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!
I’ve had good luck with Dell,I recently was using a old Dell Inspiron again to access my VM from. Stuck a SSD in it and upgraded the ram and it works surprisingly great, I think it’s from like 2015 but the i5 in it still runs super quick.
For phones I’m really liking my Samsung, I upgraded to a s22 from my pixel 3 last year and having Samsung Dex is pretty awesome, I used to build up a little PC to use on my breaks at work but now I just spin up dex on a spare monitor and can parsec into my VM and do anything I’d want without carrying a laptop
Similar longevity to Apple products isn’t a high bar.
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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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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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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.
A cursory google search would show you that your opinion is wrong. If you have sources to the contrary I’d be down to see them. Literally just type “do apple machines last longer than windows machines” or whatever you want and take your pick.
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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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!”
What does it say about you that you’re here providing meta-commentary on it? I’d say you’re the most useless person in the room. 
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.
Oneplus phones are good. Beastly specs and run LineageOS. Also not too challenging or expensive to replace (most) parts.
I buy a lot of my laptops from Dell Outlet. Extremely good for the price and I haven’t had a single one die on me yet - and the first was bought 13 years ago!
My work machines get cycled out after 3 years, but I’ve had good results with Lenovo and Dell.
For phones, new pixel with grapheneos.
The new pixel phones have 5 year support windows now.
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.
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!
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
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
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
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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What about saying that their entire business model is exploiting stockholm syndrome?
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
xiaomi. super cheap and top notch specs. have multiple phones and laptops. even without case the phones are almost unbreakable
Can confirm, accidentally threw my Poco down the concrete staircase (and ~1.5m drop) outside my flat and it somehow didn’t even scratch the screen!
Can confirm, I bought a Poco phone F1 and I still use it to this day. Bought it in 2018
Business devices from HP (Eliebook). Having mine since 2018, runs like a charm
My Lenovo Legion laptop is going strong for 5+ years now, also a Nokia smartphone is 3+ already. Had terrible experience with ASUS and HP laptops in the past and had to change them after 2-3 years of use.
- Laptop: Framework. Modular hardware, easy to upgrade and repair.
- Smartphone: Pixel + GrapheneOS.
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+
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!
Dude did you get the HP Envy x360 too? My hinge failed a year in, I got the panel replaced, a year later the hinge fails again. My screen hasn’t cracked but I can’t close the laptop anymore… Gonna get a Thinkpad L14 and hope it holds up a bit better, since Thinkpads are known for decent build quality.
YES, it was super disappointing because otherwise it was a solid laptop. Cracked the corner of my screen and is basically non-portable now. Currently have it hooked up to an external monitor and keyboard just to make it until I can get a new laptop.
Read up on it and apparently it’s been a huge issue in HP’s build quality since at least 2017. There’s a class action lawsuit you can sign up for and hopefully be compensated in some way.
Mine works perfectly otherwise too, thinking of giving it to my grandma so she can use it at home. Huge shame…
I knew about the class action lawsuit but I live outside of the US :C
Good luck getting a new laptop, hope it lasts!
Aw super sweet of you to think of your grandma.
Thank you! HP Envy x360 design flaw solidarity, friend ✊
Man HP just doesn’t know how to make hinges anymore - I’ve had the hinge on two different consumer-grade HP laptops crap out within a few months/years over the past decade!
thinkpad T series laptop
