I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen".
If you didn't know anything about laptops and wanted to buy your first one, it would be a nightmare to figure out what all those seemingly random numbers mean on most non-Apple laptops.
Apple continues to simplify the laptop naming scheme, we're at a point where it's simply:
Air OR Pro
Small screen OR big screen
All other details can be configured in the buying flow but there's not much to think about if you just want a simple laptop.
I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops.
It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them.
Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies are still shipping laptops with 1080p screens in 2024.
Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
Increasingly feels like most manufacturers have given up on the laptop as an innovation center and are happy to just scrape up the consumers who can't or won't buy Apple.
I'm one of those industry long timers who can and will use just about anything, and has occasionally over the years owned macs of various form factors. For the past decade thanks to corporate work I've been entirely Windows and Linux based.
I picked my daughter up an m1 macbook air about a year ago. It was an absolute delight of a machine to use. Light weight, no fans, no hot bits during general usage, long battery life, a screen that didn't upset my eyes, and importantly the OS just got out of the way during general usage.
I wound up buying myself an m1 air about 6 months later.
My only gripe is that I wish it had more RAM, but even then the unified memory approach has made my expected ram usage vs actual ram usage a bit of an odd thing. It consistently uses less ram than I'd normally anticipate. That said, more ram by default would help fill in those times when I do load it up.
I upgraded from a 2015 MBP with 16gb of ram to a M3 Pro with 36gb. It’s a night and day difference, the machine is much more responsive and I mainly use it 30 min a day, or sometimes for a few hours in a row. And charge about once per week, getting about 14hr battery life.
I can answer this. I have a very similar workload to OP. I've found myself with resolve, affinity photo, chrome, vscode, spotify, ect open simultaneously, and have had absolutely zero struggle on my 8gb air.
If you become "enlightened" you can notice that sometimes when you, say, open your spotify window after a long time elsewhere, the spotify is briefly unresponsive. Not in a way you notice, more in the sense that if you are looking for it, you can see hints it is swapping.
The only time I wish I had more is when I got into iOS development and began running VMs on my mac.
Modern SSDs are resilient enough that most people will never wear them out with anything resembling a normal workload. Unless you're constantly swapping for several hours a day, it just isn't going to matter.
That's a conservative estimation of the lifespan (how hard you can hit it while maintaining a very low probability of SSD failure). The more interesting question is "How likely after n years is the SSD to be the first non-replaceable component to fail on this laptop?" I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm guessing it's a good long while before the answer to it goes above 0.5.
Apple have been shipping laptops with non-replaceable SSDs since around 2017. Anecdotally, we hear so much worrying about potential future SSD failure, and yet so few people saying things like "I bought an M1 Air two years ago and now the SSD has died".
SLC makes sense for almost zero use cases, even in a data center. It's simply the wrong tradeoff between capacity and performance. It's not enshittification that you can now have a cheap multi-TB SSD to hold a large collection of movies and games and still have an SLC cache for the small portion of your data that isn't mostly static.
My current and previous MacBooks have had 16GB and I've been fine with it, but given local LLMs I think I'm going to have to go to whatever will be the maximum RAM available for the next model.
Similarly, I am for the first time going to care about how much RAM is in my next iPhone. My iPhone 13's 4GB is suddenly inadequate.
My MacBook Pro M3 has 36GiB RAM and does all of the comment above + music producing (dozens of VSTs on some 1-2 dozens tracks) + projection mapping and can run some LLM models locally like the Mistral ones.
I've only managed to hear the fan when chatting with a LLM, for anything else it's been an absolutely silent beast.
I have M2 Pro 16GB from a client. It's comfortable for typical dev work - tons of tabs open, Docker, VS Code etc. Though the swap is about 20GB now and sometimes it lags. Still it beats any Intel or AMD laptop I ever had in terms of performance. This machine is on a whole another level.
My own machines are M1 Max 32GB and they fare slightly better.
I have an M2 Air with 24gb and it has no problems running Brave with 800-ish tabs, development workloads (a bunch of VSCode projects, several docker containers, lots of iTerm terminals), low-end CAD and 3D printing apps, CaptureOne and a bunch of Electron apps in parallel with room to spare. I've found I can fit more into those 24gb than into the 32gb of the Intel Mac I had before that (however that's possible).
