still have a Surface Book 1 that I occasionaly use and I never encountered any of those issues. I even used it for some sketching and there was no lag or spurious touching from the pen. In fact, sketching was why I was "drawn" to it (heheh), largely influenced by this review: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/11/16/surface-book# https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/11/16/surface-bo... My big problem with it is that the battery got swollen a few years ago, pushing out the bottom panel, and the device is way our of warranty to get it replaced. I'm waiting to find time to get that replaced.

mikestew 7mo ago

Then the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage “gaming-optimization-tool” or driver tools taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes. But inevitably, some chucklehead comes along "wut? I can get <proceeds to type spec sheet> for half that! Have fun paying the apple tax, lol." Someone posted that on Ars yesterday, with a random Amazon link from Naikan, your name for quality computing. Or rather, "Naikan, your name for a quality trackpad, screen, and high-quality ABS case! Be sure to check out the $12,000 of 'bonus' software add-ons, no extra charge!". It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness.

bigyabai 7mo ago
> It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness. It's amazing that people attribute it to lacking self-awareness. You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. There are damn good Chromebooks in the $200-300 territory that I can genuinely recommend to people. If you just need to do your taxes or answer a Zoom call, why would you get a Macbook Neo? macOS itself has been declining in quality since at least Mojave; people don't rave about it anymore. The Macbook Neo will 100% continue the trend of people showing up at Best Buy and comparing the Lenovo machine to the Mac that costs 3x as much. This will not sway the average Joe any more than the Macbook Air did. It's not even seriously competing with the iPad price bracket that might tempt students.
- rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
  Better integration with your iPhone is a very compelling reason to buy a Macbook Neo. The edu price is $499. Of course that seriously competes with the base iPad ($329 without keyboard).
- mikestew 7mo ago
  You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. Again, the trackpad will suck and the screen will be a dim, binned display panel, etc. If that works for you, fine, but that's not the conversation. The conversation everyone else is having is that your plastic $400 laptop with the bargain-bin components isn't the equivalent of $MACBOOK, no matter what the spec sheet says.

ho_schi 7mo ago

The last competitor remaining is Lenovo with the ThinkPads and pre-installed Linux [1]. But even Lenovo cripples them: * You need to be very careful. Select alwaysCTO build with the best available display. But even then, Lenovo *removed* the HiDPI display from the X13. The only actual competitor to the MacBook Air is the ThinkPad X13. * Lenovo added useless camera humps protruding out of the panel. There is a thick bezel and enough space for a much better camera. And for opening the laptop used to be a dent in the (round!) palmrest, nothing protruding. * AMD, Intel and Lenovo fail to ship a fanless X13 and T14. I would happily keep same performance for two years, just getting rid of it. * Lenovo is drowning us in Yogas, Z13 or whatever Legion. They still have huge advantages (keyboard, maintenance manual, replacement parts, Linux compatibility, much more ports in case of the X14 and T14). Apples keyboards are nowadays “acceptable” but not even comparable to a good ThinkPad keyboard. [1] By the love of god. Don’t order them with Windows! You are putting 80 to 130 euro right into Microsoft’s stock owners. And they will use it to harm Linux. And of course, making Windows even worse. They use it to harm you. Select Linux. Donate the rest (Fasst, GNOME, KDE…) or use it for the better display.

whalesalad 7mo ago
Lenovo's website is a disaster. Not only do they appear to have 100 sku's but on a 27" 5K Apple Studio Display I can see four laptops in the grid[1], which are actually cut off with their prices below the fold. Every single grid item has a "Katapult" lease to own offer, a "My Lenovo Rewards" offer (who the fuck is collecting rewards points from Lenovo, and what customer prioritizes the rewards they might earn over literally every other piece of information about the laptop?). There are 30 copies of the "®" symbol on the page. It's honestly a lesson in how not to design an e-commerce site. - [1]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/subseries-results/?visibleDatas=698:ThinkPad&IPromoID=LEN969625 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/subseries-results/?visi...
- eahm 7mo ago
  Use PSREF: https://psref.lenovo.com https://psref.lenovo.com
7mo ago

whalesalad 7mo ago

It gets worse when you look at Intel/AMD's CPU naming schemes. Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. Clown show all around.

