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!
Don’t buy HP laptops. They’re terrible. Framework is great, and Lenovo and Dell are generally pretty good. Put Linux on it if you care about privacy.
It’s a little early to pronounce longevity on Framework. They could be great, the pieces are there for them to be great, but the whole enterprise could fail and leave you with an upgradeable/fixable laptop with no upgrades or parts.
At the very least, if Framework dies, many of the parts are standardized, and the ones that aren’t are mostly open source. The SSD, RAM, WiFi card, and screen connector are all standardized. The expansion cards use USB-C and have an open-source shape; many people have already made third-party expansion cards. The motherboard has an open-source layout, and there are open-source CAD files to make custom enclosures (again, people have already done it). There are general schematics with pinouts on their Github, and they’ve provided exact schematics to repair stores. If they die, you end up with a laptop that is more repairable than almost any other, as well as a community with enough information to keep it alive if they want to.
I’m not knocking Framework at all here (and in fact they may be my next laptop), but repairability and long-lasting don’t quite mean the same thing. Usually when people say “long lasting” they mean something that is durable and reliable. Repairability can contribute to that, of course, but the option of 3D printing my own parts, or open specs on certain parts, doesn’t really make the device last longer without breaking. At best, it gives me some options to remediate it when it fails, and if I’m not capable of making my own parts, then my only option may be to buy parts anyway and deal with downtime.
I mean, a single year upgradable parts is already better than 99% of the market, thats not a hard bar to pass.
Just wanted to expand a bit on your comment - Dell have a few laptop product lines, and the Latitude line is the business one that should be the most reliable/longest-supported. I’ve had a few Latitude laptops that lasted 3 years each before I changed jobs and left them behind, and was satisfied with them. Worked well with Linux which was a bigger deal back in 2015 than it is now.
Other companies are probably the same - Lenovo thinkpads are good, yoga not so much.
Totally agree about Linux, it’s come a long way in the last 10 years and you can do basically everything there now. Battery life may be affected, I think that’s one of the last areas they need to work on.
Apple products are without critique for sure. But if they last 2 or 3 times as long, are they all that anti-consumer? Compared to Windows, are they all that anti-privacy? I suggest you take another look, without your preconceived notions of Apple products.
Yeah saying Apple is anti-privacy is like… what? Compared to who? Apple is consistently fighting against meta and google (and governments) in favour of user privacy
Is it far fetched to say that they fight against Meta and Google because they want to be the only ones who have your data?
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They also only fight for privacy as a marketing differentiator from Google in the US. Their privacy stance varies from country to country.
If Apple had the same capability to harvest and mine user data as Google, there’s no doubt in my mind they would already be doing so. Their inability to produce a viable cloud service and major security and update issues with iCloud imply it’s a lack of ability and not any pro-user/privacy-oriented sentiment in the company.
What about saying that their entire business model is exploiting stockholm syndrome?
A bit. You can download your data from them, it’s not much.
Apple’s business plan isn’t to sell your data to advertisers but rather to sell you (presumably) high quality items that people are willing to pay a premium for.
To Apple, having your data is a liability rather than an asset and thus they’d like to have as little of it as possible yet still being able to offer you the Apple experience.
Even if they didn’t sell any data, that doesn’t mean they don’t collect a bunch.
You can tell me all you want, but personal data being so incredibly valuable paired with the fact that Apple was the first trillion dollar company…
Their overpriced hardware doesn’t play the only role here.
I think Apple is better out of the box than most other companies in terms of privacy, which comes from a lot more of their profit coming from hardware rather than data harvesting (ie Meta, Google). Although the EFF has said that’s more an indictment of other tech companies than saying Apple is particularly good.
I do think the lack of customization in macOS makes it more difficult to harden your security settings. PrivacyGuides lists their concerns along with their recommended configuration here.
At a quick glace …
Most of the recommendations apply to all the major OS e.g. turn off Bluetooth, do not share location, keep admin account but use standard account for daily use, keep firewall on, etc.
A lot of privacy thing can also be opt-out.
OSCP, SIP and multi layer security hardening are where users could not customize.
in summary, Linux > macOS > Windows.
For sure, I think that’s a good rule of thumb and lines up pretty well with “how much this OS relies on your data to make a buck.”
I was reading there too that most of the privacy and security concerns in macOS are in iCloud, but with Advanced Tracking Protection you can make that E2EE now, or just go with an alternative cloud service.
Ah, ok interesting take on that. I see your point
Do they last longer? I have an IPhone 3 somewhere that just decided to stop working, yet my HTC with Android 1.2 still works fine.
