The PC industry uses wildly inflated prices, especially MSRP. A more realistic price for laptops can be found on various deal sites. A comparable Dell, Lenovo, or HP laptop will cost about .5-.6 of the equivalent macbook pro price. The vast majority of laptops, even after accounting for 1-2 TB of storage and 32 GB RAM cost less than $1.5k. MBPs start around $2k.
Not too familiar with the UK market, but in the US, various AMD Thinkpad T14(s)/T16/P16 gen 3 configurations as well as some HP elitebook ones were in the 1-1.5k price bracket around Black Friday. I got an elitebook 845 g9 with 6850 HS and added a 2 TB nvme ssd and 64 GB RAM to it as aftermarket purchases for a total of ~$1200 after tax, additional warranty and a thunderbolt dock.
I think the other 364 days of the year are more relevant, since Black Friday sales often have extremely limited quantities, and are anything it predictable.
People are claiming 4-6 hours on the hidpi display version. That’s definitely not comparable. I leave my charger at home with my M1.
> The decision is about whether you can match other aspects.
I disagree. The whole package should be compared, because that's what you're paying for. If 2x battery life cost a few hundred more, it's a no brainer, for me.
edit: We're out of reply depth, but this all started with "they're ridiculously expensive" and ended with "there's nothing else in the market".
You need to decide what it is that you're looking for. If you are in the apple battery efficiency camp, there is nothing else to look at. You won't be swayed by pricing. There is nothing else in the market, and all the pricing talk is meaningless. Will you be swayed if I offered you a laptop for $500 ?
This all started with "they're ridiculously expensive" and ended with "there's nothing else in the market". Those two are intimately related.
The complete package is reasonably priced, when compared to other systems. If you completely ignore one part of the package, then sure, you can find something comparable, as my initial comment pointed out with the portable desktop replacements.
But the price on the shelf is for the complete package.
