I own a MacBook. I'm an a limited budget, and yet I paid more for it than I could have for similar spec non Apple hardware. You know why? Because I like it.
My life is full of crappy cheap gadgets and things. Nearly everything I deal with on a day to day basis has been designed to be manufactured as cheaply and as quickly as possible, and it's evident. I like using my little MacBook; it's slim, it's light, it's beautifully built, it's aesthetically pleasing, it has a great keyboard, there's nothing else out there that comes close to the trackpad, it's full of nice touches and it feels like someone has put a lot of thought into it's design.
About the same time, my sister bought herself a Toshiba laptop that, on paper, was equivalent to my macbook, but it cost her about 25% less. The toshiba is almost twice as fat, has a horrid keyboard, an even worse touch pad, a battery life of about two hours and flexes like you wouldn't believe.
I guess it's similar to buying expensive clothes or paying more for a nice car (I have neither)
After a few years, my macbook has basically fallen apart, gotten stains that wont come out from book covers, the top case still cracking even after replacing it several times over. The build quality is pretty irritating. My girlfriends netbook of 2 years although works just fine and is of identical thickness. I would like a sony vaio Z series with it's 13" 1080p screen, dual SSDs and 3 pounds of weight vs. a macbook, but have to use it because of iPhone development.
I agree macs are beautiful and buying good tools is smart, but I love my Toshiba. It's a tank. It's been around the world with me, banged around on trains, planes, buses in second and third world countries, I've slept on top of my laptop bag with the sucker inside, and it still runs. It's got cracks in the case and the keyboard is battered, but it still runs. My old Toshiba was a tank too, it went five years before dying, and I run my laptops hard.
I love the aesthetics of a Macbook Air for instance, but I'd be terrified to travel with one the way I travel.
If that's how you see it, then yes, I guess I do. (obvious troll is obvious?)
The thing I've learned is that people often value things differently to how I do, and for reasons I don't often understand.
Personally, I find Windows to be a hugely annoying OS to use, and very limiting, but I understand that for almost everybody else it suits their needs fine and they like it. I'm a big fan of Linux, but I realise that may not suit everyone.
Same with music; you wouldn't believe what I listen to, and I don't imagine for a second you'd like it (hint: if an album doesn't have at least a few tracks that go for over 10 minutes, I'm not interested), and the reverse is possibly true as well.
What am I getting at here? Thankfully, we're not all clones of each other, and often personal tastes are very different. Expecting some stranger to justify their choices to you kind of indicates you haven't figured this yet.
Thank you for having one of the few reasoned statements of why you like a mac I've seen in this post! It's a breath of fresh air!
You like it simply because you like it. You recognize some people may not like it, and may like other things. And that's ok. You think your Mac is fine for you, and does what you want to do the way you want to do them and it may or may not be the case for other people and find that to be and alright way for the world to be.
Except macs cost less and are better in every way. It is kinda funny that you guys have been telling this lie for 20 years and you think people don't all know you're full of it. Pathetic, but funny.
My life is full of crappy cheap gadgets and things. Nearly everything I deal with on a day to day basis has been designed to be manufactured as cheaply and as quickly as possible, and it's evident. I like using my little MacBook; it's slim, it's light, it's beautifully built, it's aesthetically pleasing, it has a great keyboard, there's nothing else out there that comes close to the trackpad, it's full of nice touches and it feels like someone has put a lot of thought into it's design.
About the same time, my sister bought herself a Toshiba laptop that, on paper, was equivalent to my macbook, but it cost her about 25% less. The toshiba is almost twice as fat, has a horrid keyboard, an even worse touch pad, a battery life of about two hours and flexes like you wouldn't believe.
I guess it's similar to buying expensive clothes or paying more for a nice car (I have neither)