If it was just patent avoidance why aren’t there any non-apple laptops either their sound quality? Both the microphones and the speakers are some of the best audio I’ve ever encountered.
Aren't there? I haven't had any trouble with background noise in calls from my ThinkPad, which also does some microphone array trickery as far as I can tell. Unfortunately the drivers for Linux are nowhere near as good so the extra processing the Intel driver does isn't useful for my day to day experience, but I've never had any quality issues.
Apple does have some excellent audio engineers for the speakers, although these days the difference isn't as stark as it was five or ten years ago.
Of course you need to get a good Windows laptop to get any such quality, and many people and companies seem to only bother spending money on premium laptops if they're made by Apple.
Is it? I mean, compared to some laptops where I explicitly was not interested in paying extra for audio, sure. Especially with them being older than "standard" presence of audio coprocessor on board.
Compared to the two new-ish AMD laptops? For the rare use case that warrants using built in speakers and mic, I see no real difference. Maybe latest macs are better, but... Usually the only use of built in speakers and mic are as last chance backup, or watching movies in bad conditions. Otherwise it's always a proper headset or standalone speakers
Yes, it is. Please name a windows laptop with great speakers and mics.
It’s night and day.
Mind you, I haven't used Macs since last intel ones, but my current workhorse of Zephyrus 14 2023 has at least comparable mics to last intel 15" and 16", and better speakers. T14g5 AMD I have from one contract has slightly worse speakers than that but comparable to the Macbooks I used (if not slightly better, the Zephyrus just has a whole grade higher amplifier setup with 4 speakers). And doesn't vary sound based on where it's placed :V
I haven't bought for built-in sound quality in the past (or ever, it's backup's backup after all), but I do remember lots of laptops offered with Harman-Kardon sound system, including hardware implementation of the dynamic compensation system in M-series Macbooks. Except also usually with way beefier speakers. Microphone arrays came in later arguably, but that is more correlated with availability of audio coprocessors - T470 had not great twin mic (mac was better there), but new ones easily handle it beyond my needs.
Way above "last choice backup solution" that "built in speakers and mic" are used for by me.