It has Target Display Mode so that you can use it as a monitor.
I have one with an i7 and use it as a television.
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PCs last longer than Macs
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It has Target Display Mode so that you can use it as a monitor.
I have one with an i7 and use it as a television.
In the 2000s I would with little doubt said Macs lasted longest. The hardware evolved at almost breakneck speed.
I had a MacPro 2008, you could update most of the crucial hardware and it lasted me over 12 years. It was not only "usable" but my main computer for all daily business. I retired it only due to lack of security updates.
Today I would be as sure to say a pc is most long lived. The hardware evolution is much slower. Apple have removed almost all hardware upgrades and also choose to have a planned road to obsolescence for all its products.
I had a MacPro 2008, you could update most of the crucial hardware and it lasted me over 12 years. It was not only "usable" but my main computer for all daily business. I retired it only due to lack of security updates.
Today I would be as sure to say a pc is most long lived. The hardware evolution is much slower. Apple have removed almost all hardware upgrades and also choose to have a planned road to obsolescence for all its products.
It's so weird that PC hardware lasts longer now and is upgradeable meanwhile you can't upgrade any part of your macbooks anymore.
A 2020 Asus just came into the recycler; this thing is the absolute crappiest laptop I have ever seen: butt-ugly milk-jug quality-level plastic, and the same cruddy L-shaped charge connector that has been planned-obsolescence-tailored to torque the power-port socket off the motherboard just like every other odd PC OEM has been relying on for the last thirty years to retire customer hardware. (Remember when Apple introduced the MagSage connector with advertising noting how a snagged cable couldn't drag the computer off the table?) Sticker specs were 8gb ram and 256gb drive -- same as a 2012 Macbook Air! (I can only imagine this turd struggling under the telemetry load of Windows 11.)
What a chunk of garbage.
What a chunk of garbage.
In 2020 Apple was still selling 8GB RAM 256GB SSDs MBAs as base. Hell it was only a few months ago where they finally moved to 16GB RAM, and SSDs are still 256GB.
I've also seen about a billion magsafe connectors wrapped in tape because the part near the connector is fraying but barrel jacks are rock solid.
I'm betting the MSRP of that Asus was much cheaper than a MBA of the time, was probably bought on sale for even less and that you could even easily upgrade the RAM and SSD to something usable for like $100.
Yes, budget PC laptops are built like garbage, that is not anything new. The Asus you describe, in 2020, would likely have cost under $800 CAD. The Macbook Air 8/256 of the time was over double that price.
The beauty of budget laptops, however, is that they at least exist and offer consumers an abundance of choice. Someone with a very meagre budget and average requirements can choose to spend under a grand for a laptop that will run most software available on the market at the given time, but will be heavy, cheaply made, have slow batter life and have a fan that runs constantly and that will be destined for the recycle yard within a decade's time. Incidentally, this is exactly the choice I made for each of my kids' highschool laptops, knowing they'd be used for four years and likely get abused.
Or, you someone could choose to spend upwards of 3-4 grand to get a laptop like my 2013 Dell Precision which was a thin and light as the Macbook Pros of the time, was very well built and had the specs of a workstation (8-Core i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB spinner, 4GB Quadro graphics, 1440p 16" Touch Screen). (that machine is still in use by one of my son's friends - was able to replace the battery and it still runs very well)
Or you could choose to go in-between and spend just over 2 grand (again, CAD) and get a laptop like my current 2022 Dell Latitude 2-in-1, came stock with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, 2xTB4 (can charge the laptop with either port, no barrel plugs or proprietary charge ports anywhere), and is fully reversible with a 14" 1440p Touch Screen.
In the Apple world, that word "choice" is pretty much a joke. You have three models to choose from, all very similar in design, and none of them anywhere near the single-grand mark in price. While some would say "you get what you pay for", often in Apple's case, it is more accurate to say "you pay for what you get".
"butt-ugly milk-jug quality-level plastic"
LOL. I can't stand "PC's". They are a computer without a stable name brand. (unless you consider DELL which no one should.) 😂 complete garbage.
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It said "Pentium" on the sticker, and I at first thought it was an original Pentium from the 90s until I looked up the model number. Yeah, it was that horrible. For all it faults, Apple has never built anything half as chintzy.
I'm guessing $350 Walmart.
The 2020 MBA had a soldered-in hardware-ID-locked SSD. It was pretty, but designed to auto-brick as soon as various non-replaceable internal components died. (I.e., their laptops are like iPhones now that cannot be serviced.)
