What brands do you avoid at all cost? I don’t keep up with the news all that much, and many of the reasons to avoid something don’t make it there anyway. So I’m asking here to make a big list of things to avoid. It could be anything from bad security practices to really frustrating packaging. Working as a cashier myself, I definitely know there are plenty of brands I avoid purely on the basis that their product is a pain to stock.
On the flip side, what’s the alternative? If you avoid Pepsi, for example, what do you turn to instead?
Apple.
I refuse to pay a premium for locked-down proprietary hardware solely because it looks more visually pleasing than an alternative that performs better.
Tell that to my 2014 MacBook Pro that is still going strong. I can do CAD and video editing and the thing still performs fine. Battery life decreased a bit but still lasts way more than enough.
and the new Apple chip ones are also ridiculous. I have one for work, and was able to leave my computer closed in my backpack for several hour running code training an ML model. The thing did not even get warm and the battery went down by 2% only.
That being said, I think the best computer is the one that works for YOU. In my previous job I was forced to use windows and boy did I suffer! Even Office felt clunkier on windows than Mac.
I can understand people find Apple stuff outrageously expensive and locked down, but come on have some justice on its performance.
I have a dual boot Win/Linux PC with Ryzen 5800x, and an MBP M2 Pro laptop. MBP blows my PC out of the water for my job, which requires hundreds of layers of audio running bazillions of DSPs in real time. Even renders take 30% less time on M2 on my case. And that’s happening on battery.
I never get that much optimized power on my PC. I have to disagree there’s anything out there that performs better for a user just want to have the job done in a reasonable time.
I really hope the snapdragon x laptops gain some traction. I recently went laptop shopping and what I wanted (good to great display, stays cold, good battery life) line up really well with a MacBook/MB air. I just couldn’t stomach the stupid mark-ups for memory and storage. I wound up with a Lenovo 7x slim. Upgrading to 32 GB memory and 1 TB storage was around $115. The non-emulated performance on windows is solid. Emulated is generally ok for my usage. I’m probably going to try Linux on it when I have a light week, but I’m somewhat wary of the impact that will have on battery life.
From what I’ve heard the Snapdragon chips aren’t that impressive though?
That was absolutely the case until very recently. Qualcomm bought Nuvia, a start-up that was stacked with former Apple engineers, a few years ago. These processors are just now coming to market. Laptops with these processors are benchmarking around MacBook levels (slightly behind single core, slightly ahead in multi core).
Ah okay, thanks for the insight!
There’s more to it than looks…
Then pay a premium for the privacy, which Apple actually tries to give you (unlike Google)