this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
907 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
59708 readers
5428 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There's a lot of talk about switching to Linux (I use Arch, BTW) but for anyone looking for a new computer, macs are going to look real good. Still user friendly, excellent build quality, and Unix core. A Mac mini can be had for about 500 bucks. I've got an M2 MacBook Pro from work and I am super happy with it. Limited gaming tho, but I got a steamdeck for that.
Mac is a lot easier to get started with, so absolutely. The downside is that people get pulled into the ecosystem of apple, with specific chargers, keyboards, adapters... Many of my friends use macs and they also start to buy iPhones and other apple gear.
My situation exactly, and I'm very happy with it. M2 with its speed and long battery life compensates well for some unconfigurable behaviours in MacOS that I have minor gripes with, and for gaming and general Linux goodness, Steam Deck to the rescue.
Macs look appealing, but they're so expensive that I've been working with computers for decades but never felt I could afford one. Not a useful one anyway. The power efficiency is attractive but you have to spend so much to get past 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, which is like a PC from 10 years ago. Every time I consider it I end up back with Linux and/or Windows just because of the upfront cost. And because Apple sell to people who are willing to pay high prices, the software, accessories and support for Mac is also more expensive.
I haven't bought a PC since my X200s ca 2008 so I'm really out of date on hardware prices, but the MacBook is just amazing. For dev / office work even the base one could be enough, swap is so fast you don't even notice it. I have a 16/512 model and it's more than enough.
For stationary computing, the Mac mini is awesome, under 1k with the same specs as the MacBook.