wtallis 7mo ago
The CPU model naming is silly, but definitely not as bad as laptop naming or monitor naming. Intel and AMD at least pick a structured naming scheme and stick with it for two or three years, and almost all of the OEMs tell you which processor you're getting so you can comparison shop between brands.
- eldaisfish 7mo ago
  Not really. Both AMD and intel have several models where the names are similar but differ in an important way such as one being pervious generation.
  - giantrobot 7mo ago
    I'll just get a Pentium Gold CPU, with a name like that I bet it will be the best model!
sys_64738 7mo ago
It's the marketing depts that go mental with these schemes.

varispeed 7mo ago

In my opinion PC industry is also cooked because of fans. I simply cannot use any recent PC laptop, because the moment you do something it engages fans in the most obnoxious way. Every time someone turns on their PC laptop next to me, my ears feel assaulted. My Mac does engage fans from time to time, but I never notice the noise.

cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
How little attention cooling gets in the laptop industry outside of expensive gaming laptops is crazy. I have a ThinkPad that gets huffy when I plug it into a 2560x1440 external display while otherwise idle (yes, under Linux too) which shouldn’t even be possible.
- sys_64738 7mo ago
  Even the Intel MBP laptops had fans firing up the afterburners to keep the Intel CPU cool when monitors were plugged in. Intel CPUs of the past were just massive heating elements.
  - LPisGood 7mo ago
    I think a big part of this is the RISC vs ARM architecture, unless RISC has improved more than I know in this area

ngrilly 7mo ago

Exactly. PC manufacturers have so many SKUs and are changing so many things from one model to another that their brand doesn't mean anything anymore. Buying a Dell, HP, Lenovo or Asus branded laptop doesn't say anything meaningful about what you're actually going to get. Unlike Apple (or Framework) where the brand still means something.

jclardy 7mo ago

In addition to your research categories - is the fan going to sound like a jet engine when just opening slack? Is the case going to wobble and creak after a few weeks? Is it going to tank performance when unplugged? And if not - is battery life going to be a concern?

cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
In low price brackets those awful barrel jack charger ports that get loose at record speeds still appear too, which isn’t something people necessarily think about but will end up dragging down the user experience.
- fragmede 7mo ago
  How they're still selling laptops with those in this age of usb-c is criminal.

randusername 7mo ago

> The big players are just awful at marketing Apple is great at marketing to consumers. The other big players, I have to assume, are more focused on B2B where the threshold for UX acceptability is lower. The only ads I ever hear from them are on economics podcasts ostensibly aimed at business owners. For "Copilot+ AI PCs" no less, whatever that means. They're chasing a target audience of approximately 3 people in the world that are improbably held back from achieving their wildest AI dreams by not having a commodity laptop with an NPU.

cannolicannon 7mo ago

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup: - Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants) - Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants) - Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 16 inch variants) - Dell Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Essential (with 14 and 15 inch variants) - Dell Pro (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Plus (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max (with 14 and 16 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max Plus (with 14, 16, and 18 inch variants) - Dell Pro Max Premium (with 14 and 16 inch variants) It's maddening trying to sift through the differences at this level. Then when you select a model, there can upwards of 8 different pre-built options to review.

asimovDev 7mo ago
at our company we just pick the most current X1 13in Thinkpad 32/1000 for the windows preferrers.
Reason077 7mo ago
Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.
- DaanDL 7mo ago
  Especially with things like: will my pencil work with this iPad.
- enraged_camel 7mo ago
  >> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. One of the first things Steve Jobs immediately did after returning to Apple in 1997 was to kill most of Apple's product line-up, which had exploded in his absence. Too bad he's not around to save them from the same over-segmentation anymore.

kwanbix 7mo ago

As much as I like the performance and the power consumption of the current apple lineaup, the problems is I can not install Linux on the Neo. I can beraly install it on the M1, M2, and M3. And not everything works. If I could install Linux and have everything working, I will buy a Macbook (not a Neo) right away.

