Again, my point was initially in response to you associating build quality with the materials chosen. I don't believe those are related how you represented them.

My two MBPs I used for work, (including a windows 10 vm on parallels) managed to get a lot done over the years well beyond browsing the web.

I was/am not arguing about which OS has more compatibility, programs etc. That's a completely different topic. Hell, the M1 was very limited with native apps for a long time.

As you conseeded, the touchpad is superior. Since I literally use that 95% of the time I'm on a laptop, that's a pretty big factor in usability. My HP360 was around $1200 (HP Spectre 13t x360) the MBA was $950.

My HP36 after a few years had to be returned to have it's motherboard replacement., The one bonus there was they upgraded it from an i5 to an i7 which was nice.

My second work MBP did have the infamous butterfly keys, and eventually one key started having issues last year. Again as NOT an Apple fan, the machine was under an extended warranty and with permission from work I dealt directly with apple to get it fixed. They sent me a box overnight, I returned it on a Monday, had it back the following Thursday with a new keyboard and battery.

Everything has good and bad, I think what apple is going to prevent consumers repairing their own stuff is terrible. I still like / have generally had a more pleasant experience using their laptops over Windows machines.

Completely unrelated, I absolutely hate iPhones though!