I have and use a resimed that does the phone home option. Once my doctor got what he needed I put it in airplane mode.
Distributor used the stats while I was reporting to call me and tell me I need new filters or other parts. I lol’d and bought them online for way cheaper. They stopped trying even before the doctor got all the data he needed.
Also, AFAICT it’s only data out, so I’m not worried about some exploit being delivered to the machine.
Final thought: I work in med tech. We have better security than credit agencies because we get fined more if we screw up. Personal data leaks are so common no one even cares anymore, but leaking someone’s medical info will shut a company down. You are likely safe, but ultimately never as safe as a “dumb” machine would be except they just don’t exist anymore.
Actual final thought: you will be amazed at how much better you feel every morning after actually sleeping instead of the dirty pseudo sleep you’re currently getting.
My variant on this is a bunch of toilet paper and paper towel rolls upright in a box with the cables folded up and slipped into the rolls with the connection ends up. Need a USB-C to HDMI? Easy to find. Ethernet, DVI, whatever, all there, easy to find.
Having an iPhone won’t make Mac any easier, but it will be more integrated. Lots of nice convenience features like a shared note library and your text messages can be interacted with from the laptop.
Not sure what the cost difference is, but considering your other messages were talking about starting out on the path of cybersecurity, a more open platform that you can run Linux off of would probably trump the conveniences.
Also the ability to snapshot an image, goof around with changes, and if you don’t like them restore the snapshot makes it much easier to experiment than trying to unwind all the changes you make.
If you want an actual dumb car that’s reliable, I don’t think anything beats a TJ series Jeep wrangler. Not good gas mileage, but the I6 engine in them is fantastic and it’s still relatively easy to get parts for them despite being 20 years old. You can add an after market head unit for CarPlay out android auto.
If you really do go new, you can disable the cellular radio. It’ll cost you a lot of convenience features, and you won’t get updates. But no cell radio, no ability for it to give your data to the mothership.
You probably don’t need anything. Laptops using disk have been in use in bumpier environments for decades prior to SSDs.
But let’s say you do. Bolt some eye hooks to the top of your case and suspend it with paracord. It’ll turn vibration into sway and your disks will happily keep on turning.