Apple MacBook

Long-term owners

I haven't packed a charger for the day for 3 years. I can work in coffee shops or on the couch for over 6 hours without even thinking about charging.

Mar 2026 · comment

The Macbooks, and Mac minis are behind on hardware but eventually in the next 2 years at worst will make it possible

May 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• Apple MacBook ProApple Silicon models stay fast for years, have long battery life, practical ports and enough memory to run local AI models; some dislike macOS and find the 16-inch heavy.928recommend
• Apple MacBook NeoAn affordable Mac with snappy performance and better build, display and trackpad than similarly priced Windows laptops, though many say its 8GB of RAM is limiting.707recommend
• MacBook AirA light, silent, fanless laptop with long battery life and enough everyday performance for years, though it throttles under sustained heavy loads and base RAM and storage feel tight.633recommend
• Framework Laptop 12Repairable, upgradeable, Linux-friendly convertible that people choose over Apple laptops for repairability and openness. Critics say the price is hard to justify.83recommend
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 CarbonOwners praise its light body, comfortable keyboard, trackpoint and strong Linux support; critics say battery life and heat are weak points.77recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 1007 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I haven't packed a charger for the day for 3 years. I can work in coffee shops or on the couch for over 6 hours without even thinking about charging.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Big Data on the Cheapest MacBook”

2. MacBooks have the best value/money ratio at the moment. The combination of battery life, processing power and touch pad UX are unmatched

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Free the Icons”

3. Keyboard on Macs is pretty much good, other than the early butterfly version, rest is definitely above average and it just feels good.

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Filing the Corners Off MacBooks”

4. The speed and latency difference does matter, that is how even an 8GB RAM MacBook feels snappier than many a 32GB Windows machine

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Docker 29 has changed its default image store for new installs”

5. Apple did it correctly, MacBook uses a Mini-LED backlit LCD, so you get a quality display with HDR while also having sharp text

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “OLED burn-in test: 30-month update”

6. the MacBook is good at: display, instant performance and battery life, trackpad, webcam, sound and microphones, build quality.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report”

7. MacBook right now just combine everything, other laptop they might get a good CPU but the screen and the keyboard are trash

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

8. Just the build quality on MacBooks compared to your random PC laptop piece of plastic that falls apart within a few years

   Recommends · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

9. The fact they figured out how to transition all their laptops to ARM so it won’t be a stovetop on your lap is amazing

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Tim Cook to become Apple Executive Chairman”

10. macbooks are incredibly good from a hardware perspective. Solid keyboards. Amazing trackpads. Really good screens.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Run Android ARM64 VR APKs on Apple Vision Pro”

11. Tim Cook really made some magical consumer grade hardware that outperforms virtually all its possible competitors

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Why Gentoo?”

12. Macbook's are the best productivity laptops and now even more so once Apple moved from Intel to their own M chips

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO”

13. The only times I've heard the fan come on on my M4 were with games like Kerbal Space Program and Cities Skylines.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “I don’t need a Steam Machine”

14. idk why anyone would buy anything other than MacBook for programming or media work in the age of Apple Silicon

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “I'm returning my Framework 16”

15. the era of keyboards so fragile they break if you sneeze on them, and gimmicks like turning part of the keyboard into a touch screen were terrible

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union”

16. The soldered on RAM and SSD, while technically replaceable, make it a much more difficult process than just swapping some DIMMS and an m.2.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

17. I can't do that on a macbook, if anything breaks there (screen, ssd, ram, keyboard, battery bulging...) I might as well buy another.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “My MacBook Keyboard Is Broken and It's Insanely Expensive to Fix”

18. being non repairable, being non upgradable, having early thermal throttling due to subar cooling, and having a mediocre keyboard

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report”

19. I've had to suffer many work Macbooks and vastly prefer both the hardware and (Linux) software stack on non-Apple laptops.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “The Myth of the ThinkPad”

20. the only reason they have "dead silence" is because Apple is literally baking your laptop and leaving you to pay the bill

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “I'm returning my Framework 16”

21. MacBooks aren't built with Linux in mind at all, and you can't run Linux on it as easily as on something like a ThinkPad

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Major Upgrades and Linux Front and Center”

22. it isn’t as good as it was but compared to windows (with adds in the start menu, and two different settings menus for a decade as examples) it’s still better

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo”

23. Having to occasionally run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine to download some random low-userbase FOSS app is nothing compared to what Linux users go through.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Apple is increasing my cortisol levels”

24. I use my macbook on the desk, on my lap, on my chest laying on my back, and have never once gotten to thinking parts of it should be filed down.

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “I also filed the corners off my MacBook”

25. the only problem I've had that wasn't caused by violence was a battery swelling, and that cost me something like $120 to replace, not a big deal

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “My MacBook Keyboard Is Broken and It's Insanely Expensive to Fix”

26. It was an excellent laptop that was quite user-serviceable (I upgraded the RAM and hard drive), but I did have problems with the palmrests

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “FrameBook”

27. windows 11 has so much corporate bloat, than even MS apps like outlook, office and OneDrive functions better on a Mac than on Windows 11

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Microsoft says bug causes Copilot to summarize confidential emails”

28. The command key on Mac is somewhat magical and engages in all sorts of productivity and finger efficiency related context switching

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)”

29. no matter the processing power in the models you get a rather great experience from the haptics, audio and visual in all of them

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO”

30. a Macbook and a similarly priced Windows laptop seems to be about equal in terms of weird OS bugs and actually getting work done

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Discontinuation of ARM Notebook with Snapdragon X Elite SoC”

31. I love my macbooks. Every Apple laptop I've owned that has USB-C ports will happily charge itself from a 5V/1.5A wall charger

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper”

32. where you can walk into any of hundreds of retail stores and talk to someone who will quote you a repair or replacement price

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook”

33. I like my MacBook because I trusted Apple to build great hardware, a pretty okay os, and services I don't give a shit about.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Siri AI”

34. The nicest thing for the Macbook for me in practice (disclaimer: I don't do fancy things on the trackpad) is the size.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO”

35. You want something that likely won’t need repair ever for its useful lifetime, a current MacBook is worth looking at.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “I'm returning my Framework 16”

36. Hats off to Apple, having very narrow selection of models with very limited customization options helps them greatly.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “I'm returning my Framework 16”

37. I hate apple, for the same reasons as everyone else, but I have both a MacBook and iPhone and can’t do much about it.

    Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “I said no and Apple said yes”

38. My carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms or RSI basically went away once I started using a macbook as my primary computer.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Should you stop cracking your knuckles?”

39. The Macbooks, and Mac minis are behind on hardware but eventually in the next 2 years at worst will make it possible

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Kimi K2.6 just beat Claude, GPT-5.5, and Gemini in a coding challenge”

40. Apple added something smart, a short press doesn't lock the screen or restart the laptop, even if you press too hard

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “I Returned My iPhone Duo”