Slashdot Mirror
Could the Best Windows 10 Laptop Be a Mac?
dkatana writes: Now that Windows 10 is finally out there many people are looking for the best laptop with the power to make the new OS shine. The sweet spot appears to be in $900-$1500 machines from Dell, Asus and HP. But Apple, the company that has been fighting Windows for ever, has other options for Windows 10: the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. According to InformationWeek there are many reasons to consider purchasing a MacBook as the next Windows machine, including design, reliability, performance, battery life, display quality and better keyboard. Also MacBooks have a higher resell value, retaining up to 50% of their price after five years.
Or are you guys Doing It For Free(tm)?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Good god, does absolutely anything get accepted as content here now? Just go away. Shoo!
Yes, the Best Windows machines are Macs. This has been the case for a looong time. Not only are they less expensive for the lifetime of ownership, longer lives, more powerful, more fully featured but as a bonus you get to use the MacOSX and better integration with iOS. Total win.
with Windows 10. The upgrade hasn't gone smoothly on any of our desktops and even worse on laptops. Our biggest customer is upgrading to 10, so have to use it for testing so we have no choice but to upgrade some of our systems. The MacBook we tried 10 on worked pretty well. It locked-up a couple of times in a week of use, but that's better than the non-Apple systems. The Apple drivers for Windows, while not perfect, seem better than the ones from most other companies. I would guess that after the next Boot Camp update, it will be even better. With Microsoft's policy of not providing drivers and leaving them to manufacturers, they've really put users between a rock and a hard place.
There was a time I understood this during the PPC era of mac, but now that macs run on commodity, non specialized CISC based x86, I have no idea why they retain their value. A lot of PC makers are starting to make machines that look *almost* as nice as a MBP. My HP Envy Beats laptops have a nice aluminum case.
The BEST laptop is a pen and paper.
Hyperboble is mine.
And gay.
If you're interested in using windows, keep it on your desktop. In my experience, macbooks mesh a little better in research/workplace environments than windows laptops. For desktops on the other hand, where you might actually need some power (for gaming, design, personal computation, etc), windows is still king of compatibility.
Some Czech guy did a traffic analysis of data produced by Windows 10, and released his findings the other day. His primary thesis was that Windows 10 acts more like a terminal than an operating system -- because of the extent of the "cloud" integration, a large portion of the OS functions are almost dependent on remote (Microsoft's) servers. The amount of collected information, even with strict privacy settings, is quite alarming. ... All text typed on the keyboard is stored in temporary files, and sent (once per 30 mins) to:...
I had a co-worker on the HD (Hi Josh!) years ago state that he'd never own an Apple computer. Just didn't like OS X.
Then a few years ago (we've since both left the company) he shoots me an email to announce that he was running Windows on a Macbook Pro! He simply couldn't believe how damn FAST the thing was, nor that he was able to completely blow out the Apple OS and make it 100% Windows OS.
And this we before SSDs came into play...
I'm on my second Macbook Air. Delightful design, and I'm sure that Windows would work just fine on it, for those insane enough to try it.
But...
The translucent Apple logo on the lid is only lightly glued in, and tends to go walkabout. Not much of an issue.
More seriously, the plastic sleeving on the power cord disintegrates. This is a known issue, but not much of a problem unless the shield wiring comes across exposed AC pins on the loosely plugged in Power Adapter.
Clear the short, reset the House Breaker, and you are good to go.
Otherwise, my next Computer will be the next generation Macbook Air, which would be my 15th Mac.
They're that good.
If it had a touch screen. I've been using hybrids for YEARS. almost a decade now & I won't go back to a dedicated laptop. If Apple wants me to give up my Surface Pro, I'm gonna need to see a MacBook where I can remove the screen from the keyboard.
If Apple bought parallels and built it into OSX. My roommate runs windows on his Mac thanks to it. But its a different and weird animal.
1. Design
2. Resell Value
Sure, they can be factors if everything else is a tie...
That is, unless by "Design" they mean "weight, size, form factor" instead of "Apple Logo".
