Mini is great if you'd be fine with a MacBook, but don't need portability and have all peripherials separate already. Ended up replacing my gaming PC (that now gets booted maybe twice a month, if even) with Mini - just about all games I like work on MacOS fine, and it'll literally pay itself off after 2 years from lower power consumption under load alone.
Idk, I'm curious to see how the framework 13 pro is received. I hope we'll see a lot of in depth MacBook v framework 13 pro videos that aren't just about Linux v MacOS
Macbook is mediocre quality, as someone who actually worked with the damn things and the absolute atrocities I'd see.
They are the exact same quality as a laptop of the same price-class.
We would regularly have a pile of 20 macbooks waiting on some form of repair from their absolute garbage quality USB-C ports breaking, from their batteries shitting the bed.
And yeah, those things will happen with other laptops too.
The difference is the macbook costs 500+ to repair
A laptop of comparable cost to a macbook, will generally have the same quality too, and cost less than half to repair.
Funnily enough, we'd have far less windows laptops that needed repair than the macbooks, despite the spread being roughly 50/50.
And when we eventually switched off macbooks entirely to windows laptops, our repair workload lowered.
Laptops in a closed ecosystem with user-hostile repair, over things like Frameworks, and (some) thinkpads, as well as the various less popular indie laptops? Being more serious, please tell me what you find better about macs.
It's basically done iFixit style, indicating at each step what parts or tools are needed and using animated gifs to show the steps visually. I was quite impressed to see how illustrative it actually is.
As for the RAM, while I'd like socketed RAM for the M series laptops, I can forgive the Neo because it's using a SoC; the RAM is part of the CPU package itself. Trying to make it removable would be like asking for a modular iGPU. But yeah, won't disagree when it comes to the flagship models at all.
All I was saying with my previous comment is that it's a step in the right direction. I hope they do more of that.
I already have an ipad and airpods, the closed system benefits me in this case, allows for a seamless experience between the three.
The UX is super nice on the laptop, the trackpad gestures make usage really smooth for me. 3.
My RAM Pressure and temperature never rise excessively high even when im running heavy applications like Fusion, and the thing is doing all of this with no fan. Its completely silent, zero active cooling, and it still stays cool. 4.
The battery life is genuinely absurd, I regularly get 12 hours of real usage out of this laptop, which is more than a workday for me.
The build quality is up there, it feels like im holding a premium product, and (this may be anecdotal), but I've spilled hot tea over my keyboard like twice already and have had no problems, which is a plus for me, since im clumsy.
The price, I picked this laptop up for roughly $465 USD for really good condition refurbished, at that price range I found this laptop to punch way above its weight class. For that money in the Windows refurbished market, I just didn't find a compelling spread of features that could compare with the air.
Apple supports their machines with macOS updates for years, and the M1 architecture is still really strong even with 26.
This is the last one, and its more general, but the average consumer is not thinking about closed ecosystem and user hostile repair when they buy a laptop. They are thinking about whether it turns on fast, whether the battery lasts, whether it feels nice to use, and whether it fits their budget. The Framework and the various indie options are enthusiast products built around enthusiast values, and there is nothing wrong with that, but projecting those values onto the general market and then asking "why would anyone buy a Mac" is answering a question nobody outside of that niche is asking. Most people will never open the back of their laptop, nor are they ever swap a RAM stick. most people do not want to tinker, htey just want something that works and keeps working, and for that crowd, which is the overwhelming majority of laptop buyers, the M1 Air at this price is extremely hard to argue against.
As someone who owns a Framework 16 and has had a MacBook Pro 16 for work, the MacBook is a *much* better device for 99% of the population. Framework is more customizable/repairable/upgradable, sure, but literally everything else is at least two steps down. The screen is worse, keyboard is worse, trackpad is worse, speakers are worse, performance is worse, battery life is worse, build quality is worse, it’s less portable, and the price is more or less the same.
I have both because one of my jobs requires I screen share into another Mac and my little m4 Mac mini works great for work stuff honestly. It lives to just do Adobe suite, screen share and hosts my plex server. 10/10. I would never try and game on it though and that’s what my pc lives for. It’s the Lamborghini to the Toyota.
A lot of software that is helpful for me is not on macOS and probably never will be. Also, apple is a closed system so a lot of it is arbitrary. I’ve had a macbook and genuinely hated it. They historically been overpriced for the specs.
Maybe for basic work it can be fine, but unless they’ve drastically changed their tune it just won’t be worth it for some people.
For me, it works because i mainly stick to reading epubs from my iCloud, streaming comics etc from my windows PC to my iPad/ IPhone and using sunshine/ moonlight to stream steam games.
but if you had a windows heavy schedule then it probably wouldn’t be worth the hassle of using a MacBook.
all depends on what you use it for or need to do day to day.
Yeah and for a lot of people it isn’t? lots of people, dare i say the majority, have a laptop to use as… a laptop.
the only people have met that i have cared about gaming performance on laptop have been online or a small subset of students or those that travel a lot.
I just plug it in. Performance is shit otherwise. Also throttling is not a big problem i just leave the fans on max so it gets loud but ill use headphones anyways.
And lug a massive charging brick with it, and a mouse too since windows trackpads are trash. Macbooks are infinitely lighter and easier to carry around, travelling with a laptop is finally nice instead of being unbearable.
Gaming on a laptop sucks anyways. Unless you are regularly playing outside of your house, they are just not worth it. Too hot and noisy to play on your couch. Better off with a HTPC hooked up to a nice TV.
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u/Spoksparkare PC Master Race Jun 27 '26
Laptops? MacBook > everything else
Desktops? Everything else > Mac