Most of what’s held me back from Apple products has been their planned obsolescence, where the OS was no longer supported, which I’ve never had with a PC. I’ve had my cheap second hand laptop for 7 years now and that still works fine with the latest software
“Planned obsolescence”? Like where the iPhone 7 and on have received 6 to 7 years of software updates?
I can’t use the iPhone 3 I have in a drawer, even though there’s nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile my HTC that runs Android 1.2 still works with Google maps just fine.
I was also pissed off when all the OSX software dropped support for single-core Intel processors which rendered some very expensive 2 year old machines at work useless for anything Mac-specific.
For context, my Dad is still using a PC I built out of parts recovered from a skip in 2008, and it works just fine.
Well there was no such thing as the “iPhone 3”. There was the iPhone 3G or the iPhone 3GS, but no “iPhone 3”.
And this doesn’t prove anything lol an iPhone 3G can still connect to a 3G network and make calls and browse the internet.
Yes, it’s a 3G. In black if minutiae matter to you.
It doesn’t have maps, and most websites are unsupported even though it’s far newer than the old Android phone.
So you’re angry that a Google service doesn’t have longevity on an Apple product?
Your argument makes no sense. Who even cares if these ancient paperweights work? That’s not “planned obsolescence”, that’s just hardware and software getting old.
Well, I went and looked it up and apparently since the iPhone 4 onwards Apple actually started to get their shit together and started supporting their hardware for more than 3 years … I do find it funny though that an unsupported iPhone can’t connect to the app store at all while even the evil Google’s old apps can still get live data without problems.
I am leaning towards a new MacBook for the reasons you stated among others. I came here to get some new perspectives, and to explore other options I might not be aware of yet.
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.
I’m about to give some good and bad:
Apple is horrid for repair, and has some serious shortcomings in design. Their newest laptops now have a not insignificant chance to self-destruct in a completely unrecoverable way.
But the performance is great, battery life is sublime, sleek and rigid case design. Plus the ecosystem perks of you own multiple apple devices.
But because of the design issues, you MUST put significant thought into which upgrades you buy bc you’ll never be able to change the configuration of your laptop. Make sure to have a solid backup strategy. And factor apple care plus into your pricing, bc it’s necessary with these devices. Only apple can fix 95% of problems with your laptop, and without apple are plus their repair pricing is insane. Even with apple care you may have to struggle significantly with them to get certain things covered. It’s just part of the game if you want to buy one of their devices.
The only laptop i would recommend over a MacBook are frameworks, but I have no idea how durable they are. Just that they will last as long as replacement parts would be available.
No one says the devices are anti consumer, except for some that are intentionally made incompatible with common replacement parts (missing “apple logo”). The walled garden is.
It’s not just a “missing Apple logo” that makes parts not work. If you swap a part from one Apple device to another identical Apple device, it will often not work. For example, the Face ID and Touch ID sensors are paired to the logic board.
They are paired, which sort of makes sense if you want to try and avoid people modifying them to defeat security, but should have a way for the end user to update it if they’re very sure they want to.
They sell the parts these days and will pair them for you. They also sell the tools required for the fix (and also rent them out).
The self-repair scheme is a facade, they charge just as much for you to do it yourself as they would charge to do it for you.
As far as touch/face-id, all you have to do is have the registered fingerprints tied to the sensor. If you switch sensor, then finger/face needs to be re-registered. In fact, I think it already works that way, but with the added unnecessary step of getting daddy cook’s kiss of approval in the new sensor.
Any laptop designed for enterprise like Lenovo Thinkpad or hp elitebook/ProBook
Your laptop was an HP pavilion, right? Those are designed to barely last the warranty period. Their engineers on this product line have a long experience of carefully choosing plastics that will degrade within 24 months
IMHO MacBooks are super overrated. OS support is not as long as normal computers (5 years instead of “indefinite”) and they still have hardware flaws to hinges and keyboard
I don’t currently use macOS, but macOS support is typically about 7 years, sometimes up to 10. Apple supports the 3 latest versions of its operating system.
Mainstream Windows support seems to be about 1-3 years.
What are you talking about? You can take a Pentium 4 from twenty years ago and install latest windows 10. Microsoft releases a new version every 6 to 12 months but the computer updates automatically. Of course it makes no sense for them to continue supporting an old version that anyway everyone can update from without issues
And once apple decided the os is not compatible, your computer is on death row. Latest apps won’t run. Ok, can get security updates, but you needed to run latest final cut pro x? Bad luck, insert credit card and purchase new Mac
You, in fact, cannot install Windows 10 on a Pentium 4.