Almost all of them have already been read and are waiting for me to build something to pull the links out of Brave and download/archive/index them somehow. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but haven't yet.
It would be quicker to manually move the URLs to a text file, then supply that as input to a tool like wget. However, you will almost certainly end up with either un-necessarily bloated files, or saved sites that don't quite work.
I still stand by the spirit of my original comment - there probably isn't enough information content in your 800 tabs to make this endeavour worthwhile.
Why am I not surprised that an apple fan uses Brave - a browser that offers literally nothing but 100% false claims of improved privacy and performance?
I have to use macbooks at work, and they do bother me. The mirror-finish screen always reflects bright lights into my eyes, be it a window or a ceiling light at a distance. The OS is thankfully a certified Unix, but the GUI, while having a few brilliant features, also has warts like no way to align or snap windows, apps running without a window, with only a menu bar, with a window from a different app showing, etc. This continues for many years, so it's likely a design principle.
Of course, Windows is even worse in the GUI department, there's no comparison.
So, sadly, a Macbook remains the most sane computer for non-technical people :(
> This continues for many years, so it's likely a design principle.
I read that Apple follows a document model, where the application is kinda a background thing a window is supposed to be for a specific task. Not like Windows where the main windows is the hub of interaction. So you use CMD + <backquote> to switch between these tasks and CMD + TAB for switching between applications. The menu bar is part of the application, but windows can modify it to suit the focused tasks.
I've used Rectangle for quick window management, but in time I've come to understand the philosophy so it does not bother me as much. It's more leaned into the desktop analogy than other OS.
My earliest exposure to computers was a Mac (though Windows, Linux, and BeOS also came into the picture fairly early on) and I don’t find the Mac model the least bit problematic. On the contrary, I find the Win9X model overly simplistic and unmanageable past a small handful of windows.
I agree with your misgivings about window management in MacOS. The way Windows does it is so much more intuitive.
For window snapping, there are countless apps that will easy solve your problem. But I get why you would struggle - I still get frustrated at times with the way MacOS works.
Just download Rectangle for free. I recently switched from Dell XPS to M3 Pro and that was my gripe to. One install and it's much better, moving windows with ctrl+opt+arrows is also close to Windows and makes it fairly usable.
I really wish Apple would put 12GB RAM by default instead of 8GB. We now have high resolution that uses more memory and sharing Memory with GPU. In reality this is less than 8GB with Graphics Memory.
I think ThinkPads are better than MacBooks. You can get P14 with 32gb of RAM, 1TB SSD, very fast and quiet CPU (AMD U series), decent battery, 2.8k OLED screen and it weights 1.34kg (weight between 13 inch and 15inch new Airs).
It also has imo better ports and a track point.
The problem is that Windows sucks more and more with every iteration and there is nothing Lenovo or other manufacturers can do about it. Lenovo also keeps shipping hot and loud Intel CPUs which hurt reputation of the ThinkPad line and may confuse new buyers. Still if you know what to choose you will get more for your money with P14 than Macbook air imo.
You can technically get "more technical specs" for the money but the actual experience of using a TP will never be even close to a MBA. This is coming from someone who's used a T14, T14, a few yogas, and currently use a P14 for work.
The last point of TPs using loud and hot Intel CPUs cannot be understated. The P14 throttles so hard when I'm trying to do any work because it's using some sh*t Comet Lake U-series, that I literally breathe a sigh of relief when I can use my desktop computer that doesn't hang up every time I load up IntelliJ. MBs are so efficient for the power profile it runs circles around any x86 mobile CPU when on battery.
Obviously I've had 10x better experience with a trusty Ryzen 5600U over that Intel CPU. But still nothing close to a MB. Also the TP trackpads are sand paper garbage.
The Ryzen Thinkpads are the thing to beat for the 2020s. I don't want a $1,800 glass art installation that requires a warranty to reliably fix. I want a good laptop, and you can "fix" the majority of a Thinkpad's problems by simply selecting good internals from the start. In a reductive sense, it's no different than ensuring that you avoid the 12" or 16" Intel Macbook.