You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU WINDOWS 10 COWS!!
Hilarious. -_-
I can't believe Apple made such a crappy touch screen. It's totally unresponsive.
Be wary of this if you are used to a windows laptop because not having a dedicated second mouse button takes some getting used to.
why not advertise for System76 and other companies that sell good hardware with Linux pre-installed?
There are no MacBooks with touch screens (and unlikely to be one any time soon). All newer Windows versions are so heavily touch-oriented I don't see how the TFA could be true. Even with a keyboard and mouse attached, the touch interface has it's advantages. I often find myself occasionally trying to use my finger to navigate a non-touch laptop and then remember "oh yeah, no touch interface".
"Could The Best Chevrolet Be A Bentley?"
Slashdot, where art thou?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Also MacBooks have a higher resell value, retaining up to 50% of their price after five years."
They may maintain up to 50% of their price, but most certainly don't retain 50% of their usability. You're stuck on obsolete programs and OS updates.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I wanted to buy a macbook, but sadly for us french canadians Apple with their great wisdom have chosen the completely retarded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Canadian_Multilingual_Standard/
At least on Windows laptops they still use the old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Quebec_French/ layout. Like I have on my desktop at work, and everywhere else...
I've been typing with this layout for the last 25 years, I don't want to change...
Now get off my lawn!!
Try it! Library of Babel
Nothing more.
I cringe every time I have to use a Mac keyboard. They're awful. In what universe are they better? They're usually not even full keyboards. The one I'm stuck with at work doesn't even have pgup/pgdn, not even with the fn key. There's holes where you could put them near the arrow keys, too, like a sane laptop, but nooo.
Okay, I like the extra bucky bit, but that's an OS thing and it isn't worth the price of "nothing on a macintosh has accelerator keys".
Nothing makes up for lack of a Trackpoint. Also, the article gives no evidence that Macs retain up to 50% of their value after 5 years, which is a sketchy claim, considering how fast things are improved.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
...they don't have Windows on them.
Certainly not for the fr-CA locale, where Apple uses a keyboard layout that nobody else uses.
There was a time I understood this during the PPC era of mac, but now that macs run on commodity, non specialized CISC based x86, I have no idea why they retain their value. A lot of PC makers are starting to make machines that look *almost* as nice as a MBP.
Because Windows machines are a commodity. A Windows box is a Windows box, what you get is pretty much all the same, so the vendors are in a "race to the bottom"-- who can make it the cheapest? They don't expect brand loyalty, and for the most part they don't get it-- most customers buy on price. And nobody is saying "I like my Dell machine so much I'll buy a telephone from them, and also a MP3 player, and I'm thinking about the Dell watch."
Apple, on the other hand, does rely on brand loyalty. They count on it. And they count on that when people like their Macbook Air, they'll buy a phone, and a MP3 player, and -- who knows-- maybe even a watch. They don't dare race to the bottom... and they don't have to.
People don't buy apples to run windows on them. They buy apples because they cost 1.5x more, hating windows is hip, and the millennial hipsters thrive on conspicuous consumption.
ON the other hand, they could easily lose that damn caps lock key. Who invented that anyway? When I get my time machine I'm going to go back in time and strangle them as a baby. I'm not also completely sure I need function, control, option and command keys. That seems like some of those functions could be consolidated.
I currently do this but like everyone else doing this via Bootcamp (I haven't tried a clean install and information about this is scarce), I'm stuck with a hot machine with short battery life, because it *runs the discrete graphics continuously*, and AFAIK nobody has figured out how to make it switch to integrated graphics. Apple disables the integrated graphics in the EFI, the device won't even show up in Device Manager. You can disable the discrete driver, but that just means Microsoft's driver for the discrete board kicks in, looking crappy and *still* running hot and eating battery.
You have been warned...
No
I think in this thread, MOOF! is more appropriate.
I can see the fnords!
> even worse on laptops.
Those trackpad drivers! Dell says their Alps drivers are compatible with 10, but so far we've had to downgrade every laptop we've tried 10 on. I don't blame Alps, because we make fingerprint scanners and can't get our own driver to work well with 10. Even though we have the $2,500 per year version of VisualStudio that is supposed to come with support, Microsoft hasn't been helpful at all.
