I was doing a similar breakdown back when I bought my System76. The difference was upgradability. If I ever thought I might need more RAM I’d have to buy that up front on the MacBook air, putting its price over 1,700 off the shelf for the max ram. System76 cost close to the base MacBook air model, but I can add RAM and upgrades at my choosing, find the best price, and install them myself when I need them. That was worth it for me.
The issue is that the M1 (M2 and M3) chips are way more efficient than X86 chips and they gets really good battery life compared to standard PC hardware. So I can hate on the software, the price, the lack of expand-ability, and so much more but I can’t get that efficiency anywhere else.
System76 doesn’t have some massively efficient ARM chip and system to separate them from any other windows laptop maker I just put linux on. You buy System76 because you like System76. I can live with that and I am very willing to spend more for less in places I feel matter.
I was doing a similar breakdown back when I bought my System76. The difference was upgradability. If I ever thought I might need more RAM I’d have to buy that up front on the MacBook air, putting its price over 1,700 off the shelf for the max ram. System76 cost close to the base MacBook air model, but I can add RAM and upgrades at my choosing, find the best price, and install them myself when I need them. That was worth it for me.
The issue is that the M1 (M2 and M3) chips are way more efficient than X86 chips and they gets really good battery life compared to standard PC hardware. So I can hate on the software, the price, the lack of expand-ability, and so much more but I can’t get that efficiency anywhere else.
System76 doesn’t have some massively efficient ARM chip and system to separate them from any other windows laptop maker I just put linux on. You buy System76 because you like System76. I can live with that and I am very willing to spend more for less in places I feel matter.