Comment by cycomanic

I’d say it’s barely 3 things :

- The trackpad (but other manufacturers now have tolerable alternatives and anyway you can work without it)

- The screen : at an equivalent price point (and even more), nothing comes close to Apple screens. The cheapest MacBook have a better screen than most high end PCs.

- The audio : Apple truly did some sorcery to get such an awesome sound from machines that are flat as sheet. It’s so good that you can watch a movie on your MacBook without earbuds and don’t be bothered.

Everything else like build quality is overall better than most other alternatives but a few other manufacturers are also good at it.

I say this as someone who uses a MacBook for work despite loving Linux and who hates what macOS have become. The hardware is really that good.

I think that a lot comes down to apple only selling quality laptop but a brand like Lenovo sells both cheap crap and quality laptops.

So if you tell someone buy a apple laptop you know they will get a good laptop but if you tell them to buy a Lenovo they might end up with the worst crap.

I had a MacBook once that lasted for 13 years, and that's what I used to assume people meant by "crazy good lifespan".

Once on this site I saw someone talking about how the lifespan is so good they only had to replace their MacBook every two years instead of every year, and it just made me realize "crazy good lifespan" is meaningless.

I’ve had 5 personal Mac laptops over the last 25 years. And all of them overlapped their service lives bc I usually had 2 active laptops at a time. None were the Pro, just iBooks and MacBook Airs.

The one I just retired was my portable workhorse from 2014-2024. I got annoyed towards the end bc the latest OS wasn’t supported (but still got security updates for my old macOS version at least).

Overall, I never needed to replaced battery, hard drive, cpus, screens or really any of the hardware on any of them over 2 decades. And I got at least 6 yrs out of each one.

My X220 from 2012 also runs fine. I use now use a X13 because AMD Zen3+ is faster and provides much more battery runtime. The magnesium chassis and the crisp keyboard are awesome.

This stuff last long:

    * Build quality, regarding chassis and screws.
    * Replacement parts are available. Hardware maintenance manual is available. A broken palm rest is something fixable.
    * Handle it with care.

The biggest issue of ThinkPads is that the L-Series can be purchased (same hardware, bad chassis) and that bad panels can be ordered. Recently Lenovo removed the HiDPI panel option from the X13. Which is the worst possible idea. Another dumb idea is the ugly and useless camera bump protruding from the panel.

Apple takes always a lot money from and prevents these mistakes. But Apple loves to deliver bad keyboards. And the aluminium chassis is bad in comparison to magnesium chassis (much better feeling, never hot or cold).

Avoidable mistakes. None of these are hard challenges. As the biggest mistake “six rows keyboards”. The complete industry ruined laptop with 16:9 and after a decade we’re allowed to enjoy the much better 16:10 again. The keyboards are still small, squeezed things with awkwardly grouped keys. The X220 keyboard is a masterpiece in layout.

I believe there is a similar situation in the mobile space with iphones, at least here is Europe where they are not ubiquitous.

Most people use cheaper android phones, that are slower and with a much shorted timespan. then they try a 1k€ iPhone and it is great and conclude they prefer the iPhone to Android: it is not an apple to apple comparison, you should compare it to a 1k€ android lol.

Same things happens on laptops. If you try to use a 500-600€ laptop as work main machine for multiple years it will fall apart. Than you try a MacBook and it feels great because after 5 years is still usable.

Defect rate is a probability distribution so some people will get 10 heads in a row and others will get 10 tails, and since it’s the internet, and since it’s kinda amazing we hear about both. But most people get a mixture and post nothing.

Every IT survey I’ve ever seen shows Macs as more reliable. On the other hand the repairs are often more expensive. So there’s a trade off.

For me, my M1 16” is a champ. The computer is almost too good. I’d like to upgrade but honestly there’s no reason to so I just can’t get myself to ditch a perfectly good computer.

OP here, thanks for the comment. True, I should have elaborated a bit more. Actually my 10 years old MacBook is still running as my wife's computer and the 15 years computer, I gave to a friend, which used it for a long time (not sure if still).

