Choosing Laptop - Mac vs. Everything

LJics89 on 09/04/2025 - 11:42
Last edited 09/04/2025 - 11:42

I was converted to Macs a bit more than 10 years ago. Thats first laptop long outlived expectation, the one I upgraded to in 2020 is all but bit the dust.

I need a new laptop for study and work running multiple programs at any given time such as slack and web browsers.
New macs are thousands of dollars and I find myself asking am I just paying for the brand?

So my question is do I stay in the Mac land or do I branch out to others that run windows software?
I've lightly combed through other threads and I find the language confusing tbh. Technology moves so fast it's hard to keep up sometimes.

Computing Computer Laptop

Comments

  • tenpercent on 09/04/2025 - 11:49
    +6

    You ask about:

    Choosing Laptop- Mac vs. Everything

    But then you limit yourself to:

    do I stay in the Mac land or do I branch out to others that run windows software?

    Everything includes Windows, but it also includes Linux. So many flavours of Linux. And most of them aren't trying to commoditise or spy on you.

    • mskeggs on 09/04/2025 - 12:34
      +5

      And will happily run for the next decade on a $300 refurb.

    • Jics89 on 09/04/2025 - 12:40

      Now I feel like a boomer that I didn't even know this existed.

    • jetblack on 10/04/2025 - 10:22
      +1

      Linux is fine, but IMO I wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't already at least tech savvy enough to be aware of and considering it, unless you are fine to be their personal tech support.

  • bargaino on 09/04/2025 - 11:53
    +3

    It sounds like the Mac does everything you need.
    A new macbook air M4 is good value if you stick with the base model. Is $1550 student price too much? (get or borrow a .ed.au email)
    You will not save anything buying an equivalent windows PC (e.g. Surface) . The savings are in higher or lower spec machines, or ex-lease. The "refurb" Apple market exists too if you want to save money, though not as good.

    https://www.apple.com/au-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air

  • Duckie2hh on 09/04/2025 - 11:57
    -1

    converted to Macs

    But can it run Monster Hunter?

  • samyall on 09/04/2025 - 12:03
    +1

    @bargaino is right. Similarly spec'd windows machines will cost at least as much and either a M4 MBA or a refurb is the way to go.

    This refurb would be sufficient for you for the next 5+ years and is only $1200.

    Note that Apple refurbs are basically like buying a brand new laptop.

    • bargaino on 09/04/2025 - 12:21
      +1

      That looks good. Just be careful, as some of the refurbs only have 8GB of non-upgradable RAM.

      • BewareOfThe Dog on 10/04/2025 - 09:20
        +1

        I bought a refurb last year. 24gb ram, plus 1 tb ssd.
        I have only just started runnung rdr2 on it, using crosswire.

  • [Deactivated] on 09/04/2025 - 12:15
    +4

    I would definitely stay in Apple land right now, for once Apple is in a really good price/performance area. If you want something similar in terms of display quality, hardware and battery life you're usually paying more for a Windows laptop (stuff like the Surface that uses a Snapdragon X Elite).

    That your laptop from 2020 has almost bitten the dust is surprising though, is there something actually wrong with it or just it's not fast enough? My partner is finding her M1 mini isn't quite enough for graphic design work, but beyond that it's still a great machine.

    • Jics89 on 09/04/2025 - 12:39

      I was so annoyed when I took it to the shop and they told me it was right on time for an upgrade.
      It will only run connected to charge, anything below 80% battery will just switch off. If it gets too hot running too many programs plugged in it will switch off and multiple times in a day the screen flashes almost like a screenshot but nothing happening in the back. When I took it in they said I send it off and replace the battery but it would be a few hundred dollars and it might not be the issue so if thats the case the cost is getting close to just buying a new one anyway

      • [Deactivated] on 09/04/2025 - 12:59
        +4

        Do you have an Intel based one? Because an M1 overheating seems nuts, even under load it supposedly peaks at about 40W.

        If it's an intel one, then sadly I'm not surprised Apple aren't supporting it much. Apple support might be good for the mobile phone world, but for computers they're not great.

        If it's an M1 one though, did you take it to Apple? It's about $280 for a battery replacement. However it sounds like yours might have more problems than just the battery.

      • AustriaBargain on 09/04/2025 - 14:16

        Are you sure it's an M1 you have?

      • rumblytangara on 09/04/2025 - 16:43

        When I took it in they said I send it off and replace the battery but it would be a few hundred dollars and it might not be the issue so if thats the case the cost is getting close to just buying a new one anyway

        How is a few hundred dollars close to buying a new one?