lordgroff 7mo ago
Linux will always be a second class citizen on Apple hardware. I have the M1 and have tried Linux a few times at different stages of maturity. As it is right now, it's still a far cry from the experience of a Linux on x86 hardware, and specifically Thinkpads. Bottom line is, even though I really like my laptop, I do NOT like Mac OS (and with every update I like it _less_) and will probably go back to a thinkpad for my next laptop. It's a big shame.
- kwanbix 7mo ago
  I hope that at least this wakes up AMD/Intel/PC Manufacturers. I don't expect a 600 usd x64 laptop, but I could surelly use an 800~1000 one.
  - bitwize 7mo ago
    A used ThinkPad with way more than 8 GiB of RAM can cost way less than $600. I picked two up for $300 each. You're not gonna run frontier open-source models on it but it's a very nice dumb machine for basic tasks, or even the archaic practice of programming by hand.
    - kwanbix 7mo ago
      That is what I have for me. Refurbished thinkpads, returns from banks and such, for 1/3 the original price.

izacus 7mo ago

After growing up in eastern Europe it's still wild to see young Americans stupidly demand less choice and more monopolies in their market. Like seriously, having laptop choice is causing you crippling issues? Is other people having a laptop to choose based on preference causing you distress when you go to Apple store?

lurking_swe 7mo ago
I don’t think you fully understood their argument. The problem is not that other manufacturers offer choices – the problem is that for a typical consumer it’s IMPOSSIBLE to really understand which computer in the lineup is appropriate for their needs. It seems most of them are focused on B2B sales. Of course, if you are a gamer or a nerd like myself, you don’t mind spending a week finding the perfect computer. But that’s an exception.
- dhosek 7mo ago
  Indeed, it’s a simple matter to figure out what you want if you’re buying a Mac. Laptop vs desktop. For desktop: integrated screen or not, for laptop, screen size, weight, then pick your processor, memory and storage and it’s done. There aren’t confusingly named and positioned overlapping models that it’s unclear what you’re gaining or losing for each one.
  - diffeomorphism 7mo ago
    The apple pricing ladder is all about the confusingly named overlap. The Air with more ram costs just a bit less than the pro non-pro. But then maybe you want the pro pro? Or do you need the pro max? Oh, and the ultra will come later but not for laptops. Also it will then be a smaller number M but ultra. Oh, and the iPad air is, of course, heavier than the pro because "air".
- izacus 7mo ago
  I fully understood their argument and found out how ignorant it is by just looking at a huge list of all MacBook models on sale in local Apple Store which isn't all that different from an Asus or Dell list. The posters are ignorant of how much they internalized Apple complexity and then uses that to crap on products they don't even know.

asdff 7mo ago

Is the laptop market even choosy or discerning? Very few people I know would actually understand specs. Especially when you step outside people who majored in fields that require some programming. I assume they must buy laptops, if they still even buy laptops, based on things like yearly sales periods at retailers, since you do see a surprising amount of square footage reserved for laptops to sit open on tables (not just apple's) in places like best buy, costco, target, etc. So there must be buyers. Maybe their comparison only goes as far as whatever bullet points Costco highlights on the price tag I suspect, in a "bigger number is better for the price" sort of way vs understanding a persons own compute needs.

grvdrm 7mo ago

Not just PC industry! Feels that way in auto too. I go to Tesla, Lucid websites. Breath of fresh air. Clear choices. Porsche website: WTF. (just one example, there are many)

NetMageSCW 7mo ago
Porsche is about BTO and customization. If you want a Porsche, go to a dealer and have them walk you through building the one you want. Or become knowledgeable in all the options and find a used one with 85% of what you want.
- grvdrm 7mo ago
  Of course. I own one! But, I think they could ease the process somewhat with some obvious defined package sets.