Ok then an athlon64 from the year 2003
So I’ve only somewhat recently got into the Apple ecosystem, but I can tell you that once a macOS version loses support it’s technically on death row but nowhere near as dramatic as you mention.
I recently daily drove a Mac running macOS Catalina (2019) and I was surprised that it still ran everything I needed for my IT degree (Zoom, Office 365 suite, VSCode, Signal, Tailscale, etc.) and the only real issue I noticed was Apple’s Xcode not being compatible.
I also own a Mac mini 2012 with i5/8GB, and while I don’t use it often, my parents daily drive that as a smart TV and web browsing machine with no real issues at all. The last official version of macOS on it was Catalina, but I used community patches to push it up to Monterey (2021) and it’s totally fine.
I think when you own and actually use a Mac, you will find in its own way, that they do last longer than Windows equivalents. I have a 2012 Latitude with i5/8GB and yes I could run the latest Win10 natively (but not Win11 without hacks) but I don’t think it exactly cuts the mustard anymore, and I think most people who would use it would generally agree. Given its age I would just Linux it up if I wanted to daily drive it.
IMHO MacBooks are super overrated. OS support is not as long as normal computers (5 years instead of “indefinite”) and they still have hardware flaws to hinges and keyboard
And batteries. Swollen batteries in MacBooks were very common at my work. I have never seen it in any other laptop but Desktop Support would just react to it with ‘o, another one’.
HP’s consumer side definitely declined rapidly in quality over the last 10-15 years - had an HP that needed repairs after a few months back in '14 whereas I’ve got a Pavilion from '04 or so that’s still going!
it varies , I had 2015 zbook, HP repaired it under warranty about 4 times for ongoing undiagnosable video failures. (At end it had new display and display cable, new GPU, new mobo and new keyboard, since they could not locate what was triggering display problem) However 2017 Zbook still chugging alomg with 0 issues.
Framework laptop with a Linux OS. Still waiting for a decent phone option to come up
Fairphone is also 100% repairable like the framework. 5 year warranty and software support.
Edit: The rumor is that the Fairphone 5 will be announced next week
I would really consider to get a fairphone if they had a smaller variant. Lately I’ve grown tired of only having huge phones and I don’t mind making some hardware sacrifices if I can use it comfortably.
The Asus Zenfone 10 was a good candidate, but their bootloader unlocking tool is still down, so you may be locked to only 2 years of OS updates
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I would not trust apple products. Self cracking display on laptop? Updates that slow down devices on purpose? no, thanks
Never had any issues on any of my macbooks and I’ve had them for over 5 years each. My 2012 mbp still runs as good as the day I got it!
I can’t say the same about my 2012 mbp, it’s been basically useless for like 5 years now.
I was referring mainly to newer models, the older line around 2012 was really good.
Didn’t Apple get hit with a class action lawsuit over their 2011 Macbook Pros frying themselves?
You are right, I didn’t know about this.
Fair enough, you’re right they were great. Tbf everything up until the 2015 models were solid, as they were somewhat upgradable. Though, I’ve got a new M1 MAX and it’s easily the best laptop I’ve ever owned!
Performance wise, sure… but I also believe that’s the model that, if you’re lucky, will fry itself to 100% uselessness, and make your data completely unrecoverable.
If you must use a MacBook, keep backups, and keep AppleCare on it. Just consider it your apple device subscription.
My key caps have been falling off my work provided M1 Air. Thankfully, the keyboard is so crap I can barely tell the difference.
Ended up repurposing an old XPS 13 that I found in a supply closet as my dev box.
Wayland+Sway == Infinitely better experience
- Laptop: Framework. Modular hardware, easy to upgrade and repair.
- Smartphone: Pixel + GrapheneOS.
Framework definitely seems the way to go if you want a long-lived laptop - as long as you live in one of the few countries that they sell to!
Pixel + Graphene OS is such a good combination! I’ve been using it for months now and I feel free with it.
I wish small pixels were still a thing, now they are all 6inch+
Laptops: ThinkPad P-series. The repairability that the T-series used to have with slightly beefier specs and better heatsinks. Great for Linux.
Phones: FairPhone 4 (FP5 will likely be announced end of the month so wait for that) - user repairable, supports alternate operating systems, 7 years official OS support from FairPhone.
The real P-series, though, the P14s and P16s are just T14 and T16 with slightly more aggressive fan curves so they boost a bit more.
That said, the T series are still very nice laptops, they’ve just followed the industry trend of sacrificing user replaceable RAM, and in some cases, wifi. They still have published hardware maintenance manuals, and readily available parts for repair.
