price-performance is not a thing for a vast majority of users. Sure I'd like a $40k car but I can only afford a $10k car. It's not nice but it gets me from a to b on my min-wage salary. Similarly, I know plenty of friends and family. They can either get 4 macs for $1000 each (mom, dad, sister, brother) so $4k. Or they can get 4 windows PCs for $250 so $1k total.
The cheap Windows PCs suck just like a cheap car sucks (ok, they suck more), but they still get the job done. You can still browse the web, read your email, watch a youtube video, post a youtube video, write a blog, etc.. My dad got some HP celeron. It took 4 minutes to boot. It still ran though and he paid probably $300 for it vs $999 for a mac. He didn't have $999.
I’m not saying one or the other is better for your family members. But MacBooks last very long. We'll see about the M series but for myself for instance I got the M1 air without fans, which has the benefit of no moving pieces or air inlets, so even better. My last one, a MBP from 2011 lasted pretty much 10 years. OS updates are 8-10y.
> The cheap Windows PCs suck […], but they still get the job done
For desktop, totally. Although I would still wipe it with Ubuntu or so because Windows is so horrible these days even my mom is having a shit time with only browsing and video calls.
A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight.
> A random laptop however is a different story. Except for premium brands (closer to Apple prices) they tend to have garbage battery life, infuriating track pad, massive thermal issues, and preloaded with bloatware. Apple was always better here, but now with the lower power/heat of the ARM chips, they got soooo much better overnight.
To the person with no budget, all that doesn't matter. They'll still get let $250 laptop and put up with the garbage battery life (find a power outlet), infuriating trackpad (buy an external mouse for $10), bloatware (most users don't know this and just put up with it), etc....
I agree Apple is better. But if your budget is $250 and not $1k then you get what you can get for $250 and continue to feed your kids and pay your rent.
But also you don't have to buy new. If I had $250, an ancient MacBook might be better than a newer low-end windows laptop. Though for my purposes I'd probably get an oldish Chromebook and root it.
The cheap Windows PCs suck just like a cheap car sucks (ok, they suck more), but they still get the job done. You can still browse the web, read your email, watch a youtube video, post a youtube video, write a blog, etc.. My dad got some HP celeron. It took 4 minutes to boot. It still ran though and he paid probably $300 for it vs $999 for a mac. He didn't have $999.