Recommendations of non-Apple products with similar longevity? (kbin.social)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by wrath-sedan@kbin.social to c/technology@beehaw.org

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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!

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[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 35 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] TheGayTramp@lemmy.ca 30 points 10 months ago

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

[-] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 23 points 10 months ago

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?

[-] fat_flying_pigs@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

[-] unix_joe@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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.

[-] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago

What about saying that their entire business model is exploiting stockholm syndrome?

[-] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 10 months ago

A bit. You can download your data from them, it’s not much.

[-] wrath-sedan@kbin.social 17 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] tun@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] wrath-sedan@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

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.