My comparison was with Windows PCs, that always were super slowish after 2-3 years. The built quality always felt cheap. The battery was done after 2 years. Maybe it was also an unfair comparison, that I bought cheaper PCs, but at work I recently had to a dev HP laptop much later, and I had a very similar experience.

So maybe the problem is more windows than the PCs, but if you have used MacBooks, then you definitely know the difference. Running a Lenovo now, I love the much other things. Let's see how long it holds. ThinkPads are defenitely in a similar categories as Macbooks, kind of unbreakable. Love them too.

Every ThinkPad I ever owned is still setup and waiting to be used. My T420 is about 14 years old and I still use it from time to time. It was older than 5 years when I got it.

We run dell or HP laptops at work. After 3 years they get replaced. I usually buy my old work laptop to use it for personal use or to hand off to my family.

Tge first one I bought in that way is still working after 14 years. I converted it from Windows to Linux a few years ago and My mother uses it for browsing, banking and email. Personally I'm using a 7 years old HP.

Batteries get upgraded when necessary and first thin I do after buying is adding RAM.

I don't get how 5 years is a good lifespan on a Mac?

I don't understand the claim. Since 2012 I have also.owned only Lenovo laptops and I've changed it only for a more performing one every 5/6 years, but they are still working flawlessly.

> it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world

It's probably because when everybody including your mom and dad has an Apple device, you really need something like the RDF to stay cool.

Anyway, I don't understand the evangelism around Apple. Evangelism is by definition toxic.

It’s true if you buy/compare a random MacBook and a random PC. A 5-year lifespan and good performance is basically guaranteed for all Macs, but you have to make sure you don’t have one of the crap Windows PCs (the ones that do stuff like spinning hard disk boot drives, motherboard attached to flimsy frame without reinforcements, 4GB RAM, etc.)

Even considering this most people still tend to underestimate the lifespan of Windows PCs lol

I agree with your point that 5yrs is not "crazy good"

I have a mid 2014 15.6" Macbook Pro. It still runs fine. Apple doesn't support it though. I'm also not claiming 11 years is "crazy good" either.

On the opposite side though, I don't like giving old machines to non-techies. I'm actually planning to get rid of that 2014 MBP since it's sat plugged in but basically unused for 4 years, but I don't like the idea of a non-techie taking it and not getting security updates. If someone wanted it I'd prefer they know what they're getting. Sure it will view websites, run video from youtube, etc... but no support. Runs crazy hot too.

Indeed. I'm running 2019 Thinkpad X1 extreme gen 2. Runs a bit hot but still snappy with latest Fedora KDE edition. Just had to do a 100$ battery swap. The all aluminum chassis of MacBooks are lovely indeed; however considering I like the UI flexibility Linux provides and the crazy premium Apple charges for higher specs, it is pretty hard to justify.

> So from my experience a 5 year lifetime for a macbook is really nothing special and definitely not "crazy good".

I doubt they are dead after 5 years - I have a number of decade+ old MacBooks kicking around the family, and they work just fine.

It's more that anyone in software is going to need to upgrade around the 5 year mark anyway, because too much shit has changed in the outside world (for example, Apple's transition to ARM processors, or Windows 11 requiring recent TPM support).

MacBooks are great laptops until the day they break and you are out of warranty; or you are in warranty and Apple in its infinite wisdom and power decides they are not going to honour that repair. So MacBooks are laptops which you use with the constant hope that it doesn't break.

So are MacBooks just another level? Of course not! If you have to use something with the constant fear of it breaking down (and then the only options remaining buying a new one or repairing at the cost often as much or sometimes more than the cost of laptop itself) then that's anything but great. But what infuriates me is people asking "but how many times has that happened?", well, enough times in about half a lifetime! And their extra warranty (which are for + or +2 years, not sure) now cost a lot more than it cost the last time (w.r.t device price) I bought their extended warranty in 2012.

The problem is other than repair bankruptcy, other laptops, esp. at the lower segment of macs (Air et al), there really are not many good laptops in those prices. X1s are costly laptops. But if they offer comparable features then I'd say for repairability alone they will be great replacements.

> and don't have any issues either.

