• @_g_be@lemmy.world
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          382 years ago

          A MacBook is very good at what it does. If you tried to spec out a laptop/portable computer for similar tasks, the Mac would be pretty competitive and have longer battery life.

          Once you try to do anything that apple didn’t intend for it to do (play games, for example) or if we turn to desktops then the value proposition goes away pretty quickly

          • @msage@programming.dev
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            42 years ago

            So my all-purpose PC is now limited by the intentions of the silicone manufacturer, and therefore it’s better than the other options?

            • @darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works
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              72 years ago

              Your computer always has been limited by the intentions of the system designer. It’s not malice, it’s market-fit and optimization.

              Look at those x3d variants that amd has been putting out. Fantastic for gamers, but relatively niche for general computing tasks. If I were an OEM, would I pick those parts for my workstation prebuilts? Fuck no, they’re overpriced for someone using office and a web browser. But for my gaming line, maybe, if I could get a deal.

              All computers have many of these price/performance/size/power draw/availability decisions to make, and portables even more so. Apple knows that most of their users need xyz, and they build for that. Everyone else’s needs go into the pile of lower priority, some of which will be supported if they feel like it.

              • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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                12 years ago

                If all you need is office and a web browser there’s plenty of suitable ARM systems. Handful of A72 cores, generally come with more than enough of a GPU to drive 2d, important: At least a couple of PCIe lanes for an SSD. I’m sure by now there’s more suitable systems but an RK3399 is sufficient, originally a chipset for set-top boxes (hence why it has a beast of a VPU (for its price and age) which can decode 4k h265). Bought the board for about 100 bucks back in the days, what, three or four years ago. Actually I should hook it up to a monitor and check out those fancy new GPU drivers that have been coming along, the thing is vulkan-capable (back in the days I was stuck with a gles blob, and using the VPU meant using an overlay).

        • @scoredseqrica@lemmy.ml
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          262 years ago

          That’s not apples to apples. If you spec a windows laptop, good luck getting the same performance and the same battery life and portability at the same price. Also build quality, screen, speaker and trackpad quality will likely not be at apples level from the windows machine. If that’s what you’re in the market for Apple machines are not bad. For instance a photographer/videographer working on location, truly amazing for them. Should everyone buy one? No. Are there a 100 better ways to spend the money if you don’t have that specific Apple favoured use case. Sure, e.g. your mum doesn’t need a MacBook Pro for Facebook / Amazon browsing and your cousin shouldn’t buy a Mac Studio for gaming. But use cases do exist, and for those people Macs are genuinely a good proposition.

          • @beeng@discuss.tchncs.de
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            222 years ago

            What you using all that power for? Gaming? Not likely on Mac, Machine learning? Also not likely with that GPU… Maybe a Photoshop machine? Enjoy that non expandable ram.

            For a nice dev machine I get it, nice battery life and watch Netflix on a screen, but it’s not like you can’t get a same performance machine for the same/lesser price with Dell/Thinkpad and use Linux…

            • @michaelfone@lemm.ee
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              102 years ago

              That’s a rather narrow set of use cases. For example, they are audio and video editing powerhouses. Audio in particular is exceptional because of core audio in MacOS.

              And upgradable components aren’t something 95% of the population is worried about. Max out what you need when you buy it. My last Mac lasted 8 years with no trouble. And by the time I was ready to upgrade, the bottleneck was mainly the cpu, which in a case of 8 years, that means a new motherboard, and at that point you might as well upgrade the whole computer, as standards have changed and updated.

            • @darth_helmet@sh.itjust.works
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              22 years ago

              Apple silicon has a pretty decent on-board ML subsystem, you can get LLMs to output a respectable number of tokens per second off of it if you have the memory for them. I’m honesty shocked that they haven’t built a little LLM to power Siri

          • @elscallr@lemmy.world
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            52 years ago

            You really don’t get any of those things. Be a Mac fan if that’s your thing, but don’t try to pretend they’re actually any better because all the PCs you’ve used have been trash.

            • @BURN@lemmy.world
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              62 years ago

              I’ve yet to find a PC laptop that can replicate a Mac TouchPad. They’ve gotten better in the last few years, but are still miles off Apple.

              They’re not better for everything, but some stuff they’ve absolutely nailed over the competition and it’s not even close.

              • @elscallr@lemmy.world
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                32 years ago

                If I’m honest I hate touchpads in general, even Macs. I’ve got a brand new top of the line Mac issued by my company. I use a mouse.

                • @BURN@lemmy.world
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                  32 years ago

                  And I prefer touchpads and find using a mouse on Mac a terrible experience. Touchpad gestures are a constant part of my workflow on a laptop due to the nature of only having one screen.

                  Like I said though, Mac touchpads are miles ahead of windows touchpads and it’s not even close to a competition.

                  • @elscallr@lemmy.world
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                    22 years ago

                    Yeah that’s probably true. Every laptop I’ve ever used that I cared about gestures on just had a touch screen. Not that I’ve ever really liked that either.

      • @fckreddit@lemmy.ml
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        432 years ago

        Right. Buy products that is not only expensive to buy, but also expensive to repair. Pass…

        • FiveMacs
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          282 years ago

          And you are forced to give up system control, and choice of software

      • @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        352 years ago

        Before I will even think about buying a Mac I will buy a Framework laptop and install debian.
        And I don’t even use Linux outside of a home server.

      • @MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        far beyond the close competition in both quality and performance

        It’s true that Apple continues to be the king of build quality. And while they do currently hold the performance per watt crown, there are plenty of laptops that beat the M2 when it comes to raw performance, especially if you throw in a dGPU. And of course, none of this matters if the device doesn’t run the software you want, which is what I suspect most people on Lemmy have issue with.