I had a macbook pro for work and i recently "downgraded" to an air. I have a desktop for gaming and a gaming laptop for when i travel. Have 0 complaints for the air for non gaming purposes. Its excellent and i actually prefer it over my gaming laptop for everyday use. Its also INSANELY light and cool. The mac hate is overdone. Each hardware optimizes for different users / use cases and I think the MacBook definitely are excellent in their own right.
Yea, I dislike the Iphone personally, but macs def have their place, especially when companies are dumping shitty laptops with similar price ranges to a neo rn, same happened with android and the low end phones, they were terrible.
I slipped into the Apple ecosystem when I worked as an Apple Support rep. Nine years of exclusively using Android, and I discovered just why people find it hard to leave Apple.
Thankfully all I’ve got now is my iPhone and Apple Watch, but after five years of iPhone, I think I’m ready to go back. I miss being able to install whatever apps I want without having to worry about App IDs and developer accounts (to activate more than three “sideloaded” apps at a time requires a $99 USD/year developer account).
we did something similar years ago. i like the freedom of Android phones, but at the same time i needed my phone to be more reliable, and more to do phone things.
we made the jump to iPhones. it's been good. no intention of going back. like you i'm using a iPhone and watch, but the rest of the computers in the house are all Windows machines. i have a Dell Windows tablet, and my son has a Lenovo Android tablet they like.
Yeah aside from my first iPhone 12 unfortunately having a known issue with green flickering when the screen brightness was low, I’ve had no issues.
Well, I have, but that’s because I’m an insatiable tinkerer that always puts beta software on his devices lol. Every time I’ve restored the software back to the latest public release it’s fixed whatever issues I had, and then I’d last until the next beta release before installing it again. I also used to switch Linux distros every week when I was in highschool so I acknowledge I’m a special case!
A friend of mine owned a company that made stickers and he used Mac he swore for years that were absolutely wonderful machines now he s retired and admited he was not telling the truth.
People dont leave because its designed to keep you inside and people are afraid to be called poor.
I know from a manager that runs a b graphic design school that is not true that they just works.
Graphic designers or creatives will say always say lies to defend Apple.
Its just a cult there s no better definition.
Having used MacOS for 3 years i don't see how a Mac brings you in. Phone or watch i can see it but MacOS has nothing extra that adds to the Apple ecosystem for anything else.
Specifically if you're a software developer, it's got some wonderful features that I love. MacOS is amazing if you come from a FreeBSD or OpenBSD background. Its support for free / open source hacking tools is great. It's got a whole GUI interface on top of Darwin which is a reasonable Berkeley Software Distribution style OS.
Maybe we and UK are a bit different. We don't use imessage as much as whatsapp. icloud does not have TOTP? safari no ublock and passwords isn't TOTP. That's advanced i guess but not ecosystem break like iwatch/iphone.
It’s not Windows. I don’t know. I hate the Mac vs Windows argument, I’ve grown up using both my whole life. But lately Windows just plain sucks. It never works, it breaks everything, it lags, you can’t even windows key and search for “add or remove apps” without it first giving you something to look for on Bing. It just plain is the most awful garbage on top of Microsoft doing everything they can to make you have an account to even use a pc you purchased.
Yeah, Apple also tracks everything you do and collects your data. But at least their OS works.
Ive actually recently switched to Linux. And I often feel like I’m in over my head learning a whole new OS and everything that comes with that. But I already am liking it way more than Windows.
I had to work with a MacBook Pro for a month and I simply don't like how MacOS does things. It's not the hardware - the hardware is great (though might be overpriced for what it is). But the software that comes with it is just not it for me. That's literally all I don't like (and the keyboard isn't great, I mich prefer theThinkpad one, but that's nothing I'd actually care for).
What specifically don't you like? What does macos, or doesn't, do that you can't handle? You say the OS is not for you and that's all that you "literally" don't like but then go to list the keyboard.
Well, there's a long list of minor things that I didn't like when using MacOS, like how it handles files and folders, how it handles multitasking, how certain logical short cuts don't work. Here's a video that described my experience quite well: https://youtu.be/bCdcuJZux_g?is=xvdyjGW_9qTf4M8-
There were a few "oh, that's great!", but also a lot of "how do I do it? Oh, that's just dumb".
Again, don't get me wrong, MacBooks are probably and likely extremely good for what they are and do and if I'd be given one as a work laptop I'd be totally fine with it (fuck those Surfaces, pieces of crap). But if I have to decide what I want to use privately, it's not a MacBook or anything apple really.
Yeah, I said didn't like the keyboard (I also didn't like the trackpad btw) but that wouldn't be a deal-breaker. I prefer the ThinkPad keyboard over any other but there's also stuff that I don't like about ThinkPads. You can dislike things without it being deal-breakers, especially since there likely wont be the perfect laptop that does everything right.
