Apple Silicon MacBooks instantly made high end Windows laptops become paperweight. Why buy $1000+ Windows laptops with loud fans and much worse battery life, build quality and trackpad? Desktop PC's are a different story.
First, the article is about a Linux laptop, not a Windows laptop, and the reference to Apple Silicon is a bit of non-sequitur anyways. so I feel like your comment lacks relevance to the OP.
Secondly, the reasons one would want to choose a Linux/Windows laptop over an Apple Silicon are so obvious I'm sure you know them already. Many people use software that runs best (or only runs) on Windows or Linux or any x86 computer. Also, Apple's default software is undesirable to some people for a plethora of reasons that have been repeated ad nauseam on HN. And the raw performance of Intel/AMD processors better than that of equally priced Apple alternatives, with comparable performance at iso-power (see e.g. [1] or numbers from [2][3]).
Apple Silicon's success has been very impressive, and Apple laptops are well built, but they hardly makes its competitors obsolete as Apple's greatest proponents seem to want people to believe. The fact of the matter is that an Apple silicon laptop is useless to someone who does not want to commit to the Apple ecosystem.
You don't have to run macOS. There's full support for Windows and Linux and x86 applications. This is also upgradable. Run out of storage? You can replace the drive! Add more RAM! Choice is good.
Asahi's making decent enough progress that, eventually, you may not need to run macOS to enjoy macOS hardware.
Why would I pay ~$930 for this, instead of buying an M1 Air? The comment you're responding to hit the nail on the head - once you've gone fan-less and sleek, it's really hard to go back.
Few vendors, if any, hit the quality feel of Apple's products.
32GB of RAM? Good Linux support today? Don't have to pay $400 for 1TB storage?
Kinda a bad move to buy something that may or may not down the line do what you need to do today. I need features like USB 3 and DP USB output today not 6 months or 2 years from now if it even happens.
32gb is the only reason.. but then again, doesn't matter, because developers claim RAM is cheap anyway.. so there's no problem buying a macbook pro instead.
The screen is not 4k, trackpad not as good, it's plastic, It has this oldschool barrel powercharger, etc. etc. etc.
Except you can just buy whatever M.2 SSD you want and slot it in and it doesn't even void the warranty. So for the same $400 to get a 1TB MBA you can easily get a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (~$160) + 32GB RAM (~$130) and still have money left over.
Plastic is a pro IMO anyways, doesn't have to feel cheap and it also doesn't get nicked or dented nearly as easily.