It's very different from something being great. While I absolutely hate Apple making their devices impossible to repair and fact more so making it an unwise decision to even try to repair for the cost, their laptops are actually quite good. But it stops there. Their phones are like ages behind competition and they have a business because of a captive/hostage user base :)

I think it comes down to quality of materials and manufacturing. It would be interesting if someone knew of failure rate data of laptop manufacturers. I bet Apple's is far lower than others, maybe this is because they control the OS and firmware, etc. I don't care enough to go research but an HN thread isn't likely representative of "normal" laptop users.

I'm not an Apple fanboi, I have a lot of linux experience, back in the day built a Tivo like linux PC with TV capture card as a DVR and had to mess with all sorts of X11 settings, etc. Used to build PCs for gaming and mess with settings. The whole It Just Works is true with Apple, everything hardware wise is smooth. The annoyances of Apple software to me don't bubble up to the level of wanting to switch, but articles like above make me think about getting a cheap Mini PC to play around and see if things like Omarchy make the level of messing with settings much lower than it used to be.

Try to get replacement parts for a random xy-20003940-fe laptop they are not there or not there anymore after 3 years.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’ve not had a Mac last less than 7 years as a main workhorse, and my 2014 first generation 5k 27” is still going strong as a living room machine. It could still be my daily driver to be honest.

Well, yeah, and my mom was using my old 2012 MBP until it was a decade too. Main reason to upgrade to an M1 Air was the battery and the performance improvement that comes with a decade of processor and efficiency improvements. And I bet that’ll last another decade. I sold my previous two work MBPs back to family members as well, which they’re still using.

And btw a used M1 Air, at almost 5 years old now, is still a great budget choice for anyone.

Author should have just put in a longer time frame.

Same here, my personal computers are from around 2009, the latest one from 2018, all PC laptops.

At work, my Thinkpad from 2021 is still holding on, and has higher specs than entry level MacBooks from 2025.

I use both, have not spent money on buying personal macbooks, have bought many a thinkpad. I have had to repair far more thinkpads than I have had to get macbooks repaired, the batteries last longer on macbooks. I still prefer linux to macOS, but hardware wise, I’d much prefer an m4 to an x86 thinkpad.

I’ve never had 8h of battery life on a Thinkpad. More like 3h. Also my last two T series stopped working completely after ~4 years (dead motherboard / broken usb-c ports / cracking casing). The speakers, screen, touchpad all suck as well, let's be honest. The best thing about a Thinkpad is the keyboard and that it can run Linux.

I finally gave in and bought a MBP M3 Max 14" and the thing is a beast. Multiple days of battery life. Beautiful display. Indestructable casing and USB ports. Speaker quality is amazing - I can play music and podcasts in the background on it when traveling - I could never do this on any Thinkpad. The only thing it sucks at is the keyboard and OS X, but I've learned to live with both.

Doubt I'll ever go back to a Thinkpad or any non-macbook laptop until a company makes a similar quality one I can run Linux on.

Compare their used values at 5 years

I bought Lenovo laptop back in 2016. It's still working - now as a media Control center. The only problems with it were LCD screen showing "deglueing" like there's a drop of transparent liquid behind the screen in 1 corner, and keyboard not working for a few keys. Neither are relevant for the current application.

Both problems appeared long past 5 years of usage, more like 7-8 years after I bought it. In fact I don't remember having a computer fail on me in within 5 years since I bought it. And I was buying cheapest crap possible for majority of the last 25 years.

I don't have much experience with Macs, but from talking with friends it seems they break more not less often.

yep agree, people have really been brainwashed into thinking this isn't normal wtf

> 8-10h battery life

If you think that's even close to good, then it's you who lives in a reality distortion field. But so are all of the PC laptop manufacturers, reviewers and buyers. I don't get it.

I desperately want to move to a Linux laptop (I run it on every desktop PC I own, and I hate that I have to deal with a locked-down system). I've tried more laptops than is probably financially healthy for me. There's no price point that buys you even close to what an entry-level Macbook Air offers, not only in terms of battery life, but also weight, screen quality and keyboard.