"According to InformationWeek there are many reasons to consider purchasing a MacBook as the next Windows machine"
..
..
translation: Windows is rapidly losing market share
Wouldn't it be simpler for Apple to pay Microsoft a 'license' for every version sold, similarly to Microsoft extorting an Android 'license' out of the hardware manufacturers. I know of no one on the planet who goes 'OS X is terrible must upgrade to Windows'
Nice submission. The Macbook Air has been through several revisions over the past 5 years and still uses low resolution shitty TN screens instead of higher quality panels like IPS.
I have read in a few places that macs get 1/2 the batt life running win 10. I bet that's intentional.
"Science is the power of man"
Mac doesn't run Windows better... You're just used to the limited and crappy performance of OS #.
Welcome to the real world.
They do not last any longer than any business class hardware, they are no faster than any other laptop (I guess other than a pcie SSD which really doesn't translate into noteable improvements)
As someone who has spent the last 5-years using macbooks with windows installed for work there are massive downsides. The keyboards are awful (bad layout and bad feel), they run very hot, and the battery life is poor. Both the last two points are Apples fault for disabling various power CPU states and using a proprietary GPU switching solution which they do not provide a driver for leaving Windows with access only to the integrated GPU.
If you're a Windows user you should not by Apple unless you absolutely need to have access to OSX, and even then you should consider a Windows laptop and a mac mini which combined will probably cost less.
Race to the bottom? They're already there. They arrived with the debut of the iPad. That's a great irony of the situation that many people don't fully grasp. Apple created a new market by being the cheap option.
You're just making the mistake of assuming that fruity logo actually means something. Except for the novelty form factors, Apple is a PC maker just like anyone else. The same random collection of spare parts that's in a Mac are also in Dell and any other brand.
I'm surprised you think an iPad is a race to the bottom. It's not even a general purpose PC (wake me when I can code and compile iOS app on an iOS device without jailbreaking). An iPad is likely in the top-tier of most expensive tablets - you can get a Kindle Fire for about $150 these days - about 2-3x cheaper than the basic iPad.
Sure you could keep confusing the tablet market with the PC market, why not throw the smartphone market in there as well? That's just about as valid.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Fuck the M$ shills and fanboys (really?) with mod points.
with Windows 10. The upgrade hasn't gone smoothly on any of our desktops and even worse on laptops. Our biggest customer is upgrading to 10, so have to use it for testing so we have no choice but to upgrade some of our systems. The MacBook we tried 10 on worked pretty well. It locked-up a couple of times in a week of use, but that's better than the non-Apple systems. The Apple drivers for Windows, while not perfect, seem better than the ones from most other companies. I would guess that after the next Boot Camp update, it will be even better. With Microsoft's policy of not providing drivers and leaving them to manufacturers, they've really put users between a rock and a hard place.
I find this hard to believe unless it is a small mom and pop shop with a son who loves modern thingies. Most IT managers and executives would fire anyone with poor judgement when the 1st service pack hasn't been released and it is not at least 6 months to a 1 year old with no testing.
http://saveie6.com/
NONSENSE. I CAN'T IMAGINE TYPING THIS RESPONSE WITHOUT CAPS LOCK KEY.
(slashdot filter error, please shut up, it's not yelling at all asdf fewfe adf g ghg a asdfewef)
Function is technically a meta key, but practice it triggers special OS- or even hardware-defined functions (like screen brightness controls) rather than behaving like a traditional meta key that does things like turn the S key into the Save key.
Also, a real keyboard user can always find a use for more meta keys. For example, on Windows, did you know that you can hold Shift with the arrow keys to select text as the cursor moves, Ctrl to move by words (or paragraphs, for vertical) at a time, and Ctrl+Shift together with the arrow keys to select by the word or paragraph? I use this *constantly* - I literally used it once without even realizing what I was doing while writing this very paragraph, when I decided to re-write a sentence - and it drives me nuts when I don't have it.