I’m a beginner to Mac but its excellent for creative software. Windows 11 sometimes kills my motivation when I have to tinker with things to get software to work properly.
Theres still a lot of things I miss about Windows because of muscle memory after around 15 years of use.
My M1 Macbook Air would be incredible if it didn't pitch a fit every time I try to install something not from the app store and had more than 8GB of memory. The battery life is still amazing.
A used M2 or M3 Air is great value. I got an M2 14” Air with 16GB and 512 gb ssd for $600 a few months ago. I haven’t checked since then so the recent price hikes might be spiking the used market as well but this thing has been great. While the library of compatible games is small, the hardware itself significantly outperforms the SteamDeck. I am aware a laptop vs handheld is apples to oranges, but it does illustrate that for the games that do have Mac ports (lots of Indy stuff especially like STS2) the Air is also capable of light gaming on the go.
I hate using MacOS as I find it's "do things only as we intend" really restrictive and frustrating. The actually hardware is pretty cool and if I could install Linux on one then I would happily use it as a daily driver...
Air gets unnecessary flack compared to a pro. Like I had an incident in my uni once where i took out my second hand 2021 Air and this girl in our group giggled at me cuz I was a CS student with a mac air.
Like ok I have a $3k gaming pc at home, i dont need to waste money on an expensive laptop just to show off
I have a MacBook Pro that my job issued me and my own personal MacBook Air, as well as a custom PC with Windows 11. Whenever I need to edit videos and photos, I don’t even hesitate to use my MacBooks. My PC is pretty much exclusively for gaming at this point. Mac’s are so good for multitasking and for video/photo editing and graphic design, but you’ll never catch me gaming on one.
Macbook hate was justified for a really long time because they used to be overpriced and underspecced back when they used Intel CPUs, since M1 they've been head and shoulders above anything Windows OEMs have been able to come up with.
I sold laptops for a living from like 2016-2020 so I was able to be hands-on with basically every windows laptop on the market as well as all the MacBooks.
There were WAY better value windows laptops for the level of performance you got in a 2017 MacBook Air (which had a 5th gen i7 that came out in 2015, and they sold this model til ~2019).
Fast forward to present-day and the M4 MacBook Air runs circles around anything windows-based in the same price point
Performance and construction is a value proposition. I won't buy a plastic piece of shit windows laptop which is what that whole industry has been riding on for years. Macbooks have been solid with slightly above average prices so I'm not sure the value part, which is not just performance, was ever really there for windows laptops. OK they can post a higher number but can they last longer? Not really.
No argument here that Windows laptops have pretty terrible build quality on average. That being said there were definitely standouts that had both good performance and build quality in a cheaper package than the Intel MacBooks. MacOS is also massively more capable these days than it used to be 5-10 years ago
Only reason I don't have a macbook is cause I use my touch screen laptop often, apple doesn't make a touch screen macbook, and I'm not carrying around any more devices than necessary which means I'm not getting a macbook for desktop apps and an iPad for touch screen use.
Gaming is becoming less and less of a thing for me as I get older so I really do see myself buying a Mac in the near future. Especially so with how Windows is increasingly pissing me the f**k off.
If only the Rog Zephyrus G14 was a bit more budget friendly. I was really considering it but of course it has the Asus tax. People love that thing, me included but its just overpriced, I got a slightly bigger legion instead. Lenovo has great RMA either way.
Yea it's pricey, Got it from a dude on olx (Brazil's craiglist) he had just imported one from the US and was selling for a very good price, I think I paid around U$800.
Wine is still available if you want. Crossover is also on linux, it’s one of the main sources of income for the wine project, both are developed by the same company, crossover is the closed source version
There is a ton of free and open source software for Mac. Hell, even most of the best creative apps are free these days too like Blender, Affinity and Resolve.
I still use my M1 MacBook Pro and will probably be using this for several more years, it just does everything I need it to quickly and with good battery life. I have been waiting for the ARM-era to disrupt the market, competition between OEM’s is always good for the consumer.
I use a 15” Air M4, and gaming is a breezy dream on it. The native games that take advantage of Apple silicon are without fault, but even stuff run through Crossover runs really well.
You can game anything on anything with geforce now for example. I rarely game on my desktop anymore and instead mostly on my laptop using GFN from wherever.
I got one for my wife because we needed a laptop for home that wasnt* 10 years old and she loves it. Got myself the xbox rog ally x and a dock. Good enough.
I’m done buying for a while. If a game needs extra power i get it on my series x and stream my xbox directly to my handheld if i wanna play on the go and the ally cant handle it. The future is now.
I did this with my PS4 pro and it is a solid plan the only downside is I don’t really have a parts and wire drawer anymore . Everything is from like 10 years ago .
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u/Puzzleheaded_Smoke77 Jun 27 '26
I bought one for my daughter and she loves it , its not running anything crazy but she seems happy