That's funny you say that, because this is precisely the time, I started buying Macs (I got a Pismo PowerBook G3 gifted and then bought an iBook G4). And my experience was that for sure, if you put as much money into a PC than in a Mac you would get MUCH better performance.
What made it worth it at the time (I felt) was the software. Today I'm really don't think so, software has improved overall in the industry and there is not a lot of things "Mac specific" that makes it a clear-cut choice.
As for the performance I can't believe all the Apple silicon hype. Sure, it gets good battery life given you use strictly Apple software (or software optimized for it heavily) but in mixed workload situation it's not that impressive.
Using the M2 MacBook Pro of a friend I figured I could get maybe 4-5 hours out of its best case scenario which is better than the 2-3 hours you would get from a PC laptop but also not that great considering the price difference.
And when it comes to performance it is extremely unequal and very lackluster for many things. Like there is more lag launching Activity Monitor on a 2K++ MacBook Pro than launching task manager on a 500 PC. This is a small somewhat stupid example but it does tell the overall story.
They talk a big game but in reality, their stuff isn't that performant in the real world.
And they still market games when one of their 2K laptops plays Dota 2 (a very old, relatively ressource efficient game) worse than a cheapo PC.
> Using the M2 MacBook Pro of a friend I figured I could get maybe 4-5 hours out of its best case scenario which is better than the 2-3 hours you would get from a PC laptop but also not that great considering the price difference.
Yes, but I stopped caring about electron apps some time ago. You can't just drop or ignore useful software to satisfy Apple marketing.
Just like you can't just ignore Chrome for Safari to satisfy the autonomy claims, because Chrome is much more useful and better at quite a bit of things.
I went the way of only Apple and Apple optimized software for quite a while but I just can't be bothered anymore, considering the price of the hardware and nowadays the price of subscription software.
And this is exactly my argument I you use the hardware in a very specific way, you get there but it is very limiting, annoying and inacceptable considering the pricing.
It's like saying that a small city car gets more gas mileage when what one needs is actually a capable truck. It's not strictly wrong but also not very helpful.
I think the Apple Silicon laptops are very nice if you can work within the limitations, but the moment you start pushing on those you realize they are not really worth the money.
Just like the new iPad Pro they released; completely awesome hardware but how many people can actually work within the limitations of iPad OS to make the price not look like a complete ripoff. Very few I would argue.
What made it worth it at the time (I felt) was the software. Today I'm really don't think so, software has improved overall in the industry and there is not a lot of things "Mac specific" that makes it a clear-cut choice.
As for the performance I can't believe all the Apple silicon hype. Sure, it gets good battery life given you use strictly Apple software (or software optimized for it heavily) but in mixed workload situation it's not that impressive.
Using the M2 MacBook Pro of a friend I figured I could get maybe 4-5 hours out of its best case scenario which is better than the 2-3 hours you would get from a PC laptop but also not that great considering the price difference.
And when it comes to performance it is extremely unequal and very lackluster for many things. Like there is more lag launching Activity Monitor on a 2K++ MacBook Pro than launching task manager on a 500 PC. This is a small somewhat stupid example but it does tell the overall story.
They talk a big game but in reality, their stuff isn't that performant in the real world.
And they still market games when one of their 2K laptops plays Dota 2 (a very old, relatively ressource efficient game) worse than a cheapo PC.