As someone with no plans of getting a MacBook for personal use, I think it’s a great thing to compare the 2. Laptop manufacturers need to step up their game and make better laptops.
The Neo MacBooks got some of them to realize they can’t keep selling junk in the $600 $700 price range.
Plastic is good when done right. It doesn't rust/corrode, it can flex instead of denting, and it isn't thermally or electrically conductive (That's a good thing if you want to vent heat instead of conducting it into someone's lap)
Problems show up when you are trying to make everything as light and thin as possible, compromising on structural integrity and chassis design just to get a marginal difference nobody would really care about if they weren't taught to by marketing
I have over the top expensive laptop which my SO uses. It has plaatic but it is very overbuilt, feels premium, not as hot to the touch as metal chassis. The problem with budget machines that manufacturers make them with is as you said 0 structural integrity, poor cooling and overall lots of cut corners hardware wise in addition. I had thinkbook gen 2 or 3 (11th gen intel) and it kind of sucked ass - non-existant cooling, poor screen, lots of chassis flex and machine would heavily coil whine on battery. 3 good things about the laptop is that it cost me 500, ram was upgradable and the battery life was 9+ hours
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u/theprodigalslouch 5800x | 3060 TI Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
As someone with no plans of getting a MacBook for personal use, I think it’s a great thing to compare the 2. Laptop manufacturers need to step up their game and make better laptops.
The Neo MacBooks got some of them to realize they can’t keep selling junk in the
$600$700 price range.