I just grabbed a P14s gen4 AMD, because I need 64GB RAM for my intended purpose, but prefer and need no more than an AMD APU. I still might sacrifice part of my intention and get a T14s instead, for quieter operation and slightly better build quality.
ThinkPads are considered the Windows/Linux equivalent of Apple laptops in business settings.
And owned by Lenovo. Who in the past loaded unremovable bloatware reinstallers into their BIOS so that fresh installs always reloaded their shit.
If you want a Linux laptop, System76 is your best bet.
Superfish. Never forget. Literally BIOS-level malware, and people still buy things from Lenovo.
I mean, they only put that on consumer grade devices. lol
So? Why would you trust a company to not put it on ThinkPads as well if they think they could get away with it?
Or Tuxedo for people, who live in Europe.
I love my x1 from lenovo. No bloat at all and excellent customer service. I broke a USB port and they sent a guy to my house to fix it.
For phones, new pixel with grapheneos.
The new pixel phones have 5 year support windows now.
They have 3 years of operating system updates and 5 years of security updates. Source
Thanks, I’ll adjust my claim to 5 years. I must have misremembered re the longevity of security updates.
Thanks, Pixel+GrapheneOS has been the most tempting iOS alternative for me so far.
Similar longevity to Apple products isn’t a high bar.
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There’s a decade-old Windows 10 machine around here that says otherwise.
And even older Linux machines.
And their hardware still works.
There’s also a MacBook that started falling apart a couple of years after purchase, and an iPhone whose battery life has gone to hell in only a couple of years (meanwhile, some even-older Pixel 3as are still running like champs).
Apple hardware is junk.
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My point is that most computers last longer than Apple ones.
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God its like battle of the neckbeards, “quite incorrect kind sir, MacBooks run for years, challenge me again and I will make you rue the day! I tip my fedora to you sir! Good day!”
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I am a source. Over the last few decades, most computers and phones around here worked fine throughout their service lives and either are still in service or were replaced because they became obsolete, but about half of the Apples suffered hardware failure of some kind—two Macs died, one MacBook’s video cuts out if the lid is opened more than a couple of inches and its keyboard is very glitchy, and one iPhone’s battery life has become terrible despite reporting 90% battery health. Seriously not impressed with Apple hardware.
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I’m typing this on a ten year MacBook Pro that is running a currently supported version of MacOS and runs as fast as the day I bought it. I have two MacBook Airs that are eleven years old and still in secondary service. I have a pile of Dell and Lenovo Windows laptops of similar age that can still run but are basically doorstops or suitable for beater Linux or BSD machines, definitely not daily drivers.
I’m typing this on a ten year MacBook Pro
Lucky you, I guess, because I sure haven’t had such good fortune.
that is running a currently supported version of MacOS
How is that possible? The almost-dead MacBook I mentioned is younger than yours and is stuck on Monterey.
and runs as fast as the day I bought it.
Probably. I didn’t say anything about how fast they are, because all common platforms in use today still run reasonably well on decade-old hardware.
If it had 10ish GB of RAM, at least. Browsers eat RAM like popcorn.
I have a pile of Dell and Lenovo Windows laptops of similar age that can still run but are basically doorstops or suitable for beater Linux or BSD machines, definitely not daily drivers.
I’m guessing you didn’t pay $2500 for them, though. That’s down to specs, not manufacturer. Apple hardware is almost invariably high-spec and therefore quite fast, but Apple thankfully doesn’t have a monopoly on fast computers.
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'Fraid so.
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Being blasted with ads is your idea of a better experience? You and I clearly don’t live in the same reality.
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The browser. You are forced to use Safari. Safari does not allow extensions or otherwise block ads. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin on my phone.
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For phones 5+ years of updates is good compared to the alternatives, and is why I have one. For a computer, on the other hand, it’s just not very impressive. Perhaps FairPhones come close (don’t know how long their software is supported but their selling point is longevity), but their specs aren’t that impressive. On the flip side you get something repairable.
MacBooks are often built better with higher quality materials than many other laptops, but it is essentially a computer. Most computers that have high enough specs will always run the latest version of most Linux distributions or Windows barring any need for weird drivers from the past century. Feels a little iffy to have a perfectly good computer that won’t update software anymore just because. Up until recently you could just install some Linux OS on your old MacBooks when it went out of support but honestly I don’t know whether you can still do that after they started making non-x86 stuff.
