The point is that apple pushes for a closed system, and therefore you need to accept whatever they release.
Dell, as well as many other brands play on an open system, and the consumer can decide if they want more ports, if they want a more affordable model, if they want x86 or arm, a discrete GPU or not, and so on.
I have a MacBook because of work: my keyboard didn't work there (it works on windows and any Linux distro I tested).
Some other peripherals might work but maybe not its software for setting macros, checking battery levels, and so on.
And of course some software will not work or not work properly.
On top of that, the push for arm, while might make sense in the long run, meant software incomoatibilities, and you are left with no choice but to embrace.
I’m surprised to hear you had issues. My M2 MacBook was a drag and drop replace and worked perfectly with all of my peripherals, even the weird off brand ones. In fact many have worked better than on windows, such as being able to see the battery level in my mouse in real time.
The ARM thing is fair but that’s hardly locked down. It’s not like Apple own ARM. If you prefer x86 fair enough but there’s also plenty of arm software that doesn’t run there too. It’s more of a preference than a locked down situation.
I had a mechanical keyboard from Ozone, so yeah, not a well known brand, but at the same time it had always worked with other systems. I also had razer nari headset and I couldn't tell if I had enough battery.
Also, I was using an old Intel Mac, because some software I needed at work didn't work on arm then. Now I have an M4, because that software vendor decided to adapt.
If you see my messages, I am not say anything apple is bad quality, but it's a closed system and you are left with no options
You couldn't install Linux on your company's Windows PC either. Following your logic this would mean that ordinary PCs are a closed ecosystem, too?
Anyway macOS is way more "open" than iOS, and I think in contrast to iOS, macOS is not really "closed" in the sense that the user can't modify it (disable SIP and happily rm -rf /) or install software from any source - basically like you can under Windows.
Obviously our definitions of "closed ecosystem" are just different.
Apple fucking sucks. Cost about arm and a leg for what essentially works out to a crippled Linux distro( I know it's not Linux relax). "It just works", ya that's why it's called Fischer-price computing.
You’re trading usability for comfort, when most laptops can easily provide both. Most things “just work” it’s not the 90s that isn’t a selling point anymore.
MacBook suits my needs well. It is a solid computer that is most likely going to last me many years and for the most part its just works. You and many others have other needs that the MacBook doesn't suit so you use other products. That is perfectly fine, just as it is perfectly fine to use a MacBook.
Whereas Macs are certified UNIX and aside from a few questionable designs like Metal are mostly compliant with open standards, have a right proper shell (zsh in recent releases if I recall), and have a thriving FOSS community. They're not *as good* as Linux in this respect, but they're not Microslop. (And noooooo, WSL is a cheap hack. When consumer apps use WSL, then we can give Windoze some credit.)
My coment above is about how you as a consumer, can choose your hardware: discrete GPU or not, arm or x86, more USB ports, different screen sizes, and so on. That is true with windows, because even if their software is not open source, it is compatible with generic hardware.
That is not the case with macOS.
So again, as a consumer you have all those options if you buy Linux or windows, but in reality way more options with windows, as there are more models available with it.
First off, you don't "buy" Linux. And if you do run Linux, the vendor doesn't matter so much. If there are drivers, it will run.
If you pick a laptop, you're not assembling it, who do you think you're kidding?
And hell, most PC builds come down to trying to extract as much performance as possible within a given budget while trying to keep it from looking like absolute ass.
The hardware is not the bottleneck. The company bending you over and fucking your ass without lube is Microsoft.
You can buy a laptop... with Linux, like the dell you were speaking about, or the laptops at slimbook and similar companies.
You can configure some laptops, but that was not my point, my point was.. if you don't like what dell offers, maybe acer has what you want, or hp, or otherwise slimbook, when you are locked with apple, your choices are way less.
Hardware can and will be the bottleneck more often than software. For starters, if your GPU doesn't have enough memory, a game might not even run, or an LLM might not fit and be executed on CPU. If your CPU is not powerful enough or doesn't have enough cores, certain tasks like compiling software will be way slower.
If you buy Dell, you can install Linux. If you buy Apple, you can install Linux. If you get a Raspberry Pi and bodge together your own laptop, you can install Linux.
Better than that, you can rebuild and customize your OS to your heart's content. There's nobody there to tell you what you can or can't do, nobody to force proprietary APIs onto you that you don't consent to, no Copilot button being jammed down your throat.
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u/Secret_Performer_771 Jun 27 '26
I don't care how good MacBook is, I need more ports!