Interesting. I don't really like Apple, mainly because of how they handle the app store vendor lock in stuff, and I hate macOS. But I use an M2 MBP purely because I can't find any other laptop that has the same fast performance, long battery life, quiet fan noise, no heat.
Can you recommend an AMD/Intel or anything that comes close? I'd switch in a heartbeat. The closest that comes to mind is the ThinkPad X13s.
I just bought a Thinkpad T14S Gen3 after evaluating a bunch of notebooks.
Compared to my Macbook Air the Mac excels in a couple of areas which Thinkpad is lacking in. Like ambient light sensor, port quality (ie. how recessed the USB-C port is and how much strain it can take), audio output quality (Macs have powered headphone jacks for high impedance headphones) and of course speaker quality which on Macs is second to none.
The Thinkpad by comparison has poor quality speakers, no ambient light sensor so it doesn't auto adjust the screen or keyboard backlight. Its USB-C ports are also not very strong so the any strain on them or wiggle will cause them to disconnect - they certainly feel very fragile.
I hear the Thinkpad Z13/Z16 is more comparable to a Macbook but again it doesn't have little details like an ambient light sensor which seems an odd omission in a luxury laptop and price wise it's practically the same.
That said, the new AMD Ryzen 7840HS and 7940HS chips are pretty competitive with an equivalent Apple M2:
> I don't really like Apple, mainly because of how they handle the app store vendor lock in stuff, and I hate macOS. But I use an M2 MBP purely because I can't find any other laptop that has the same fast performance, long battery life, quiet fan noise, no heat.
Buying their products for the same reason everyone else does is "liking Apple".
Your only relationship to the company is via the goods and services it sells to you. If you buy their products, you like the company and their practices. The product is the culmination of all of their practices.
I own zero Apple laptops, desktops, watches or subscriptions, and one low spec. 2016 iPhone bought second hand. That's hardly being a prisoner or being ruthlessly exploited, is it?
If you hate Disney's Frozen because you've seen it so many times, but you watch it with your daughter because she likes Frozen, does that mean you like Frozen because you're doing the same thing that people who like it are doing? No; people's motivation for the same thing can be different. People can do thing they disapprove of, for reasons other than approving of thing.
But as far as the market is concerned, if one has a choice and exercises it, they liked the product better than the alternatives. Nobody on the Apple galley was ever really forced to be there.
Even ten seconds thought should show you the problems with what you are saying. Even if you take it on aggregate, a million people buying Apple over Dell means Apple is doing something to attract money - it still doesn't necessarily mean people like Apple more, it could be that Apple are lobbying congress to require Apple for schools, or Apple offering employers a massive discount, or Dell having supply chain issues so the vote is really about availability not technical preference, or etc.
As far as the market is concerned, if prisoners like rotting food more than starving then they "like (and approve of) rotting food" in general. People understand more than just pricing signals and can see the problems with that reasoning. At least, I can. In a similar way that the playground challenge "would you rather (horrible-thing A) or (horrible-thing B)?" is hilarious because whichever you pick, it means you actually like horrible-thing, haha ha! This reasoning is "the market is a good judge of character and if it has judged you, then you must have that character". Another option is "the market works on very few signals, most of them monetary, and that makes it a poor judge of character and motivation and other higher human concepts".
Another comparison is the web adverts which reason "if you bought a lawnmower then you will want to see adverts for lawnmowers because we have strong evidence that you are interested in lawnmowers" - as we warn about markets, past performance is no guarantee of future interest in lawnmowers. It could mean you are a lawnmower enthusiast, but it could mean you are disinterested in mowers and but have a lawn and an obligation to mow it, it could mean you choose whichever is in stock at the closest store which is no vote about the product and only a vote about your local store's stock levels. It doesn't mean that if you bought a lawnmower instead of a private jet that's because you like FloorGoo lawnmower F6240h PowerMow+ with leaf-eviscerator extension more, only that you can't afford a private jet. It could mean you ran over your neighbour's lawnmower with your truck and are buying a replacement of whatever model they had. It could mean your kid wants to earn money by mowing lawns over summer and you wanted to support them by funding the mower, or that you got a job at a lawn care firm and need to buy the tools they use for yourself, it could mean you took advice on which mower to buy from a friend and don't have any personal knowledge of mowers, or that a shop had a sale, or that a shop had an attractive smooth talking lawnmower salesperson, or that you had a breakdown and need to finish mowing before the rain due at the end of the day and had no time to do any research or like/dislike anything, or that you are supporting a mow-for-charity drive for a group going to mow churchyards and you are just buying within the budget that the volunteers donated, or that you aren't technical and misunderstood that you need an Apple lawnmower for your bank app because they advertised and told you that you did because companies employ highly skilled professional manipulators working full time to frame and distort the truth and your access to information in their favour...
You might also argue that if I want a silent laptop with long battery life that is a "proper *nix" and not a limited WinRT/ChromeOS/Android then I don't have a choice and am therefore not exercising a proper informed choice so the signal from it is misleading.
I use my laptop as a portable workstation so I rarely use built in keyboard, touchpad, battery, etc. From what I see AMD 7840 CPUs deliver similar performance to M2.
I think I'll get an Framework 16 or 13 with AMD in a few months, will make sure Linux drivers are in order before ordering.
Interesting. I don't really like Apple, mainly because of how they handle the app store vendor lock in stuff, and I hate macOS. But I use an M2 MBP purely because I can't find any other laptop that has the same fast performance, long battery life, quiet fan noise, no heat.
Can you recommend an AMD/Intel or anything that comes close? I'd switch in a heartbeat. The closest that comes to mind is the ThinkPad X13s.