Definitely agree with the simplicity of purchasing an Apple computer compared to other laptop manufacturers. Headphone brands and monitor makers also suffer from this same fate :/
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Not that simple when there are multiple generations of each on sale, with wildly different prices should you change the storage or RAM toggle.
The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything. So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.
> The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything.
I doubt this is much of a constraint in the real world. Most people plug power in, perhaps an external mouse, and that's it. (They should be plugging in external storage for backups, which might require an extra port, but I doubt most people do in practice).
> So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.
I'm pretty much USB-C only at this point, but even before then I never understood the fixation on "dongles".
Agreed that even Apple products have gotten confusing. But still 1-2 orders of magnitude less I feel than other laptops?
I think the lineup and config options on Apple laptops and tablets are carefully planned to make you spend more than you intially thought.
You start with the idea of cheap model, then start going the ladders up.
The tablets are. Buy an iPad, then spend like $600 on hardware accessories and apps to basically turn it into a laptop. Everyone I know who bought one has just left it around the house as a random toy.
But I'm a heavy user, and that 2015 baseline MBP is still fine.
Maybe, but I know plenty of non-tech people that just buy the baseline MacBook Air and are happy with it.
I think both are true. For non-tech people, or people who don't use a computer for real hard work, who want a decent laptop, they probably just buy the baseline Air. But once you get into doing some more professional stuff on a laptop that needs power, then you fall into talking yourself into more than what you intended. I am experiencing that right now. At the time I didn't have a lot of money, working full time to support a family and going to school, so when I needed a new laptop I got the base MBA M1. Fantastic laptop. But now I am doing more intensive stuff (I also make a lot more now so I can afford it) on it and I am looking at upgrading to an M3. I am playing with the GPU and some ML, so I probably should get more than a base model M3. From there it is, whatever I decided, the next upgrade it just an extra $200. More ram would be nice. Oh wait, for another $200, I can also get the better processor with 2 more cores for CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, why not? Oh wait, $200 more and I can double the RAM. Next thing you now, I started off with $1599 and now have talked myself into a like $2200 (haven't made the purchase yet, but that is what I am looking at).
Not everything. MacBooks have MagSafe for power, which frees a port for power or having to use an adapter with power passthrough.
Though it’s not a big issue in practice. When at home or the office, I just plug into a display with a USB or Thunderbolt hub. On-the-go, the Apple adapter works great.
Having to plug more than one cable is annoying anyway when you move between desks.
I hate dealing with USB-C, but on laptops, it hardly matters. Pretty rare that I'm plugging in anything besides power.
There's still some weirdness as you get higher in the lineup. They start to break out into different variations of each chip, with varying degrees of memory for each variation. Like you can get a Macbook Pro with an M3 Pro chip with 11 core CPU/14 core GPU, or an M3 Pro chip 12/14 cores, or an M3 Max chip with 14/30 cores for $400 more or 16/40 for $900 more. And if you do the 14/30 M3 Max, you can choose 36 or 96gb memory, but if you choose the 16/40 Max, you can choose 48 64 or 128gb memory.
Love my macbooks that I've had, but yea. When shopping, it is rather aggrevating that there is no such thing really as just M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra. Its really M3, M3 Pro (11/14/15), M3 Pro (12/18/16), M3 Pro (14/30/16), M3 Max(14/30/16), M3 Max (16/30/16), M3 Max (16/40/16).