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0 pointssoftfalcon14d ago0 comments

This... so much this.

> too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ.

And yet, I just watched a YouTube video where a "PC guy" was like, "adding the Neo just completely confuses the Apple product line. Are we heading towards having too many Apple options that confuse the buyer here?"

I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops.

I run both PC's and Mac devices in our house, we use what fills the job. Recommending PC laptops for family members feels like a total crapshoot though. Every time, I do all I can to find the right device for their needs and there are just so many trade-offs. Maybe I get all the right specs, ensure it doesn't thermal throttle, keyboard/trackpad are A-OK... but the webcam is trash. Ooof... now Mom is complaining about how no one can see her properly at bridge club call.

I brought up how the Neo might do to the PC industry what the Air did to Ultrabooks back in the day. The amount of hate I got on YouTube/Verge with copy-paste, "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!" was expected, but also disappointing. There is clearly a market segment happy to continue to put up with the mess that Dell/Lenovo are selling (anything but a Mac).

Wild how tribal we are to our corporate computer overlords.

The era where something like Framework with its fully customizable, repairable, modular laptops becomes the standard can't come soon enough.

For the time being, I'll let Apple/PC continue to duke it out. Hope some competition helps in the long run. :shrug:

0 comments

hackyhacky14d ago

> I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops.

Yep.

I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly isn't going to tell me. I keep on buying T series because I'm honestly afraid of trying anything else.

To say nothing of Lenovo's non-ThinkPad laptop brands, including Ideapad, Legion, Yoga, ThinkBook (!), and LOQ.

I really don't know what laptop to recommend to a friend. One friend showed me specs for an Asus they found at Best Buy, and it looked okay, so I said "It's probably fine." Turns out it was shoddily made and overpriced: they had to sent it back not once but twice because the wifi and then the camera didn't work out of the box, then a few months later the hinge broke.

I am not a Mac fan, but it's easy to recommend them because you at least know they are universally well-built machines.

officeplant14d ago

> I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from ...

My personal rundown and how they get assigned:

E - Educational / Lower office personnel spec

L - Office personnel you hate spec, but don't offer the E because they might complain.

T - Give this to all the technicians because they can't take care of anything and it will survive typically.

P - Give this to the engineers who believe having an RTX gpu will actually help them so that they are happy, and to the CAD operators who actually need it.

X - Smaller/Ultrabooks before the term got started, now somewhat a blurry line because T series have gotten lighter/thinner. But the X1 Carbon sure is a great way to spend a ton of money for a light laptop when a T-series would suffice.

Personally I stick to older used X series (currently x250) because I just enjoy a small laptop and they are dirt cheap now.

mmcnl14d ago

This still doesn't tell me how they differ. What are the factual objective measurable differences between E/L/T/P?

2 more replies

fainpul14d ago

I think I got it:

- E is for economy

- L is for loser

- T is for tank

- P is for power

- X is for executive

eldaisfish14d ago

Fine, but how is anyone supposed to divine all that nuance from a single letter?

As much as I hate Apple, they really do have product names down to a science.

jclardy14d ago

Neo and Air are quite simple when looking at it from the bottom up. Air is the "nice" Neo for basically $500 more. Backlit keyboard, MagSafe, Thunderbolt 4, M5, way faster SSD speeds, double the RAM, larger display, Force Touch trackpad.

thewebguyd14d ago

> "hahaha, wut, with 8 GB of RAM? lmao, lol, you Apple bot?!"

And it would seem they never learn either. I saw the same comments when the M1 Air came out, then they quickly shut up when people were pushing those little base model airs well beyond what anyone thought they were capable of.

The same thing is happening with the Neo now. It feels like an M1 moment all over again for the PC OEM industry.

If you aren't a gamer, there is zero reason at this point to consider any other laptop besides a macbook. Apple now has one for every price point. This neo is going to destroy the consumer PC space. Dell, HP, Acer are probably sweating right now.

philistine14d ago

They're not sweating at all; they'll do what they always do. They'll release a new model to compete in time for Christmas 2026. They'll call it the ASUS Nuevo X856G-L or the Acer Nova 9500X or the Alienware Morpheus ZS and that will be it. They won't even consolidate their line at the 600$ price point; just one more model, bro!

Their sales will continue tapering off and they'll do what they always do; reduce investments, fire some designers and engineers, keep old models out even longer, and move out of Apple's way by selling even more 380$ laptops for 400$ while Apple siphons even more profits by selling a 400$ laptop at 600$.

That's how PCs die.

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