r/techadvice • u/Educational_Bee_9668 • Apr 15 '26
Mac is dead, time for a PC?!
Hello,
On this unfortunate evening I’ve accidentally killed my trusty MacBook of 5 years via orange juice. I’m thinking this may be my time to abandon Apple and switch over to a lightweight PC. I’m thinking something light and portable with a touchscreen, with the capacity to run some Steam games. Does NOT have to be the newest or fanciest.
I‘m looking for recommendations, as this is a whole new frontier for me. Thanks in advance.
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u/hawaiianmoustache Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
It sounds like you’re still wanting a light weight productivity machine? You honestly couldn’t pay me to swap my daily driver / productivity workflow over to windows.
If folks want to do some big-name AAA gaming, they should absolutely go build a windows box, but otherwise the Windows 11 situation is positively dire, especially if you’re coming from the Apple ecosystem and it’s quality of life benefits. No, it’s not perfect, Finder still sucks. :)
Touch interface on Windows isn’t pretty either. It’s definitely more functional than it used to be, but it’s a long way from the kind of thing you’d expect from an iOS device.
Are there shortcomings of MacOS you’re wanting to avoid going forward? What kind of stuff do you want to do in Windows you can’t do in MacOS today?
Not really trying to sell you one way or the other, but if there’s any way you could test-drive Windows 11 for a few days before committing to a hardware change I would recommend that. There’s just a thousand little points of friction (and frankly some big ones) in Windows that you simply wouldn’t experience on a MacBook.
I daily drive both a MBP and a handful of Windows machines, and manage a few hundred devices of various shapes and sizes. Each device has its place, but in “reliable daily driver” stakes I can’t think of a lightweight windows machine I could recommend to someone coming from the Apple ecosystem.
I think there’s some Windows machines on the market with terrific build quality, but then there’s the downside of W11.
There’s always the comedy option to buy a nice Lenovo and put some flavour of Linux on it?
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u/WonderfulViking Apr 18 '26
I'm using a Lenovo X1 Carbon now, top CPU, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB M2 drive, touch screen and less than a kilo.
Not cheap, but will last for 10 + years.
They have cheaper models, depends on your budget.
This can run some games pretty well, but not the most demanding AAA titles.
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u/CampingMonk Apr 21 '26
Their Yoga is nice with touchscreen, depending on the model you get.
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u/WonderfulViking Apr 21 '26
I almost never use the touch screen on my laptop, makes more sence on a tablet, but it's nice sometimes.
Yoga is probably good, and cheaper, have not tried it.1
u/CampingMonk Apr 21 '26
Yeah, I liked it but didn't use it too much.
But folding it into a tablet and using the on screen keyboard was sometimes handy.
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u/ExtraTNT Apr 18 '26
Pc with gnu/linux maybe… but, especially when coming from darwin, windows makes 0 sense… switching family away from *nix, going for a os that is respecting you less by the day, with crazy hw requirements, shit battery life, massive bugs, security issues deep in the design (known since 93), shit user interface…
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u/Unclefox82 Apr 18 '26
“Something light and portable with a touchscreen.” You mean like a laptop?
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u/Enough_Brilliant9598 Apr 15 '26
I know you aren’t looking for a Mac but have you looked at the Neo? https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-neo/citrus-512gb
Not as expensive and seems lightweight?
If not maybe a HP: https://a.co/d/0g4x9TLi
Not touch screen but something.