Laptop computers have made significant strides, and in 2023, they’re better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: That a powerful gaming laptop is as user-friendly and productive as the Apple iPad, which is what everyone should obviously be using. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where these fancy “laptop” computers fall short as daily drivers for normal people like me.

PC gaming laptops will, most, likely, fail, for:

• People who need the App Store
• People that want everything to work exactly like it does on the iPad
• Anyone who wants a simple way to install Angry Birds without trying to use needlessly complicated things such as a mouse and keyboard
• Apple apps that won’t run because you bought a non-Apple laptop
• The performance overhead of that extra complexity costs at least 5-15% of what you’d otherwise expect from such a powerful machine
• People who need to run FaceTime and whose friends won’t consider any alternatives outside the Apple way of life
• Serious scientific labs with policies that require iPad-only data acquisition
• Musicians, artists, and customer service agents who’ve built their whole careers around iPad-only software
• Developers and sysadmins, because you’re probably administering Apple systems for which the iPad is indispensible

Laptop computers are great, I love them but I don’t sugar coat it and I’m not delusional like you.

If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with other Apple iPad users then PC latop apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. But once you’ve got to work with other iPad users it’s “game over” — the “alternatives” just aren’t up to it.

iPads aren’t that expensive and they work right out of the box. Software runs fine, everything on the App Store is supported whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive laptop computer experience.

It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months? aeons?) you want to spend fiddling with a mouse and keyboard to set up things which simply work out of the box on the Apple iPad for a minimal fee. Buy an iPad! You know it’s the only sensible thing to do and the ROI will be fantastic!

You can buy a second-hand iPad for around €4 that comes with everything you’ll need. And every iPad comes with IOS for no extra charge, so why wait? Buy it! Buy it now!

“They hated him because he spoke the truth. I can’t even get “simple” apps like Apple iMove to run on my PC. And there’s some kind of “video card driver” that needs “updating”? No sane person could ever cope with this. No amount of googling or even the fabled tech support genuis of “chatgpt” was able to help me. It just won’t work. This whole Internet is delusional, if they think that laptop computers are usable for the average Joe and I’m an Apple iPad expert so I know what I’m talking about. It’s too much hassle. I just want to get things done.” — Average Joe

Still thinking that 2023 is the year of the laptop computer? Think again. The Apple iPad is all the computing you will ever need.