Meanwhile, this is what's waiting for me at the recyclers right now. I'll be paying as little as $10 for some of them (MagSafe1s), and I'd use the oldest, slowest one of them as a daily-driver before that security-chipped Asus chunk of crap. (I can shoehorn Mojave onto almost anything, and run Parallels within it.) And I'll use any of the MagSafe2 models over the 2020 MBA. 2013-2015 was the sweet-spot.
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That's funny. That's why Apple outsells Dell by such a wide margin and is used so heavily in the corporate world.......oh wait.....
The corporate world is inhabited by living beings with no understanding of technical contexts.
I don't know. I've seen PCs die quicker than Macs. Of course, it depends on the specs. But of course I've got a few PowerPC Macs from the early-to-mid 2000s that are still fully operational. This is why Macs often cost more, because they are built to last! They're like Toyota vehicles.
Show me a 2006 PC with a Core2Duo processor, and I can put Windows 11 Atlas 24H2 on it, auto-debloated and without MS account; register w/Massgraves. Driver-acquisition is almost painless. (And YouTube will have a hundred tech vids showing a dozen other ways to do it.) Meanwhile, owners of 2015 Macs are shut out of Apple's hurry-up OS releases, and a layman attempting OCLP is more likely to end up with a slugged, crashed, or otherwise bricked machine than one running Sonoma with hardware-acceletation and wifi enabled (i.e., the two thing you critically need as a Macbook owner).
I.e., coasting on the reputation they had fifteen years ago. Both are more poorly built now, and Macs with soldered-in boot-drives are outright built to perma-brick when the drive fails. (And Toyota and the rest of the auto-manufacturers are doing the exact same thing now. There is absolutely zero brand-pride left anywhere in the corporate world; it's as if they all expect to be bankrupt in ten years, and are simply trying to steal as much as they can before everything blows up.)
Microsoft has almost completely closed the "install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware" loophole. There is simply no way to install it on a system from 2008 at all, and many systems from 2017 to even 2019 are unsupported, even if you have the TPM. (An 8th gen Intel CPU is required, with a couple specific 7th gen supported – because they were used by Microsoft Surface computers, and those 7th gen are only supported on those specific Microsoft computers.)
Yes, it is possible to use hackish methods to install on systems as old as 2009.
macOS Sequoia is also officially supported on only systems from 2017 onward. But hackish methods can get it installed on systems as old as 2007.
When Windows 11 came out in 2021, the same CPU requirement existed - meaning MS immediately obsoleted all systems more than four years old, and some as recent as two years old.
macOS Monterey released two weeks later supported systems going back to 2013, nine years old, with all Macs sold since late 2015 (seven years old) fully supported.
And if you're talking "PCs" as in "computers with Intel or AMD processors not made by Apple, originally sold to run Windows," but don't restrict to Windows, you can install Linux, and make significantly older computers still usable.
But that also applies to Macs.
Yes, it is possible to use hackish methods to install on systems as old as 2009.
macOS Sequoia is also officially supported on only systems from 2017 onward. But hackish methods can get it installed on systems as old as 2007.
When Windows 11 came out in 2021, the same CPU requirement existed - meaning MS immediately obsoleted all systems more than four years old, and some as recent as two years old.
macOS Monterey released two weeks later supported systems going back to 2013, nine years old, with all Macs sold since late 2015 (seven years old) fully supported.
And if you're talking "PCs" as in "computers with Intel or AMD processors not made by Apple, originally sold to run Windows," but don't restrict to Windows, you can install Linux, and make significantly older computers still usable.
But that also applies to Macs.
It can go either way, I suppose. My M1 Mac mini is still running 24/7 as fast as the first day I bought it (5 years and change). On the other hand, my 2019 Lenovo Thinkpad P53 mobile workstation feels noticeably slower than I remember. Those 9th gen Intel CPUs haven't aged well due to Intel microcode mitigation against hacker attacks and software OS updates.
They earnestly hope you'll believe that, at any rate.
Googling "install Windows 11 on 2008 computer" led me to, within five seconds, this video. (There were dozens more of similar ilk.)
The only supported Mac from 2017 is the extremely niche iMac Pro. Much more likely to run into a random 8th gen Intel PC that supports Windows 11. Windows 10 still has a few more months of support and is still extremely usable.
Linux support on Macs is extremely hit or miss. The T2 equipped notebooks are not super well supported requiring special kernels and still have crucial missing features broken like suspend or audio. The early M series are missing key features like USB C video output still and at least currently the newer stuff is not working at all. Perhaps M4 will be supported well in the future but there's no guarantee, meanwhile I'm pretty confident that a brand new Intel or AMD Thinkpad that runs Linux well today will run it well 10 or 15 years from now.