Ferret7446 7mo ago

The consumer laptop industry has been dying for a while now IMO. The average person doesn't need a computer. They have a smartphone, and if they need a bit more screen then they have a tablet. If you're a power user or gamer a desktop is preferable.

sys_64738 7mo ago
The Neo is targeting the cheap laptop market for those people that DO need it. Again, another totally pointless comment by somebody who sounds clueless.
carlosjobim 7mo ago
Casual users prefer using their smartphone instead of their laptop, because the smart phone unlocks instantly and is ready to go. Meanwhile, a PC laptop takes a few minutes to boot up, then when Windows has loaded it will hog all CPU and memory and all the internet bandwidth to download and install updates, while blasting the fans. The user will make a pathetic attempt to open the web browser to do the hotel or flight or event reservation they wanted to do. Or open a document in Word. Everything is extremely slow because of the update running. When the user has finished her task, she will close down the computer. Windows will cancel the update which was in progress, so that the user can have that same joyful laptop experience next month when she needs to use it again. Is it any wonder that people prefer doing things on their smart phones, even with the tiny displays and no keyboards? This is how the majority of consumers experience using a laptop. Then they try a Mac, where you just open the lid and go. If people knew this, then the consumer PC laptop market would die in three months.

blemblemblam 7mo ago

The secret is to buy a used ThinkPad on eBay. I have two of them. I think the ridiculous MSRP for them combined is $7000 and I paid $1600 in total for a p series and an x1 carbon (3 years old, but essentially new). These neos are for college and high school students.

sys_64738 7mo ago
Who is going to do that except a nerd looking for a specific type of laptop? Buying two of them for the price of 3+ Neos at EDU discount. You are so off in the weeds with your comment that I had to point it out.

rubslopes 7mo ago

> The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Yes!! It's awful. I'm a long time Mac user and my wife needs a Windows laptop because of a specific software. I've tried three times to pick a computer for her, but I always give up after 10min and postpone the task...

colechristensen 7mo ago

>IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Existential crisis? This kind of nonsense has existed for the entire history of the laptop market. One of the major reasons Apple is a trillion dollar company is they don't sell dozens of versions of their product. When it was a mystery which Dell laptop was the good one (or insert any other brand) you just picked the size of Apple that you wanted and it would be the good one. The last Dell laptop I bought I really liked... except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor that if you held it at the corner it would force reboot because the circuit board flexed to much and shorted or unplugged something.

throwawayq3423 7mo ago

PC laptops have been dead outside of jobs that give them to you for years.

bartread 7mo ago

> taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes. And don't forget significantly shortening the usable battery life. Windows 11 and the crapware it typically ships with are all very hard on battery life, and sleep support is unreliable so you can often find significant battery drain even when the machine is supposed to be sleeping. For me it means that if I'm having to use a Windows laptop (and quite literally thank god that hasn't been true for 2 years now) then I've got to have the power supply and cables with me at all times, and I've got to be somewhere I have a realistic chance of plugging in just in case the worst has happened.

andai 7mo ago

I bought a $50 ThinkPad last year and put Linux on it. I'm obviously not the target market, but this seems to me like the "correct" way to use a PC laptop, and solves all the problems you mentioned. (I don't game though, which seems like the only reason most people get a PC in the first place.)

muyuu 7mo ago

For me right now, there are a bunch of Strix Halo unified memory laptops offering 64 to 128GB of unified memory that are the current best value. This will probably spill into next generation (Strix Medusa IIRC). They're just very versatile and performant, and they're usually very good value. As a big plus you can run very decent models locally. Framework are among my current top choices. Hearing good things about the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7a as well, and HP rather surprisingly. But there are a bunch of Ryzen AI Max+ 395 based laptops supporting up to 128GB of unified memory, and it looks like you can hardly go wrong with these.

nine_k 7mo ago

> the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage Running Windows in 2026 is either a mistake, or a sad necessity. Fortunately, unless you need The Right Kind of Excel, you can choose either Linux on a PC (best, IMO), or a Mac.

andrepd 7mo ago

Takes 1 hour to open notebookcheck?

eitally 7mo ago

This is how I ended up with my first MacBook in >10 years. I'd been a Thinkpad (T series) guy in the early days, the tried a MacBook in 2015... couldn't get used to it and used a Chromebook for the next 8 years. Needed to buy a new laptop in 2023 and ... the entire Windows laptop industry turned me off. Yes, something like System76 is an option, and so is installing Linux on a Windows OEM machine, but then you still have to deal with the hardware. Apple isn't perfect, but MacBooks are consistent and reliable, with minimal telemetry and no advertising or upselling. That's enough for me.