And I mean... maybe I'm crazy, but I'd skip on a Mac chassis any day. I've have Thinkpads handle drops at waist-height, my Macbook probably would break in too many places to count if it made the same journey.
> MBs are so efficient for the power profile it runs circles around any x86 mobile CPU when on battery.
You're right, but having seen what Docker does to a Mac I still choose to run native x86 anyways. The battery differential usually ends up moot anyways.
Macs are rather hardy computers and I used to see Thinkpad vs MacBook showdowns back in the day where people would run over both and other various things. The Mac’s would actually win a fair amount of the time because they’re less brittle.
Unlike iPhones, Macs are actually fairly hardy against physical damage. It’s a huge part of why I’ve been keen to buy them. Surviving a waist high drop is what I’d expect. The problem is the repair prices are FAR higher if something goes wrong.
One of my ThinkPads had a debilitating thermal throttling issue. On occasion it would inexplicably limit the CPU to .39 GHz and the fans would spin at max RPM. Yet, it wasn't hot to the touch and it hadn't been doing anything to build up any significant heat. I tried several things, but to no avail. I simply had to be issued a new ThinkPad.
I distinctly remember running a firmware update and the utility had several typos in it: "Updating fimiware". Sure it's just a status message on an installer, but I lost a lot of confidence in Lenovo's quality control that day. I have no proof but I'm sure that thermal control code was outsourced.
I've experienced that myself, and from that point on I told myself I would never buy another TP ever again. The issue confuses me because I've used the low-tier IdeaPads with an AMD H-series CPU and honestly I've had similar battery life but without the unlivable throttling. The IdeaPad is thicker but I prefer it over my work ThinkPad for everything.
I have a Thinkpad P1 with 64gb. I love that it has a trackpoint. I hate that it had a fan. I guess not so much that it had the fan but that the fan constantly sounds like it is impersonating a helicopter. Not sure where it wants to take the laptop. Also the battery life is horrible, 1 hour or so. And Windows is sluggish. Otherwise, it is a great machine (I occasionally RDP into it when demoing thing for my Windows clients.)
My MacBook on the otherhand lacks a trackpoint (that will never be fixed) but is otherwise snappy and quiet. Sure it had some software/OS issues, but overall it is miles ahead of the Thinkpad.
To be fair it’s not exactly fair to be comparing this to a MacBook. Dell XPS, Lenovo X1/Z/? series would be closer equivalents, of course AFAIK while the battery life is much better fans/temperature are still an issue.
It’s possible to buy an external keyboard with a trackpoint: not as convenient as having it builtin, but it’s great if you’re mostly using the laptop at your desk anyway
Imagine buying a MBP but using it at a desk 90% of the time... I'm perfectly fine using the machine while traveling but mostly use split keyboards with a non-QWERTY layout at my desk. I've been around enough computer users to realize that there is no "one-true device" that will be ergonomic and RSI-proof for 100% of users. Folks should listen to their body and take action when it complains.
My biggest complaint about the MBP was the lack of Trackpoint. I've survived. My work forces me to have both MacOS and Windows machines, and I'm very happy with my MBP. The P1 and sluggishness of Windows are huge letdowns.
I like the modern MacBook keyboards just fine. I still use my mechanical keyboard when I’m using my laptop with an external monitor. In part because my desk setup makes using the builtin keyboard awkward
> I think ThinkPads are better than MacBooks. You can get P14 with 32gb of RAM...
> The problem is that Windows sucks more and more...
Not to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like the ThinkPads have been technical specs, but the overall experience is worse due to the software.
If so, I might challenge your final comment, which is "you get more for your money". Ultimately, I think people want a great experience, not a bunch of specs.
I think that Canonical is doing an excellent job. It's been at least a decade that you could easily install Kubuntu on most computers and things would just work with no configuration. It's easy to use for the vast majority of use cases and reasonably secure.
Canonical:
Gnome was stable
Let's water two years making unity
Now let's go back to gnome, two more years of instability
Now let's force everyone onto snaps
Canonical has done a lot to help Linux, but their recent dogma and churn is a huge missed opportunity.
I'll take a good trackpad over the trackpoint any day.
I also find something weirdly repulsive about the plastics they use on ThinkPads. A true Macbook alternative shouldn't be using much plastic at all, though.
