It depends on individual requirements. Most Apple laptops have better battery life than all of my laptops, but current ones have less memory available to run virtual machines unless I pay a huge premium which raise would raise the price 7 x over what I paid for my current Thinkpad E580. Also the later has a matte screen which I can't have on a Macbook nor can they fold like my Lenovo Yoga to be used as a tablet and drawing board.
It's quite a requirement that to be considered overall best, a product must be best at every conceivable niche. You wouldn't disqualify Lionel Messi from consideration of being the world's best football player by saying that he is (probably) not a very good goalkeeper? Not to say that a MacBook is the Lionel Messi of laptops, but just that a laptop can overall best, while also being a bad fit for a particular role.
I also think price while obviously relevant when it comes to a purchasing decision, is irrelevant when talking about which product is better. To determine which tool is best for hammering nails, it's irrelevant that a rock is cheaper than a hammer. The only relevant criteria is which you would pick if you were free to choose. And, it would frankly be strange if the better product weren't also the more expensive product.
My personal opinion is that Apple has been killing it with their laptops since the introduction of the first M1 MacBook Air. This seems to also be the universal sentiment in the Apple community. I'm aware of no product in the PC space that seem so universally acclaimed, let alone could plausibly serve as basis for a claim that Apple is somehow behind in this category.
It's quite a requirement that to be considered overall best, a product must be best at every conceivable niche. You wouldn't disqualify Lionel Messi from consideration of being the world's best football player by saying that he is (probably) not a very good goalkeeper? Not to say that a MacBook is the Lionel Messi of laptops, but just that a laptop can overall best, while also being a bad fit for a particular role.
I also think price while obviously relevant when it comes to a purchasing decision, is irrelevant when talking about which product is better. To determine which tool is best for hammering nails, it's irrelevant that a rock is cheaper than a hammer. The only relevant criteria is which you would pick if you were free to choose. And, it would frankly be strange if the better product weren't also the more expensive product.
My personal opinion is that Apple has been killing it with their laptops since the introduction of the first M1 MacBook Air. This seems to also be the universal sentiment in the Apple community. I'm aware of no product in the PC space that seem so universally acclaimed, let alone could plausibly serve as basis for a claim that Apple is somehow behind in this category.