this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Apple
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I think their engineering is pretty good, personally. I travelled a lot with a laptop from 2000 to about 2020, and my windows laptops would always die after 2 years - hinges, cracks in the body, screen cracks and so on. Moving to apple’s laptops in about 2011 meant I got 5 years out of each (air then a pro). I’m now on a second pro, but the old pro is still trucking along.
I’m not going to defend all their decisions, there’s a lot of questionable stuff in there (keyboards, sticking to lightening, mice…). But their hardware, both laptop, mini and pro) has been solid.
You are right about repairability. I think that has never been a key feature for them hence the glue, security screws and other crap. Fortunately there are governments around the world that are pushing for repairability, consistency with usb-c, replaceable batteries and more. So I think all manufacturers will be upping their game now, which is awesome.
All manufacturers reduce cost - supply chain management and manufacturability are the processes to drive that. Apple are really good at the supply chain side, that was Tim Cook’s focus as COO. What I don’t like is that they are able to keep their incredibly high margins (far higher than any other manufacturer) thanks to their software, interoperability and walled garden.
I got sick of my Windows laptops falling apart tbh, needed a laptop that could actually handle being used as a laptop, and not destroy itself over time from heat cycling and excessively stiff hinges.
This ended up driving me to purchase a used Mid 2012 MBP (a1278) and running Linux on it because I'm not really a MacOS person.
Why this model? Replaceable RAM, replaceable battery, replaceable SSD, disk drive can be removed to make the machine lighter OR outright replaced with an additional SSD/hard drive.
Louis Rossmann has a gigantic library of repair videos for this model, which was another major contributor driving my decision.
I still use it today - it's charging beside me with one of those USB C PD to Magsafe 1 adapters 😅
That was an awesome laptop with upgradable components. Nice!
IIRC weren’t some of the peripheral drivers a bit dodgy.
Yepp, I really like it personally.
Sadly some are, but neither are dealbreakers for me - the SD card slot runs at USB2.0 speeds most of the time, the Wifi driver has to be modified and recompiled to run on newer kernels. Aside from those I haven't had any problems really.
I also swapped out my keyboard drivers for an alternative that turns the Eject button into a "delete" key, and swaps around two of the modifier keys for a more familiar layout.
I find it pretty neat that the caps lock light is programmable, and that the machine has an IR receiver!
That caps lock light is so cool, but I guess it makes sense since keyboard drivers need to change it.
A great form factor with a superior OS (IMHO).
In your case am afraid it is survivor bias. We are not talking about individual cases here. If you want to go case by case basis I have never had ThinkPad last fewer than 10 years. In fact I never had ThinkPad die on me. But they do break just like any other machine. Many of Apple's laptops had issues when you used them too hard because they would blow hot air on glued parts or parts sensitive to heat shortening their life span. I strongly recommend watching video I've linked.
It could well be survivorship bias, but I did represent the examples as personal. Having said that - I did a quick google for « laptops with longest lifespan » and most of the reviews had apple at #1 or 2.
In common with you, most of my previous laptops (5 or 6) were thinkpads like yours, usually the tablet style for OneNote (which is awesome BTW). They never survived the rigours of the road. Perhaps that’s why I had a different result to yours - I used to travel 3-6 months a year.