I suppose it depends largely on whether you consider a laptop with a 1080p laptop and a sluggish SSD a good value. Seems to me often the “Value” you get is simply going cheap on components. Mediocre display, barely useable trackpad, slow SSD, fan noise, thermal throttling, etc.
The current MacBook Air is a phenomenal value with almost no compromises.
1080p is perfect for my eyes (and games). My $1030 laptop has a mid-high end NVMe 512GB SSD. Display is 144Hz, 330-nit, 100% sRGB, muffled fan noise only when playing high-end games (RTX 2060 6GB), zero heat issues or thermal throttling (max ~75°C gaming). So I guess it's just another great value with almost no compromises.
(The Air and mine have different compromises. High-end gaming, wider selection of games, bigger screen vs minimal/no heat output, amazing battery, better portability. But I do think some of your assumptions about what is possible in the value segment aren't current.)
MacBook Air isn't marketed as a "Gaming" laptop, nor would anyone buy it as such. Claiming it's compromised because it's not great for gaming is like claiming the Xbox is compromised because it's not good at video editing.
My original comment was about each comparison fitting. The M1 is an expensive entry-level thin and light, but you get excellent performance and battery life. So it does that job well. But to say it has "no compromises" would say it could work for everyone. But it isn't a well-rounded laptop because of the screen size, OS, lack of GPU power, etc. Those things don't hurt you if you're happy with MacOS, the screen size, don't care about many games, etc. so it's not a "compromise" for your use case.
Not sure what that has to do with marketing - I mean you can buy based on marketing, but the original discussion was about comparing entry-level laptops and high-end laptops to the Macbook Air, and excluding Ryzen because they aren't in high-end laptops.
> But it isn't a well-rounded laptop because of the screen size, OS, lack of GPU power, etc.
You are off in the sticks. By your definition, nothing is "Well rounded". Every product is designed for a purpose. Value is about how well a product suits its that purpose. When I buy a hammer, I don't complain because it doesn't work as a screwdriver.
Your continued assumption here is that every computer needs to be suitable for gaming and that assumption is nonsense.
> original discussion was about comparing entry-level laptops and high-end laptops to the Macbook Air, and excluding Ryzen because they aren't in high-end laptops.
Your original comment which I replied to was talking about how Ryzen wins on value. Which is only the case if you are willing to accept lower end components, less battery life, and fan noise.
> Which is only the case if you are willing to accept lower end components, less battery life, and fan noise.
But this is only the case if you compare $1200 versions of the Macbook Air to $400-500 laptops...
My previous comment already discussed the existence of $1000-1200 laptops with Ryzen that don't have "lower end components" or "fan noise" (outside of gaming, which we can't compare on because we're excluding that as a possible compromise.)
Sure we're getting a bit into terminology. Long battery life is a feature, just like a full selection of games - it is a compromise to have less of either. It's not a critical compromise depending on what you buy the machine for.
Critical compromises (again mostly in the eye of the buyer) could arguable be bad quality or unusable screens, like those with poor color representation that prevent professional work.
The current MacBook Air is a phenomenal value with almost no compromises.