what finally made me buy a mac

i used windows for over ten years. i started on a potato laptop that could barely run the games i wanted. in 2022, right before college, i finally got a gaming laptop. i had the option to go with a mac back then.

i picked windows because i wanted the thing i had been waiting years for, playing the games with heavy system requirements that my old laptop could never handle. i got that. i bought games on steam. it was worth it for a while.

i also told myself it was the practical choice. i was studying computer science, a strong machine would carry the heavy work too.

then the semester started

the battery was the first problem. it drained so fast that i had to plug it in every time i used it. a laptop that lives on an outlet is a desktop with extra steps.

then the weight. my university was 13km from home, and i felt every bit of that machine in my backpack.

then the heat and the fan noise. loud enough that i was aware of it in a quiet room.

borrowing my cousin's m1

i borrowed my cousin's macbook m1 pro for a competition. i already knew battery life was the selling point, and it still surprised me. i just used it all day without thinking about power once.

that's when the regret got specific.

the part i didn't plan for

the real problem wasn't the laptop. it was that i stopped playing.

between school and work, i didn't have the time or the energy for games anymore. the one reason i chose a gaming laptop quietly went away, and i was still carrying the weight, the heat, and the dead battery to campus every day.

i was paying for a hobby i no longer had.

where i landed

i have an m2 air now, and it does work and everything personal. i kept the gaming laptop, but it stays home. it's basically a console at this point, plugged in, on a desk, doing the one thing i bought it for.

if i could go back, i'd get the macbook and put games on a console or a desktop. same two jobs, just given to the right machines.