Having made this post on Arstechnica forums, I decided it would probably be a good thing to post here as well (given the ongoing debate).
The context was a thread asking "Will the [spiffy improved x86 chipset based] new Windows laptops finally get around to killing Powerbooks?" available here.
One thing Mac laptops do *really* well is talk to other Mac laptops. There may be some features like this on the Wintel side, but certainly not stock with Windows.
Some examples I can come up with off the top of my head that I don't believe exist on the Windows side (I may be wrong at this point, please correct me if I am):
Auto-switching Gigabit ports - I don't need to carry a crossover cable to direct connect between two computers - the network port will perform the crossover internally if needed. I believe some x86 laptops have this feature, but I don't believe many do. Also, gigabit is nice for high speed transfers.
Firewire Target Disk mode: Turn your laptop into a big external hard drive. Useful for doing repair work on a laptop, transferring large amounts of data back and forth (gigs upon gigs), and retrieving data if the mainboard has problems (target disk mode usually will still work).
Booting from Firewire drives: Apart from the geek factor of booting a Mac from an iPod, if the OS X install somehow gets FUBAR it's trivial to boot from another disk (and since the drivers are all included in the OS, even another Mac in target disk mode works - quite well).
Rendezvous/iChat & wireless: Out in the middle of nowhere, one laptop creates a wireless network, the other one connects, bring iChat online, say "Hi" to the other person, and transfer files around. To my knowledge, there is no parallel in Windows - you can create networks and join them, but you still have to use SMB shares or FTP. Not a problem for geek types, but still more steps, and iChat/Rendezvous is easy enough anyone can do it.
Wide range of screen brightnesses: Not a big deal, but it beats the 2-3 brightness levels I see on a lot of x86 laptops (some may be better at this, I really don't know).
Backlit keyboard: Probably present on some Windows laptops by now, but doing presentation work in dark rooms it is *very* useful.
Standard power adapters: Since the TiBooks (and I believe the toilet seat iBooks too, but I'm not positive on those), all the Apple laptops have used the exact same power adapter plug. The newer ones have the light band, but old adapters still work. This is a significant improvement over the "Widget of the day" x86 laptop power adapters. If you forget your Apple power adapter, the chances of someone else having one (at a conference or such) are significantly greater than someone having your particular x86 laptop power adapter.
Linux/BSD compatibility: Some of the more recent x86 chipsets have not been Linux friendly. The Centrino wireless support comes to mind - there's all sorts of interesting hacks to get it to work under Linux. Power management, speed stepping, display drivers, and assorted other things tend to cause problems on some x86 laptops (not all, but a lot have some sort of problem that's not trivial to fix). Many of the local Free Unix Group members have various types of Apple portable hardware, running some *nix. The hardware is standard enough that there are no real problems with it.
I've personally made use of all these features, and some others I'm sure I'm not remembering. They're mostly small things, but combined they add up to a functionality that I haven't found in the x86 laptop world.
-=Russ=-
Posted by rgraves at January 19, 2005 12:54 AMUm...
(_)_)IIIIIIIIID ~ ~ ~ EXPENSIVE CHEESE ~ ~ ~
Posted by: larfnarf at January 19, 2005 03:32 AMNicely written.
Posted by: Matt Heerema at January 19, 2005 09:14 AMI like exposé! The windows alternatives I've seen are less than impressive. Wait.... what am I talking about??? Macs suck!!!
Posted by: Benjamin at January 20, 2005 05:18 PMI believe autosensing is in the gigabit ethernet spec, so any laptop (or otherwise) will have autosensing.
I haven't seen many x86 laptops that come with gigE yet, but there's a simple reason for that: No one's got gigE switching equipment.
My laptop's screen has 6 levels of brightness. My old P3 laptop has 7 levels, and a cute keyboard illuminating LED. I'm sure it sucks down less juice than a full keyboard backlight. However, I haven't seen any non-thinkpads with that feature. Frankly, having my keyboard backlit would annoy the piss out of me. I assume the user can turn it off. It's a matter of taste.
The latest thinkpads are very linux friendly. Sure, you can say "yes, but not all x86 laptops are linux friendly!" But then I can say "OK, an apple laptop from 1987 isn't linux friendly, either." The point is, you can get linux friendliness on both sides of the gap.
I repair computers for a living. I have never run into a situation where I thought "golly, if I could just turn my laptop into a giant hard drive...", but like you say, I'm sure it's handy. newer x86 machines can boot from USB, which is just as convenient as booting from an iPod. Oh wait, except several hundred dollars cheaper :)
Power adapters: Laptops is laptops. if 10% of the people in the room have apple laptops, I think it's probably a fair guess that at least another 15% have HP laptops, 15% have toshiba, 15% have IBM, 15% have gateway, 15% have dell, etc. Sure, it might be hard to find someone with the exact adapter you need, but again, as a computer repair person, i see lots of x86 machines that use the same rebranded power bricks. I'll say you've got somewhat of a minor point here, but it's nowhere near the slam-dunk you claim.
wireless: Windows machines can do ad-hoc networking too. It's really not that hard.
Posted by: keith twombley at March 28, 2005 01:57 AM