Hmm, I'd say the Surface line are the direct competitors, and have real nice quality. Better keyboards and a nicer screen form factor 3:2. Was quite a fan of the Surface Book 2, and recently picked up a Laptop Go which is great, for less than a Macbook Air.
Surface Laptop 5 costs $899. Still no sign of "extra up-front cost" of Apple. For me, Surface Laptop isn't even in the running because of poor screen resolution.
The old Surface Book has 3000x2000 resolution which is 200%, but the Surface Laptops have 2256x1504 resolution, which is only 150%. As Steve Jobs said when he introduced iPhone 4, the only resolution that looks good after 100% is 200%. I have tested screens with 150% and 300% resolutions, and they all have display artifacts (such as horizontal 1-pixel horizontal lines appearing to have different widths).
I think Mac and surfaces are in the same price bracket definitely. My surface book was a cool 4k in NZD when I grabbed it, comparative to a similar MacBook pro.
You were being asked about Surface vs Macbook Air - why're you bringing MacBook Pro into it? There's no extra upfront cost for Apple. It is mind boggling how good a computer you can get for USD$800 from Apple compared to anything else on the market.
No I wasn't, but if I was it works like this: Surface Go = iPad, same rough price and specs, Surface Laptop Go, Surface Laptop vs Macbook Air or low-end Macbook Pro, same rough price (Laptop Go is a few hundred cheaper), Surface Book vs medium-high-end Macbook Pro, same rough price.
Right now a entry level Macbook Air in NZ is ~1600, 1400 on special, and a Surface Laptop Go 2 is ~1400. Same size, same ram, same hdd, higher res on the air, touch screen on the surface, m1 on the air, intel x64 on the surface, basically same target market.
