EDIT: Getting a ton of great responses thanks everyone <3 Once this is up for 24 hours or so I’ll make another edit summarizing everyone’s recs for future reference. Keep ‘em coming!
TL;DR Have any recs for non-Apple phones/laptops that have lifespans of at least 5+ years?
Wanted to get everyone’s opinion on want brands/products have worked for them. I’m lightly techy and not afraid to put some effort in, but also don’t want to build everything from scratch. I think Apple’s products are often anti-consumer, anti-privacy, anti-yadda yadda yadda.
At the same time, with both phones and laptops, I’ve found my Apple products to have double or even triple the lifespan of any other brand. I did my research and bought a $1000+ HP laptop with Ryzen7 a little over two years ago, and due to a flaw in the hinge which is now subject to a class action lawsuit, the screen has cracked and it’s mostly unusable. Other purchase haven’t failed quite that dramatically but don’t tend to last as long. On the other hand, my or my partner’s old Macbooks and iPhones are easily seeing 5+ years of use in addition to software updates.
So let me know what’s worked for you!
I think the problem is there is no grey area in opinions on Apple. Either they are perfect and pro-privacy and all good (not true), or they are anti-consumer, anti-privacy, anti-user pro-capitalist (again, mostly not true.) Truth is somewhere in between, and judging the product without one of those preconceived notions above is helpful.
For me, I could never use a laptop by another maker because the trackpad on non-Apple devices are (in my experience) absolute garbage.
Trackpads have come a long way on windows laptops, one major thing to lookout for is “precision trackpad”, Microsoft has this new standard which actually brings their trackpads into the realm of apple. Though specific implementations can still vary a bit.
Great to know, however I don’t ever see myself buying a Windows laptop. A superbly built laptop (and trackpad) running Linux is the grail.