Maybe I'm odd, but I much prefer the Thinkpad's body to the Macbook (I have both). I don't like the coldness of the metal chassis, either on my palms or on my legs if using it away from a desk. Thinkpad plastic does not feel cheap or weak to me, so that's not an issue.
I also can't stand the Mac keyboard, especially compared to the Thinkpad.
They just had a p14s for sale with 64GB ram for 1000 USD.... I just couldn't bring myself to buy a laptop with 4 hours battery life with typical usage... Will probably pick up an M3 Air.
Intel or AMD one? In my experience you get way more than 4 hours with an AMD one. I had an Intel one before and I agree: hot, loud, eats battery like crazy.
I just got a T14S to replace my macbook m2 (because I wanted to use NixOS). It's a bit disappointing: the laptop is ok, but the macbook feels so much better.
I got P14s with 64GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and other specs maxed out for $1050 (patiently waited for a sale from Lenovo). Other than the battery life, the P14s is roughly equivalent to a Macbook Pro M2 Pro for $3500.
Windows sucks in the default install, but if you know what you're doing you can remove all the junk from it and make Windows almost as efficient as, say, Linux (and way more efficient than macOS).
In my opinion, Macbooks are for people who'd rather pay more than take care of and optimize their laptops. I could have paid 3 times as much for a similarly spec'ed Macbook, but then I'd have to put up with a silly notch, not having a right Ctrl key, a keyboard getting shiny after a couple of months and other annoyances. So why even bother with Macbooks?
> Windows sucks in the default install, but if you know what you're doing you can remove all the junk from it and make Windows almost as efficient as, say, Linux (and way more efficient than macOS).
I can answer this as someone who, throughout last 6 months of his new job, used a Dell XPS 9570 with Windows, then PopOS, then Windows again, and just switched to an M3 Pro a week or two ago. No - you will never get close. That Dell could run fps games like CS:GO or Valorant with 100+ fps, had custom tweaks incl. thermalpads connecting to the chasis, exchanged thermal paste, was undervolted and with a custom fan curve. It still throttled from time to time. Granted - it was 8th gen i7, but it was on paper good enough to handle everything I do. Only on paper.
It also choke on my day to day work, which is WebStorm, Docker and Typescript web development. Indexing, autocomplete, builds(even with swc) took a really long time. I switched to PopOS for a while, but overal user experience was even worse to me, with constant issues ranging from monitors behaving weirdly, stuff crashing, requiring weird driver installations, even Docker didn't 'just work', I had to fight it half a day to get it to actually run.
Went back to Windows until I got frustrated enough and just bought a 36gb M3 Pro, and I'm never going back. This just works, builds take 1/6th of what they did, I can run full swc build in 100ms, full tsc build takes 10 seconds(down from around 60), nothing ever stutters, nothing slows down, didn't hear fans yet. It does have some annoyances, mostly with window management, new keyboard layout and a ton of shortcuts needed to do basic stuff but once I learned those - it's really nice.
> roughly equivalent to a Macbook Pro M2 Pro for $3500.
Besides the horrible touchpad, screen (did you really get > 1080p for $1050?) and the plastic body
> I could have paid 3 times as much for a similarly spec'ed Macbook
I could get a desktop with even better specs for as much. Not exactly a fair comparison of course since different people have different needs (how much is never hearing the dans fans and a proper touchpad worth? Supposedly a lot to some people).
> and way more efficient than macOS).
Can you explain what do you even mean by that? Do you get better battery life than with an M series macbook after these “optimizations”?
>Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them.
They are awesome, but not perfect.
Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS. Any one of these could be reason enough for people to look elsewhere.
Lordy does that multiple monitor thing grind my gears.
I just want to display on 3 screens. But the base model is the only one that corporate IT will buy. So I have to buy a DisplayLink adapter to do what the Intel macbooks did with zero problem.
Few years back I had a MacBook pro 2019 and an old ultra wide LG screen with resolution 25:9 and HDMI only input. Apparently, official Apple's USB to HDMI connector cannot handle screen resolution 2560*1080 at that time.
Thing that was possible at 300$ windows laptop cannot be done on 2500$ machine with 60$ connector.