With that said, I'm with you on Caps Lock. I technically use it more often than Scroll Lock, but unlike Scroll Lock (which very few laptop keyboards have anymore) it's completely replaceable with just a little user effort. But yeah, as Sowelu said, the lack of accelerator keys on Mac keyboards is fucking terrible. You can have my PgUp/PgDn/Home/End keys (and real Insert and Delete for good measure) when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Oh, and most 15+" non-Apple widescreen laptops have a numpad. Apple doesn't, and never has, even on their 17" laptops... which is just stupid. Without the numpad you just have a bunch of wasted space on either side of the keyboard; they put in speaker grilles there but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to produce sound quality that many non-Apple laptops achieve with much smaller speaker grilles while also making numerical entry really easy.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Fn + Up/Down for Page Up/Down works fine on my end. Not sure what you did with your device.
I The one I'm stuck with at work doesn't even have pgup/pgdn
Page up/down is option-up and option-down. Home and end are command-left and command-right. But that's actually an EXCELLENT argument for why it's not a good choice if your main OS is going to be Windows 10, since I just tried them on Parallels and they didn't translate. Though I use an external keyboard usually when I'm in Parallels, since that means I'm working.
Fn+Up/Down
People buy apples because so many PC laptops and desktops suck. Take a walk to any Best Buy, Wal Mart, or even Microsoft Store and you will see stacks of cheap, plastic underpowered suckage. Apple has an incentive for their machines to run their OS well or they won't sell. PC manufacturers have the luxury of getting to sell junk to people who don't know any better. To Microsoft's credit, Windows 10 seems to work pretty well on underpowered PC's, but at the cost of substantial privacy issues.
There are some good PC laptops out there. I really like the new Dell XPS 13, for example. But pound for pound, it costs about the same as a comparable Mac, particularly if you go with an SSD, which is standard on all Macs (e.g., Dell XPS 13 with 256 GB SSD and 8GB RAM and Windows Home is $1599; a 13-inch Macbook Pro with similar specs comes in at $1499).
But as some other poster already said, the reputation of PC's generally stinks because the quality, and after-market support, is so spotty. A lot of people are posting that ThinkPads kick ass (and I can attest that they used to be awesome), but I've seen just as many people post ThinkPads have gone steadily downhill since Lenovo took over. Right now, the XPS 13 is the only laptop I have confidence recommending to people. And PC desktops? Roll you own, lest that retail box come with a two-year-old Celeron and a 90 Watt power supply.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
I thought, at first that this was about buying a MacBook for the hardware quality and then wipe/install Windows 10.
I was ready for a good Apple vs Microsoft slashwar.... ah well...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I use a Dell Latitude 7440 and absolutely love it. i7, 16GB RAM, 256 SSD, 14" 1080p, backlit keyboard, great battery life with Win 7. There's no way I would pay double for a Mac with similar specs.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Actually, by accelerators I mean things like dialogues where a letter on some radio button or field label underlined, and you press alt-[letter] to go straight to that option. (I think that's the name for them?) I haven't seen that anywhere in Mac, and cross-platform programs like SourceTree have them in Windows but not in Mac. Drives me up the wall, but it isn't truly keyboard related...just typical bad Mac design.
My work laptop (Dell E6440) has a very nice 1080p 14" screen with much better color than pretty much any other laptop I've seen. And it can drive 3 external 1080p displays when it is docked. I've got good eyes so I appreciate 1080p even when small for more room. It only has a dual core i5 but other processors are available. I even use this laptop to connect back to my faster Toshiba laptop that doesn't have as nice of a screen.
Out of curiosity, what systems don't have shift-to-select?
This isn't a bad idea really. OS X crashes on me all the time, whereas my Windows 7 box is rock solid. Having OS X hardware plus Windows might be the best of both worlds!
Myself, I consider it a disadvantage, I read: "Macbooks are much more expensive to buy second hand".
