Ordinary folks are going more and more chromebooks these days, those are the "low cost laptops" that are on the shelves at your local bestbuy/curry's/elgiganten etc;
For everything more than that: the Macbook Air is equivalent or cheaper.
People seem to continue the lie that Apple hardware is more expensive, yet I just closed a deal on a business thinkpad (T14s Gen6) which was double the price and 2/3rds as performant, because we're a Windows shop and we don't buy Apple. Forgive my annoyance here but someone told me that "at least we don't buy expensive Macs" after we signed the invoice and it really got under my skin because it's legitimately half the price for more power. Completely blinded by ignorance.
Upgrades might be expensive, sure, but anything of any quality has always been like-for-like with Apple being cheaper on the low-spec end.
The consumer grade market where Windows used to dominate is having their lunch totally stolen by Chromebooks and Android Tablets. (More-so by Tablets I would argue).
Not on European markets, Chromebooks only leave the likes of Media Market after endless promotions trying to get rid of them.
We don't lie, we don't live in US, with US salaries, some European countries still get 800 euros as average salary, not to mention all the other even more poorer regions around the globe.
Although the same is true in the UK. So which Europe are we talking about?
Kids get Chromebooks in school, most people seem to be content with a tablet. I have a hard time finding anyone who has a laptop <8 years old now (that isn't a company laptop).
I find it ironic that you’re talking about the cost of things, and that somehow the laptop with the premium operating system that costs money and requires more expensive hardware due to being bloated is somehow more inexpensive in your country than a Chromebook or a tablet.
Chromebooks and tablets are mostly useless as general computing devices.
Chromebooks only got a market chance thanks to US school system, and tablets, naturally Android ones that we're talking about here, are mostly consuming devices.
Hence why wealthy folks get Apple, they aren't getting Chromebooks and tablets either, when money is no concern.
By the way, you can buy new PC hardware below one month salary, that will get extended as long as possible.
what do you think people are doing with their computers that they cannot do with a tablet or Chromebook?
Like buddy, I’m not trying to argue with you here - clearly we live in different societies with different purchasing demographics. General computing devices for me and for you are completely different things than they would be for my mother or anyone else in the general population.
For the overwhelming majority of people, they may own a computer to file taxes to watch content and to play non-intensive little games (not the AAA spectacle the most gamers player).
They do not need a compiler, they usually do not need Microsoft Word, and they do not need to install random executables from the Internet.
What do you think they need to do that cannot be served by a tablet?
Schools are largely using chromos and chromebooks today (in my understanding across the countries where I have seen students in the last 8 years; so: Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and The UK).
Since having access to a web browser is significantly easier than Microsoft.
Actually, it was the same playbook Microsoft had in the 90s.
I bought a Lenovo AMD laptop a year or two back with 32GB RAM & 1TB HDD for around £650. The upgrade cost alone for that RAM/storage is £600 for a macbook air.
As for Linux, I keep waiting for the return of netbooks wave, in something that isn't a constrained Chromebook or Android tablet with keyboard.
Ordinary people buy what they can see on the local PC stores, not buy over Internet, importing System 76 and similar.