I had a 2019 MBP, and it worked fine with my LG 5K ultrawide at full resolution (5120x2160).
I would check your HDMI cable (not all hdmi cables support the resolutions you want), but mine worked perfectly fine using a USB-C thunderbolt 3 cable, as well as an USB-C to DisplayPort cable.
It’s not on Apple to make sure their cheapest consumer-targeted computer is good enough for enterprise use.
To me it’s not really relevant what the old computer models used to do. You have to evaluate what is available today and choose accordingly. Like it or not Intel chips had different strengths and weaknesses. It’s a different design entirely.
I’m split on whether this is a dirty price segmentation trick or a legitimate design limitation where adding more display support is expensive in terms of die size.
Doesn’t matter though, because companies doing serious work are supposed to know to buy the business versions of laptops. They don’t buy Dell Vostro consumer grade PCs, they buy Dell Precision/Latitude/XPS business systems. Apple tells you right in the name of their system: Pro. If you’re a professional you buy the Pro model. If it’s too expensive then buy something else.
Only the M2 & M3 Max chips support more than two external monitors[1]. Those start at $3200, and are overkill for the vast majority of use-cases.
There's no excuse for a $2000+ machine to not support more than two external monitors. DisplayLink on MacOS is far from ideal, either: it works alright, but it has to use the screen recording functionality in the OS, which causes anything with protected content to freak out.
Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one.
The people who complain about specs per dollar were never Apple’s customers. “Why buy an Audi when a Dodge Neon SRT4 costs half as much and goes faster?” It has been this way for 40 years now. This just isn’t how they operate. When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product.
There are much cheaper ways to own a Max system if that specific spec is something you’re desperate for. For one thing, Apple themselves is selling the current model for $2700 refurbished. $500 off and it’s the exact same system with a brand new battery and full warranty.
Also, you should never buy a Mac without the student discount at the very least. Anyone can get it.
Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old.
Keep in mind that if you were buying a MacBook Air in 2010 you were paying over $1800 in today’s money.
If we’re talking about support for external displays this all seems entirely tangential.
> When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product.
So they impose arbitrary limitations that have basically nothing to do with the specs just so that people who are supposed to use more expensive machines wouldn’t buy the cheaper models? Sounds about right.
Apple is trying to maximize their revenue because they can. There is nothing wrong about a for profit company doing that. Trying to find any other explanation is a bit silly though..
>Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one.
Most people don't buy Macs. So why even sell them then?
They literally took away a feature that their cheapest Intel Macs could do, and restricted it to their most expensive Apple Silicon Macs. They should be lambasted for this.
>Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old.
A Raspberry Pi can do this for under $100. Come on.
Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that.
If I just do the same thing with Macs I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life. Find me a completely fanless Intel/AMD PC that performs as well as the MacBook Air and gets the same or better battery life. Find me a PC laptop where you can feed a RTX 40X0 mobile GPU with over 100GB of RAM. Find me another laptop that uses TSMC’s most advanced chip lithography.
PC spec monkeys will basically say it’s not a real laptop because it can’t support 800 external monitors and there’s no print screen key and it doesn’t have a parallel port etc etc. These are all specs that don’t matter to 99% of users.
Hell, if you’re the kind of person who has a triple or quad external monitor setup, that means you’ve spent around $1000 on just displays. That probably means you can afford $3,000 for a MacBook Pro with a Max chip or maybe pay $2,000 for a used one. And if you didn’t spend $1000+ on those displays, that means those four displays are probably so bad that you’re better off looking at one 4K display or two decent quality ultrawide displays.
> Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that.
Not at all, there are many examples of various types of specs in this thread, where apple fanboys suddenly go mute :)
> If I just do the same thing I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life.
So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt? (Your second question is basically the same as your first). M3 very good in that category, I don't disagree, it's apple's latest/best processor, and it does slightly outperform AMD Ryzens in that category[0]. Of course, when you take price into account, apple M processors are not even close to best :).
> Find me a PC laptop where you can feed an RTX 4080 mobile with over 100GB of RAM
Hilarious that you bring this up when macs don't even support CUDA and basically useless when it comes to the the most important aspects of having a GPU today... gaming and deep learning...