Tell that to console applications. I want to send PgDn to the program or server, not scroll the window.
http://forums.rocketshoppe.com/showthread.php?t=15283
I like Macs and a MacBook (Pro) has been my laptop of choice for years but the whole reason to pay the "Apple tax" is to get the whole package, including OSX (which is the main reason I use a Mac). If you're going to throw away the best part you might as well save your money and get something else. If I didn't care about OSX, I'd probably get a Lenovo or something where I can get something that's more powerful, has more ports, doesn't force me to buy adapters and for less money.
Maintenance costs are high too, because Apple tries to force you to pay them for replacement of consumable items like batteries.
I walk into an Apple store with a busted up laptop, it's back in my hands next day, usually free of charge* unless I've done something really stupid.
* Yeah, of course, you're paying a premium and snagging AppleCare. Shit's cheaper than buying a new laptop.
Sold my ASUS laptop that was 4 years old for 60% of what I paid. Hate to break it to apple people but you buy a good enough machine it or the parts will be worth something later, not just apple.
Had a Mac Air, but replaced with Dell XPS 13 developer edition with Linux (Ubuntu) using the Gnome Flashback Metacity, not the default Unity at login. Yes, Dell sells it with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS installed. Long battery life, light weight, avoid the Apple bugs and misfeatures.
I never said otherwise
I bought a three year old Dell Latitude with an i7 processor in it for $250 about a month ago. The idiots crowing that a 5 year old Macbook 'holds half it's value' are clearly looking at it as the seller, not the buyer.
The Latitude I bought is even one of the more popular Hackintosh models.
Funnily enough, they give those away here. I got 4 only a few months ago.
There are some good PC laptops out there. I really like the new Dell XPS 13, for example. But pound for pound, it costs about the same as a comparable Mac, particularly if you go with an SSD, which is standard on all Macs
The less expensive Macs (...which are still expensive...) still come with a paltry amount of SSD storage, though (128 GB? sheesh).
For example, the 13 inch MacBook "Pro" for $1299 (ouch!) only comes with 128 GB of SSD storage (double ouch!).
But I guess you can pay an extra $200 for an extra 128 GB of SSD storage (triple ouch!!!).
I have been buying Mac's before they were cool. I have seen residual values rise for Mac's. But as of the last few years I think that trend has reversed itself. My last MacBook Air traded at 4 years old was worth $300. Now I agree that is better then $100 for a PC notebook. But then again, I probably would have spent $900 on a PC notebook of same hardware vs $1300 for the MacBook Air. You people do the math? Is a Mac worth the investment? Only if you keep it beyond probably 5 years or so. I really do not see any real advantage of buying a Mac over a PC except for OS X. Windows does not run better on a Mac then on a PC. Battery life is bad, drivers are at the mercy of Apple to update and frankly who needs Windows to run on a $1300 computer anyway. I bought a $300 Dell and Windows 8 and now 10 runs better then my new MacBook Air. Yosemite is not the best and most efficient OS X that Apple has done. Unless Apple comes out with a $800 Mac notebook I am done with Mac's. You look at the hardware and its just not there for the money.
Compared to the Macbook air and even the smallest Macbook the Surface 3 Pro is faster, smaller, lighter, cheaper, more feature rich, has touchscreen, pen input, and all around better or comparable specs. Shit it even has a better build quality with a mag alloy housing.
I'm reporting Infoweek to the police. Given their assertion that Macs are not only better, but have "a better keyboard", I can only conclude that their office allows liberal consumption of narcotics in the workplace.
Perl Programmer for hire
I can't speak for other people, but I buy Macs because I can't stand using Windows, and MacOS/X is the best-supported and easiest-to-use Unix-like OS that's currently available. The extra cost isn't a problem, since I only buy a computer once every 5 years or so anyway.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Apple also provides excellent support even as a MacBook begins to age. Another reason that Windows on a Mac is a good option when necessary. OS X though is far superior to any version of Windows.
Also MacBooks have a higher resell value, retaining up to 50% of their price after five years.
I've never owned an Apple product that still worked after five years...
Tell that to console applications. I want to send PgDn to the program or server, not scroll the window.