snowwrestler 7mo ago

To what extent is there still a “consumer PC industry?” You mention Dell; for like a decade I think I’ve only ever seen Dells that were company-issued. My sense is that consumers spend most of their tech money on phones, tablets, headphones, watches, services. People who really want a laptop get a Mac or Chromebook. Gamers buy / build PCs, for gaming. Linux geeks buy Linux machines for Linuxing. I’m not saying no one buys PC laptops at consumer retail. I guess I’m just wondering how big that market is anymore after consumer discretionary spending on tech has been hollowed out by the above list. (I’m sure most people reading this have purchased a laptop. I think the HN audience is a tech outlier compared to most consumers.)

itomato 7mo ago
Take a look at a Sam's Club or Costco. The Windows PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo outnumber the Macs 4:1 or more. I have never seen a shopper testing out the wares.
- slashdave 7mo ago
  I think it depends where you are, at least for Costco.

wlowenfeld 7mo ago

The SKU proliferation is truly awful. I honestly had to use Claude to understand the current landscape for daily driver Windows laptops when I finally needed to replace my old one.

socalgal2 7mo ago

too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Same for Apple, especially as you can't upgrade them so if you get a 8gig Nano, you have a 8gig Nano, That's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano. And if you get 16gig Nano with 256gig storage, that's a different SKU than a 16gig Nano with 512gig of storage. Apple has 48 SKUs at their stores, not included adding in color and custom configurations

bandrami 7mo ago

I'd really love it if the manufacturers would just say what wireless chipset they use in a given model but the unfortunate truth is even they don't always know for a given run

thefz 7mo ago

It's a false comparison, because you are aggregating hardware and OS vendors in the same category while Apple is actually the one doing both.

wazoox 7mo ago

A very important point is the RAM and flash shortage. With their humongous volumes, Apple is certainly a member of the happy few with preferential contracts with guaranteed volumes and prices. No other PC maker can remotely compete with Apple on volumes, and now they'll get their already thin margins crushed even more. In the past Apple had constantly sold high-margin products and grabbed 70 to 80% of the whole industry's margins. Now they're coming for the rest !

maybewhenthesun 7mo ago

I fully agree. Ann then try to buy a nice linux compatible laptop. The research period climbs to days. It's ridiculous. I don't even really mind spending 1500 (well , I do, but if that's what it takes) but 'just buy apple' doesn't work when you want a linux laptop, with apple trying to sabotage running linux on their hardware at every opportunity.

_giorgio_ 7mo ago

Often I don’t purchase anything because I have to sift through a billion different options. Model identifiers are often unique to specific stores, because they carry laptop configurations made just for them. Apple, AmazonBasics, and a few others, by contrast, understand the consumer and offer a very limited—though often configurable—selection.

chadash 7mo ago

The base model of the MacBook Air is $1099 now. That has 16GB ram and 512gb disk. And it’s a hell of a computer. The crazy thing is we often cite an Apple Tax, but in this case, I think they actually have a cheaper product.

nielsbot 7mo ago

People may not remember that Apple once had a product lineup like this (before SJ returned) with tons of different model numbers nobody could tell apart. > Remember Apple in the late '90s? The tech giant was facing significant struggles until Steve Jobs returned and pinpointed the crux: a lack of innovation and focus. Jobs took bold steps to streamline Apple’s bloated product line. He cut down on the excessive range of choices, simplifying the product lineup to focus on quality and innovation. Jobs famously asked his team, "Which ones do I tell my friends to buy?" When he didn’t get a simple answer, he decided to reduce the number of Apple products by 70%. This move included cancelling projects like the Newton digital assistant and focusing on just four key products: the iMac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3, and PowerBook G3. https://strategeos.com/f/how-your-business-can-focus-on-the-strategic-crux-to-succeed https://strategeos.com/f/how-your-business-can-focus-on-the-...