With the exception of intel macs, they are the Lexus of computers because they are Overbuilt and long after they're discontinued you pop Linux or even Windows on them and they keep on ticking and due to the metal body they survive children better 😅. Not sure about newer apple silicon though.

I would argue they are worse! I had iPhones and a MacBook Pro for years. Switched to Android, Windows, and Linux. Apple is great for people who want a device that just works out of the box, but those devices can't be tweaked to better fit your personal needs. Many features that have been present on personal devices for decades are blocked on Apple devices. They even make up terms like "side loading" so it sounds like you are doing something immoral. Downloading an application from whatever source of your choosing should be #1 feature of any device. As far as I know, you can only download apps from Apple's own store now. All iPhone browsers are reskinned Safari. Apple refuses to adopt existing standards so that users feel inclusive when they see blue texts over green. The list feels endless...

heh it truly depends on a lot of factors. I don't want to "cheap out" on a high-end windows laptop, their thermals are shit, the battery life is non-existent, the keyboard is trash, and the computer frame are rarely decent.

A macbook is expensive, yes, but I've never experienced having to doubt the hardware, or get weird issues with it. It's a peace of mind I'm willing to pay a premium for. I even have a mac mini as a server for the extremely low power consumption & extremely good CPU performance (seriously, this thing competes with i9s for a fraction of the power (I'm exclusively interested in single thread applications))

As for iphones & apple watches, I like to tinker with my stuff way too much for them to make sense to me (which my macbook allows me to do as much as I want)

I'm exclusively talking about my experience with apple silicon, idk how it was before the M1 chips came out.