That's an issue with the terminal emulator, not the keyboard. You'd have the same problem if you did have PgUp and PgDn buttons. Your issue is how the key is interpreted, not how to type it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Going strong after 7 years of use with the help of a SSD drive.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
C'mon dice... seriously.
On Mac: you can hold Shift with the arrow keys to select text as the cursor moves, Option to move by words (or paragraphs, for vertical) at a time, and Option+Shift together with the arrow keys to select by the word or paragraph.
PgUp: Fn-Up Arrow
PgDn: Fn-Down Arrow
Home: Ctrl-A
End: Ctrl-E
Not sure what you mean by "real Insert and Delete". If you mean "backspace and delete", Fn again does the trick.
If Apple were "fighting" Microsoft, why would Apple build and maintain BootCamp for mac laptops?
If Apple were fighting Microsoft, why would there be any Microsoft software on the iPad or iPhone? As it is, there is quite a lot.
Instead all indications are that Apple's plan is simply to pretend that Microsoft is irrelevant, a powerful strategy that seems to be working just fine.
The summary also forgot to mention that few Window laptops ship with trackpads of the same quality as Apple offers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Very true. This is a terminal emulator issue. Plus, as it stands, the Terminal.app has preferences that let you define exactly how all the function keys get interpreted.
In my Terminal the configured behaviour of PgDn is to send the key sequence \033[6~ which for all the terminal apps I'm using gets interpreted correctly as a PgDn (e.g. 'less' will scroll down a page). The config for Shift+PgDn is "Scroll Page Down", which will scroll the window. There's a chance that sometime over the past decade I changed those settings, but I suspect they're the defaults.
The giant "no button" trackpad on a macbook is a great feature. I don't understand why companies like dell continue to produce high end machines with small trackpads and big buttons. My E6430 has two sets of buttons and two pointers instead of one really big pad :-(
Windows 10 upgrades in general have been problematic for me.
E7240 MBR SSD in the second bay requires that the MSATA SSD be moved to another machine to do the upgrade and won't run windows update after the upgrade.
E6420 single partition MBR Windows 7 is erased and converted to RAW by the upgrade process.
I, thankfully, am in the 'Windows 10? Why there are years left on our Win7 support!' boat at work; but the one major inducement, if you happen to be stuck with any, is some of the hardware that shipped with Win8 or 8.1: Some perfectly normal, also-supports-win7-at-least-if-purchased-as-a-business-customer, hardware was crippled with Win8; but there were also a lot of tablet and tablet-ish things that came out of Intel's "Let's sell Bay Trail Atoms for negative amounts of money because ARM is starting to scare us" campaign.
Win10 is very arguably a substantial improvement over Win8; and that class of devices is never going to get Win7 support. Those were the systems where storage was often eMMC rather than PATA/SATA, a nontrivial number of peripherals were not on the PCI root at all, and various other oddities that freak Win7 out. If you have those; Win10 is starting to look a lot more attractive than Win8/8.1
If you have more normal PC-compatible gear, the prospect is less exciting.
A lot of people is Doing IT For Free.
Mac laptop keyboards are fatally flawed for Windows users.
Also, don't expect to get the quoted 9-10hrs of battery life if using Windows.
The trackpad is kind of flaky in bootcamp. In addition some of the other features don't work as well like the ambient light sensor integration. In OS X you don't even notice the screen dimming and brightening, it's practically perfect. On the windows side it can't make up it's mind and is pretty annoying. Top top that off the battery doesn't last nearly as long.
This is not a knock against windows 10, OS X or Mac. All are fantastic. I just found from my experience windows in boot camp is less than ideal.
No fscking way unless apple gets some decent hardware and decent dGPUs into their notebook at REASONABLE prices.
I really do NOT see ANY of these coming to pass, so I think that I'll stick with something clevo based personally. e.g. Sager, Mythlogic, etc.
ebay prices: try SGI, SUN, etc. workstations. Old mac prices aren't much better than old PC prices when compared to those. OTOH those old workstations aren't made any longer but are still used in ALOT of applications whereas old macs probably just go to collectors or fantards.