        Bring it to a third party repair place, have then quote for replacing the battery (but a couple hundred sounds about right to me).

        If it's getting too hot, you probably just need to use a can of compressed air to blow dust out of the vents, or ask the repair place to do that when they are replacing the battery.

  • LanceVance on 09/04/2025 - 12:28
    +5

    Apple silicon has changed the game. I'm using an M1 Air for my work and its phenomenal. Work offered me an M3 but I refused because the difference is minimal and I prefer the M1 design anyway.
    Just get one of those, it'll be more than you need for a long time.

  • AustriaBargain on 09/04/2025 - 14:15

    I'd stick with Mac. Windows is best at gaming and that's all it's best at.

  • Pelicannn on 09/04/2025 - 14:31
    +5

    Just buy MacBook Air. Base models on sale they aren’t much more than $1250-1500 after using discount giftcards or bonuses. They will likely last significantly longer than a windows machine at a similar price point. Thats my personal experience anyway.

  • Clockwerk on 09/04/2025 - 18:22
    +5

    As someone who owns a Macbook, Linux laptop, and had work microsoft and lenovo laptops in the past, just get a Mac. The hardware, including the battery life is just better. Also if you code you won't have to jump through hoops to install something. Just get a refurbished one/wait for sales on an air.

  • Ade99 on 10/04/2025 - 08:23
    +1

    Seems to be a Marmite question with a love / hate response depending on which side you land……

  • shihabkhan1 on 10/04/2025 - 08:49
    +1

    I am a Linux and FOSS ecosystem guy and I don't prefer Mac nor Windows.

    But if you're in the corporate relying heavily on MS Office, Teams etc, you could stick to Mac. The new ARM chips are great; do buy Apple care for 3 years. Plus, being a Unix based OS, you can leverage a lot of the advantages that come with it over windows. Even windows guys are doing development on WSL.

    Windows is always way more crappier than Mac; especially with their Copilot PCs.

    The other competitor for Apple's ARM chips is Qualcomm Snapdragon X but its no where near in terms of compatibility and support. Even Linux community has a hard time running things on it.

    If you're forced to buy a Laptop right now, this is probably not the time to switch to windows. If you can wait; do wait for a year or something because the hardware ecosystem here is changing very rapidly.

  • The Hawk on 10/04/2025 - 10:43
    +1

    I did a decade or so with Macs as my primary machines but ultimately went back for two reasons. It's worth noting that I support both and am happy enough on either side, both have their pros and cons.

    Price.
    The Mac I wanted was a shade over $4k for the 16" MacBook Pro and I couldn't justify that for a productivity laptop.
    Today the MacBook Air 15" is a real option at $2,400 for a 16GB/512GB M4 model which would be more than adequate for me (and most people). Mind you, more storage gets real expensive really quick.

    So price pushed me back to Windows which led to the second bit, which ultimately wasn't cheap, but I can justify the expense since I get…

    Gaming. With Windows gaming is a thing that I wanted again so I built a gaming desktop as my daily driver.

    Even so, I still need/want a laptop for travel and some tasks where being portable is a real benefit. A laptop for me doesn't need huge power so I'd been bumbling along with one of the kids ex school laptops until one of the other kids killed their school laptop with water and needed something right now. Given their track record they are keeping the older unit and I got a new one for me.

    I picked up a Lenovo Yoga 7, 16GBRAM, 1TB Storage, 14" OLED Touch screen with the AMD 8840HS (which will actually manage some gaming!). All for under $1,400.
    I did consider the MacBook Air to dabble again, but at nearly twice the price I couldn't quite make that math make sense.

    Will it last as long as the MacBook Air/Pro would? In my history Macs seem to have had a longer life, but modern PC laptops are pretty good now. That and I could buy another Lenovo half way through the Macs lifecycle, get new shiny better stuff and still only have spent the same sort of money.

  • Hulk2 on 10/04/2025 - 11:37

    Mac.. hands down, less overhead and troubling softwares.. honestly Macbook air with M1 and M2 chips are good value, there is not much difference in performance as per the performance benchmark.. from M3 onwards there is a change design which makes it wee bit faster..

  • xylarr on 12/04/2025 - 10:23

    I much prefer windows and how it operates, how it does window management, multi monitor management, multi desktop management.

    Though granted, it's what I'm used to. Every time I work on a Mac I don't like how menus are at the top of the screen, how you can't really maximise. Windows 11 also has native snapping so you can quickly and easily tile things, especially when you have multiple large monitors.

    Anyway, if you've been using Macs for ages, I would say just stick to them.

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