That machine is unsupported, if you’re going to go into unsupported territory you can run old mac’s with modern macOS too.
The way I see it, everything is disposable. If OEM's or Apple could just lease you a computer every three years or all of your hardware they would do so in a minute. You will never need to worry about owning anything anymore. Just use our hardware and software subscription services and for under $500 a month you can have a new iPhone, iPad and MacBook of your choice with a chance to upgrade free in 3 to 5 years. This will become the business model when most people won't be able to afford to buy any of this stuff anymore.
If companies cared about the environment then they would be building modular laptops where you could replace the cpu/gpu, ssd, ram all easily and separately so as they aged you wouldn't just need to replace everything all at once. They have gone the opposite way making little more than e waste by manufacturing in such a way that boosts production but decreases repairability or upgradability.
I get these companies need to sell hardware but they should try to do it in new ways that benefit everyone like modular upgrades that keep revenue streams going but don't force huge major upgrades. If Asus had a modular cpu/gpu upgrade they sold for a laptop line that you could get the latest cpu/gpu a year or two after release and same for ram and ssd would make that laptop last a lot longer and both Asus and the customer win in the long run making money by selling the cpu/gpu upgrade package and not forcing customer to buy a completely new laptop. All companies including apple could do this. It would cost more to make laptops like this but it would also greatly reduce waste. If OEM's made a quality laptop with great screen that you could upgrade certain components why would anyone buy a new laptop? It is only because the way everything is made and sold that if your laptop has a problem in a year that you think of buying a new one rather than fixing and most people think like this now.
We need to force companies to make products that last. Now they are profiting off of a disposable max production based economy that benefits no one, except the companies and countries involved in making these products. If we switched from disposable to truly reusable and made reuse part of product design we could use a lot less resources and help to clean up our environment. Cheap production is great if combined with smart long life product design. Otherwise you are just selling garbage because it will all end up in the land fill sooner than you think. Make something to last and be repaired and you will be amazed at how long it will work. Make it to break and be replaced and you will be amazed at how many you need to keep buying because they keep breaking......
If companies cared about the environment then they would be building modular laptops where you could replace the cpu/gpu, ssd, ram all easily and separately so as they aged you wouldn't just need to replace everything all at once. They have gone the opposite way making little more than e waste by manufacturing in such a way that boosts production but decreases repairability or upgradability.
I get these companies need to sell hardware but they should try to do it in new ways that benefit everyone like modular upgrades that keep revenue streams going but don't force huge major upgrades. If Asus had a modular cpu/gpu upgrade they sold for a laptop line that you could get the latest cpu/gpu a year or two after release and same for ram and ssd would make that laptop last a lot longer and both Asus and the customer win in the long run making money by selling the cpu/gpu upgrade package and not forcing customer to buy a completely new laptop. All companies including apple could do this. It would cost more to make laptops like this but it would also greatly reduce waste. If OEM's made a quality laptop with great screen that you could upgrade certain components why would anyone buy a new laptop? It is only because the way everything is made and sold that if your laptop has a problem in a year that you think of buying a new one rather than fixing and most people think like this now.
We need to force companies to make products that last. Now they are profiting off of a disposable max production based economy that benefits no one, except the companies and countries involved in making these products. If we switched from disposable to truly reusable and made reuse part of product design we could use a lot less resources and help to clean up our environment. Cheap production is great if combined with smart long life product design. Otherwise you are just selling garbage because it will all end up in the land fill sooner than you think. Make something to last and be repaired and you will be amazed at how long it will work. Make it to break and be replaced and you will be amazed at how many you need to keep buying because they keep breaking......
It makes me sad we ended up here.
Especially Apple had some very promising attempts. As a PhD student I got my dad's old Mac IIsi in -95. It was not a legendary model, it was meant as a "cheap" low price model ($2999, today >$7000, computers were expensive back then). It was really nice to service. Everything seemed to be module, lots of plastic, but good enough. Changing a broken power supply took me one minute, and no tools.
My 2008 MacPro did not reach the same heights in serviceability. But it was the best built computer I have ever owned. I upgraded RAM, DVD-drive, GPU three times and disk bays to hold 12 disks all together (Two 15k disks and 10 SSDs). I installed esata, sound, raid6, and cards with better USB ports. Plus three external raid systems. It served me well, over 12 years without a hitch, but Apple's OS upgrades made me retire it.
On the other hand, Apple have made some dead end models as well, like my first own mac, a Classic. The Cube, MacPro 2013 and many more was not better.