I *think* he might mean over-type mode where the character you type replaces the character to the right of the cursor? It's not something I ever used *on purpose* on a PC (dating all the way back to DOS 4.0), so I can't say I've ever missed it on my Macs.
Apple's laptops are sturdy, well-designed, and retain value well - all things that are good for the home consumer. If (when) I had (have) a chance to see Windows 10 running well on a MacBook Pro, I'd be happy to recommend it to any Windows user I know.
For the enterprise, it's still a non-starter for the overwhelming majority of users. The most important part of an enterprise laptop is the warranty, because even the most well-designed, hand-carved, white-gloved alloy case in the world holds parts that *will* break, and in the case of heavy road-warrior use, will break often. Fact: No amount of Apple stores in the world will get travelling executives to bring their laptops in for service themselves. Unless Apple gets serious about having global teams able to come on-site in 4 or 8 business hours, their laptops will only be a luxury in the enterprise afforded by those who can get away with flouting the rules (and then later complain when the service is not what they expected).
Arguably, given Apple's history with the enterprise, they are comfortable with this.
The modifier keys for navigation work similarly, at least under under OS X. Alt-(arrow) jumps the cursor forward or backward one word, or to the beginning or end of the line. Shift-(arrow) selects text as you describe, Shift and (e.g.)-Alt-(arrow) also allows block selection in a manner pretty much as you describe.
Numeric keypads are purely a matter of taste. I'm left-handed,and given that those are usually integrated on the right-hand side of the keyboard, I *never* use it, and actually resent the desk space it pointlessly takes up on my work-issued desktop Linux box. The idea of having one stuck on a machine designed to be carried around with me is utterly absurd to me., & I prefer that the keys I use all the time are directly under the screen I'm looking at, rather than stuck off to one side. But hey, each to their own.
(Captcha: polemic)
Honestly the markets are starting to even out many of the major brands are starting to even out in quality as the price for better computers continues to decrease.
So really, what is this article about: um.. I guess you can go and buy a mac.. Really, what's the point of this? Why is it here?
You've long paid similar prices for PC's compared to similar Apple products. That Apple doesn't compete in the 6 pound, $300 POS special laptop category means they don't compete in that market segment, not that their products "cost 1.5x more". To pick one example, Apple's 5k iMac costs just a little more than Dell's 27" 5k monitor, but the Mac has a computer attached to it.
Apple doesn't make cheap unreliable shit, and they routinely are at the top of product reliability surveys. Now, for the hatebois who are halfway into their "don't hold it wrong" comments:
1) Better doesn't mean flawless. Apple have had to extend warranties on some of their products over the years because they were shipped with crappy parts...same as Toyota and Honda.
2) Remember the Hatorade Distortion Effect. Google Maps has had some doozies of directions, but errors in GPS software weren't an international incident until the release of Apple Maps. People have gotten the Galaxy S6 screen to shatter at pressures where the iPhone 6 merely bends, yet ShatterGazi was never a thing. And of course remember not to hold your Galaxy S5 wrong. Or the S4. Or the HTC Evo. Or the Lumia 900.....
Purely personal preference.
And regular PC laptops don't?
As opposed to regular PC laptops?
More like Microsoft's design choice to prioritize speed over power savings, while Apple has done the reverse.
No kidding, because it's a Toughbook, and you pay for what you get, and get what you pay for. The only thing that really compares to a Toughbook for commercial products is....another Toughbook.
Yes, all that money spent on annual subscriptions to anti-virus software really ads up over the years.
If you want a laptop with a swappable battery, buy a latptop with a swappable batter. Zombie Jobs isn't holding a gun to your head to force you to buy one with batteries soldered to the board to save space.
And if it doesn't, you have to jump through hoops to enable it. Apple has supported home folder encryption on any disk for 12 years, and whole disk encryption for five. True, with TPM Bitlocker can be 10-15% or so faster than FileVault - so it's a good thing that Apple uses PCI-E flash storage, which is faster than SATA.
Your logical fallacy is straw man.
If you have to ask: no.