Yet it’s my MacBook with the stupid Touch Bar that died while my “cheap crap” Alienware (Dell) laptop is going strong. It also cost half as much and has more than twice the compute.
Just throwing my anecdotes here as well. My 3 Apple products:
1) Macbook Pro 2015: Still going strong to this day. To my suprise, the battery can still last ~30 mins after a full charge.
2) IPhone 6: Camera died for no reason after 1 year.
3) Macbook Air M1: Screen cracked for no reason after 2 years. Machine cannot boot up because of it. Quoted repair cost was $470. I'm probably gonna shelf it. What's weird is that I know a couple other people that had similar experience as well (spontaneous screen crack with the MBA M1).
1) iPhone 3GS, screen backlight stopped working after 3 years. One component change fixed it
2) iPhone 4S, zero issues
3) iPhone 5S, zero issues
4) iPhone 6S, battery didn't like the cold after 2 years, swapped a new one for 50€, my friend's kid still uses it
5) ... etc up until the current one. No issues
Along with multiple Apple laptops, I'm still daily driving a 2015 MBP for my mobile needs. I did get a free battery and topcase replacement due to a recall around 2020-ish.
Multiple M1 and M2 work laptops, zero issues.
The best part is that I could resell every Apple product I've bought for a decent amount of money because people know the software is still getting updates for years and the hardware is solid.
The chicklet keyboards were trash though. Touchbar would've been nicer if it didn't replace the F-keys.
That said, MacBooks are not milspec, nor do they claim to be. Dell/HP/Lenovo make devices that support thermal variance and shock (Lenovo T series for example), and several companies make ruggedized devices for outdoor use.
The differences aren’t what you think. Police use cases primarily need shock resistance, wide environment operating range, screens readable in sunlight, and the ability to turn off all lights.
If you don’t need that, that isn’t always a good thing. For example, you can operate a Samsung rugged phone from 0-120 F —- much wider range than an iPhone. But… that battery will be toast if it runs hot or cold a lot.
The M key on my 2019 MacBook Pro doesn't work, Apple told me it would cost 2300$ to fix it. One key. For reference I could buy two more working MacBook Pros, identical to the one I have, for 2300$.
I once put rubbing alcohol on a cloth to clean an apple laptop keyboard. The laptop is in my closet now.
I dropped my low grade Costco dell laptop from chest height. It cracked the cover on the screen and has a piece of plastic missing, exposing wires. It is still 100% functional for two years since.
I once had a single drop of water, condensation on the outside of a glass - think the drop of sweat scene in Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, fall into the gap between the trackpad and the palm rest on a MacBook Pro. Instantly fried the trackpad, which never worked again until I had it replaced.
The performance difference I see from the OS on my friends computers really makes me want to get an Apple computer. Hearing these horror stories always scares me straight.
My decently specd windows laptop, without any insane applications installed beyond work related.. chugs along for the first 1-2 minutes on startup even once technically booted into Windows.
Opening chrome takes like 10 seconds for the first site to load after double clicking.
A poorly written svg animation or something of that type on a web page will bring scrolling to a grind.
Clicking a stupid link that opens a modal in HubSpot makes the modal open slowly at 4 fps.
Facebook marketplace messages bring it to it's knees. This itself has to be a Facebook bug of some kind but w.t.f.
Little examples like that. The cpu is fine, enough memory, solid state drive, all that. Something is just off.
> chugs along for the first 1-2 minutes on startup even once technically booted into Windows.
> Opening chrome takes like 10 seconds for the first site to load after double clicking.
Seems like there must be some problem with your system.
Even if that was true, that is still an OS problem that allows an experienced user to get a system to that stage unintentionally with no obvious cause or way to stop it.
Apple machines aren't somehow immune to developing errors like that. All it takes is the "experienced" user doing something atypical sometime and not remembering what they did to be able to revert it.
Apple puts a 50 volt screen backlight pin on a ribbon cable next to the pin that goes straight to the processor - moist day? Short time, unhappy mac-book. Their products are built to look nice, not last.
And I have had Lenovo thinkpads last a decade as well... You are just plucking a single data point and saying it speaks to the entire line of products this company makes.
My HP mobile workstation 2010 is still superb. Although, the screen is going darker. The ruber frame around the screen is becoming more and more porous porous, the rubber mouse keys are also porous. But, it runs, it runs, it runs . Need to vacuum the fans.. haven't done that in years:)