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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.
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:...
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.
One reason is that they've poured a lot of effort into materials design, visual design, and industrial design, and have been doing so for years. We laugh at the Toilet Seat, the Cube, and various other goofy flops they've had in their history, but it demonstrates a) just how far back their design efforts go, and b) just how much they've learned since. A lot of other companies are getting into this now, but Apple has a pretty big head start, and they're not showing any signs of abandoning this practice any time soon.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
PC laptops are nearly always labeled with easy-to-identify model numbers that you can search for on Google or eBay. Apple makes it very difficult for the average buyer to identify which year a Macbook was built, so the neophyte buyer just sees "Macbook" and assumes it's reasonably current. My cousin almost got suckered by this into buying a Core 2 Duo Macbook during the Sandy Bridge days (just before Ivy Bridge's release). His school store was selling it at a "massive" $200 discount. An appropriate discount would've been $400-$500.
To figure out exactly what model Macbook you're getting, you need the serial number.
Three major reasons:
1) Apple don't make an inexpensive model. They start at around $1000 and go up. People who can't afford a mac but want mac will buy a used mac.
You can buy a new PC for $300.
2) Apple only has few SKUs. This makes it pretty easy to know what you are buying. It's overwhemling buying a new PC ... but a used one ... much harder to find out whether that Sony SGH-5512-T(C)-A2 is any good or not, or what it even has. Buying a macbook on craigslist... "early 2012 macbook pro, 2.4GHz 4GB RAM" ... there's pretty much all you need to know.
3)
And the low SKU count means there is a fairly healthy cottage industry and DIY info for repairs.
Buy a 5 year old HP or Toshiba or Lenovo or Dell, there's not an ifixit guide with links to instructions and parts for it.
This amounts to informal long term support not available from other vendors and props up the value.
4) Viruses and malware and the relative complexity of reinstalling Windows software if it doesn't come with a restore CD or the recovery partition is blown. This is less of a problem on Mac's, and if you can get a current OSX image you can install it. No licensing greif or keys or drivers.
5) Free OS upgrades. Nobody wants a Vista laptop.
I agree with you that there is some really good PC hardware out there now. Dell XPS ultrabooks are nice. Asus has some nice stuff too. the HP Envy series you mentioned is nice kit too.
The best win7 boxes were Macs, I'm disappointed they stopped supporting Win7 via bootcamp, but I can't imagine the other players in the field will beat them for Win10. The PC industry is mostly now focusing on large buying corporate customers who want cheap, and don't care if things break, don't quite work right, or annoy users (read employees) who are being paid to put up with it.
The gauntlet is there for someone to make a quality laptop and desktop that is not Apple, and provide full system test & support. But so far it's a bunch of boutique companies that integrate parts I could do on my own and have no value add, or it's roll my own. Apple continues to show that people will pay a premium for a finished solution.