Those options are more exotic in the custom PC world. Probably wouldn't be saving money.

"exotic" only means you won't find it at Wallmart. Buying a PC with a Strix Halo chip or Core Ultra is not some obscure quest or back alley deal.

On money, being about the same price as a mac is good enough, given the machine will have vastly more versatility and expandability.

It won't resonate as much if you're straight into the "one size fits all" target of Apple machines. I used to have a macbook and an iPad, the iPad being the primary device, and it was an utter pain. Moving to a windows tablet cuts my costs in half while being able to do more things in total.

Strix Halo machine is at least $2500 it looks like, cause that's more for local AI, not a cost-saving measure. Can't upgrade the RAM or GPU on a unified chip.

I don't wish an iPad on anyone, it's worse than basically any laptop.

> $2500

That's par for the course yes. The AI bubble didn't help it was never priced at entry level either.

I got mine the first year it got out, and the laptop (a Z13 with 64gb RAM) was price aligned with the top of the line MBP pro with the same ram.