For the past decade or so, many children had no access to real computers. Before covid, many households either only had school-issued chromebooks, or only smartphones. With covid causing a rise in remote schooling, many families got laptops, but again often only locked-down chromebooks.

There's adults nowadays that do their taxes on their phone, cut videos on their phone, and edit spreadsheets on their phone.

And while smartphones and chromebooks are great at accomplishing your desired tasks, they offer no opportunities for growth. You can't change and play around with the system, become a power user, modify your system, look behind the curtain, and gain real understanding.

There's an excellent blogpost on this topic, "The Slow Death of the Power User": https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-pow...

I didn't really read it as a specific advert for this computer, but rather a nostalgic defense of cheap starter PCs in general. It gave me some hope for the future.

I'd say the low end is closer to a Raspberry Pi or perhaps a used old Thinkpad. A $600 machine with good single-core performance is only low end if you ignore everything outside the Apple product lines.

> trackpad is only incrementally better than what was available in Chromebooks and cheap PCs

Did you use a touchpad of an old cheap PC? Apple would not dare to use one comparable to that in their wildest nightmares.

One also has to consider that Apple remains an “aspirational” kind of computer. The things bemoaned by HNers due to Apple having something of the status of a luxury brand delivering a premium computing experience are also desirable to huge numbers of people in the world seeking to improve their status and lot in life. It’s very easy for us in the west to overlook that there’s a couple of billion people in the world earning $300-400 a month. So there’s a billion kids out there who would perhaps be lusting after this machine instead of struggling along with a very recycled and half-decrepit laptop. There’s also huge numbers of people in the west who live paycheck to paycheck so having an actual machine at this price point that will deliver years of faultless computing will probably make a big difference. At least I get the aspirational tone the OP is arguing for - a kid completely learning the edges and maxing out their machine will likely produce better results and better educational outcomes than one given a top of the range MBP or windows desktop supercomputer.

The build quality and usability on mac laptops is something else, I've yet to see even 2k€+ laptops that people typically get for their jobs that aren't a pain to use without a mouse and monitor. Whereas I'm sitting here in front of my macbook and not touching the mouse next to it most of the time.

That's definitely valuable, but not for a child in my opinion, it's the type of luxury equivalent to a Mercedes over a Renault. Perfectly defensible but, just like a Mercedes is hardly a starter car, I don't think an MBP is that fit for a starter PC. It's also mostly useless if you're not traveling for work regularly.

That said, does any of that even matter any more? People were learning Blender, programming and whatever else 15 years ago on low to mid range machines already. The equivalently priced - or dirt cheap second hand - machines of today are multiple times more capable at everything. Stick Linux and a $5 mouse in it and you're 90% of the way to a macbook pro in terms of user experience.

That's to say, I agree with the core of the article: kids will make the most out of the least. But I disagree that this particular laptop is a necessity or a boon for that. If anything, it's a hindrance for being a mac.

you're commenting on an ad for Apple

of course it will praise the product like it's golden, turning disadvantages into "that's actually the good part"