I can build myself a new amd64 box for just under €200. Under €100 with used parts. Some older Dell and Lenovo laptops even work with coreboot.
An Airbook sets me back €1000, enough to buy a used car, and AFAICT is much more difficult to get fully working Linux on than my €200 amd64 build.
Why hasn't apple caught up?
When netbooks ($400 notebooks) were all the rage, Steve Jobs was asked why Apple didn’t make one. And he said they didn’t know how to make a cheap laptop that didn’t suck.
And he was right. Netbooks mostly sucked. Same with Chromebooks.
There’s nothing to be gained by racing to the bottom.
You can buy an m1 laptop for $599 at Walmart. That’s an amazing deal.
if you're going to include used, you can get an M1 for as low as $300. https://www.backmarket.com/en-us/p/macbook-air-2020-13-inch-...
>I can build myself a new amd64 box for just under €200
Precisely because of that they haven't caught up. They don't want to compete in the PC race to them bottom that nearly bankrupted them in the 90s before they invented the iPod.
Apple got rich by creating its own markets.
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