With all that said, haven’t seen many laptops physically outlive MacBooks’ updates. With the exception of some ThinkPads and possibly some XPS models. Plastic laptops with plastic hinges tend to struggle keeping up, especially if the display is on the larger side. A large gaming laptop living the life of a typical MacBook, going to cafes and university in a backpack every day is probably gonna have more stress on hinges etc.
As for HP I have only heard bad stuff about them for the last 10 years or so. Don’t think I’ll buy stuff from them due to their evil printers that won’t scan without ink etc.
Not many specific recommendations here but just some observations I have made. Hope it’s helpful.
honestly I don’t know whether you can still do that after they started making non-x86 stuff
Asahi Linux isn’t far off and I’m guessing it will be ready for prime time before anything Apple Silicon loses support.
I agree on HP printer subscription ink, that is an outright scam. But I have had an HP 2017 Zbook for daily use and travel and 0 issues.
I can’t say if the quality is still the same, but I bought a Chromebook when they first came out for $99 and that little buddy has lasted me a decade now. It’s seen me through a deployment, a degree, several moves, and has been through a load of abuse and come out the other side working as spiffy as day one, minus some scuff on the screen. (Unfortunately Google has recently aged it out, but I’ll find a use for it with a virtual machine perhaps).
I imagine most little netbooks are similarly built and can withstand a boatload, although their computing power definitely lacks.
I have an aged out Chromebook running lubuntu just fine. In my case, I had to open the bottom and remove a “write protect” screw, then it installed and it’s still going strong. I had to mess around with the keyboard settings a bit, but otherwise it worked just great!
thinkpad T series laptop
Okay i’m not sure how much + is in your 1000$ and obviously there’s a manufacturing defect at olay here. But man a MacBook is 2000$+ I have heard this argument too often unfortunately:
I tried Android once and it was horrible so i just went back to iPhone©™ and now everything is great again.
Context: they bought a 300$ Samsung phone and expected it to perform the same as their previous 800$ iPhone…
And this just sounds too similar. “I previously had a 2000$+ device, now I bought a 1000$+ one and it doesn’t perform the same.” Except for the part where it’s also a shitty brand and the device had a manufacturing defect.
I’m no apple shill, but every Samsung I’ve had felt great for a few months. And rapidly started to run like absolute shit. Then I swore off them for a couple of years, and came back when everyone was like “this one’s different, it’s not like the ones before” and then I had the same issue. So I got a Pixel, and that was so much better software wise. But that pixel 2 had a design defect that saw lots of devices having GPS problems and that was annoying as hell when I was trying to do Uber.
My past 2 phones have been iPhones. Not perfect, I miss lots of the customization and developer level control over stuff… but my phone works, reliably. I was pissed about throttlegate , I had one of those phones affected, but the phone was like 4/5 years old… and I decided that my experience with other phones was worse, and got another iPhone.
I’m feeling the need to upgrade again, and while I can’t endorse a lot of the anti-consumer shit apple does… I need a reliable phone. So, hopefully there’s another option out there for me.
Honestly I had a OnePlus 6T for 4 years and after that started feeling slightly slow and i need it for testing at work, I now have a Pixel 7. Both the 6T and the pixel are great phones. My only regret is my own fault, i want to have a telephoto camera but thought that it’s not worth buying the pixel 7 pro for… There’s many good options out there. But i admit they are harder to find. It’s not “buy iPhone” and be done with it.
But honestly every Apple device i’ve used in the past made me dislike Apples software more and more. It’s fine as long as you aren’t used to anything else and aren’t a Poweruser i guess. But there’s just so many weird decisions in the software. And it’s all locked down to hell.
I’ll have to look into the latest androids, but I’m sure the only one that’s really a contender will be the latest Pixel. I love the option to use Graphene OS also.
Just unlock the damn bootloader and install a custom ROM.
Samsungs (at least the ones I had) don’t have unlockable bootloaders. And the pixel, well custom Roms don’t fix hardware issues.
Samsungs have unlockable bootloaders, hell, I’m typing this from a SM-P610 running LineageOS 20.
Idk all the particulars, I just know my S7 is still not bootloader unlockable, and pretty sure previous galaxy phones weren’t either. That was my last Samsung. Not sure if this was a US thing, a T-Mobile/Sprint think (who I had back then), or a Samsung thing. But HTC and Pixel phones seemed to always be unlockable.
Older devices are harder to bootloader unlock, but nowadays they make it easier. My Verizon Note 3’s unlocked too. The carrier usually makes it harder.
Oneplus phones are good. Beastly specs and run LineageOS. Also not too challenging or expensive to replace (most) parts.
