Reminds me to increase my monthly contribution

That chassis hasn’t been for sale for 4 years, so judge repairability on what they sell now. And regardless of sourcing it from Apple or not, you can easily source the battery.

That discussion is nothing more than a forum post, as much anecdotal as something posted to reddit. Whoever told him the top case had to be replaced is in error; the battery is glued to the top case, but with special adhesive that releases when pulled (like a strip of tape). iFixit calls this a “moderate” on it’s scale of difficulty.

It is glued, but designed to be replaced.

You “apple haters” are just as dogmatic as fanboys, but you act superior because of it.

Don’t know where you’re getting either of those criticisms. You most certainly don’t need to replace the topcase when replacing the battery in any modern apple laptop, and the pairing of the LAS is for calibration purposes.

Insofar as there’s no ethical consumerism under capitalism, I agree. Is Apple better than most or as good as they say? Hardly. But don’t act like you’re some ethical tech warrior because you avoid Apple hardware.

Now, we can have a serious dissuasion about the questionable-to-downright-wrong decisions Apple (the business) is making, and I would think we are 100% aligned on that. I cannot wait until Cook is gone when maybe some sanity can return. Any criticisms of how they’re handling the App Store, their bending of the knee to Trump, and/or the sneaky upsells they’re including in the OS and default apps are fully shared.

Now that the neo has been announced at $499 for students with twice the storage of your example, care to reevaluate the overall value differences?

People who buy Apple buy the whole package, not only specs.

here’s a whole ass laptop for $360

You’re absolutely right, that is an ass laptop.