> Those laptops don’t exist, unless it’s a Mac.
Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind.
So what you’re saying is you can’t find a better performance per watt, AMD “comes close.”
You are doing the spec monkey thing again. You changed the spec. I chose performance per watt and now you’ve changed it to performance per dollar.
Under a performance per dollar logic AMD makes the best PC graphics card on the market, which they obviously don’t in terms of total performance. Nvidia charges a huge price/performance premium on the RTX4090 because you can’t buy that performance elsewhere. Sound familiar?
> So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt
I’ve got another one: media encoding. Apple’s systems obliterate the rest.
If your argument is that CUDA is important I hate to say it but you’re actually reverting to that whole “product ecosystem and experience” angle that you were deriding in the same breath. Nvidia users have to buy Nvidia because it’s the only way to use Nvidia software. Kind of like how iOS developers and Final Cut Pro users must buy a Mac? “Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind.” You could replace that statement with “Nvidia” under your own preferences.
Under the spec monkey argument someone buying a graphics card should ignore Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem and buy an AMD graphics card that offers better performance per dollar. But you’re saying that the lack of CUDA on a Mac is a major downside. Which is it? Performance per dollar or user experience and ecosystem?
This is why doing the spec monkey thing turns us around and around in circles. I’m not being an Apple fanboy I’m just pointing out how it’s completely reasonable for an expensive computer to not prioritize supporting a zillion monitors.
I never claimed that any particular single spec makes macbooks bad, that was entirely your own strawman :). There are maaaaany reasons why I think they're bad.
> I’m not being an Apple fanboy I’m just pointing out how it’s completely reasonable for an expensive computer to not prioritize supporting a zillion monitors.
My 9 year old asus laptop has better external monitor support than my m2 macbook pro... these problems were basically solved 10 ago... how hard can it be? How much do you have to 'prioritize' this? How hard is it to solve the many years-old annoying, well-known macos bugs? I don't see innovation or engineering quality coming out of apple (the only exception being (the very recent) M line of CPUs)... everything else is meh - buggy, fragile, locked-in, overpriced, non-standard, lack of support for important stuff like CUDA, etc.
Also note that 'support multiple external monitors' here actually means 'kinda support some monitors sometimes'. Just google and read the hundreds of threads about external monitor issues on M2 pros.
The only issue I have with external monitors on my M2 Pro – and it’s admittedly annoying – is that unless I turn everything on in a specific sequence, the primary monitor’s energy saving kicks in and turns off the screen before the Mac has synced video. It essentially bootloops.
This only happens on my Acer Predator, and only if I’m using DP —> USB-C. The secondary LG doesn’t care, nor does the Acer if it’s over HDMI.
The fix I’ve found is to wake up the Mac first with the external keyboard, then turn the Acer on and wait for sync, login, then turn the LG on.
While I’d obviously rather not have to deal with this, I feel like it’s at least partially on the incredibly aggressive power saving of the Acer, which I can’t find any way to disable or extend the timeout of.
The excuse is that this is Apple, and the solution to problems with them is to buy more things. In this case, get a $1,500 ultra wide curved monitor which is better than dual head.
For $1500 it's better to get one of the 43" 4K displays. I've used one for over half a decade now, and the ability to comfortably tile a browser plus four terminals side-by-side is unmatched. Or if you will, display 10 A4 pages of a document simultaneously.
there are AMD chips being sold right now that don't even support HDMI Org VRR let alone AV1 decode.
and those skylake laptops are stuck on HDMI 1.4b, so they top out at effectively 1080p60, but sure, you get three of them. And the DP/thunderbolt tops out at 4K60 non-HDR with crappy decode support, and you get at most like 2 ports per laptop.
the grass isn't always greener, there's lots of pain points with x86 hardware too. heck, those celerons you're so fond of are down to literally a single memory channel by this point. is a single stick going to be enough raw bandwidth for a developer that wants to be compiling code etc?
HDMI 1.4b does 1440p75 or 4k30 and HDMI 2.0 was brand new at the time.
> the grass isn't always greener, there's lots of pain points with x86 hardware too. heck, those celerons you're so fond of are down to literally a single memory channel by this point. is a single stick going to be enough raw bandwidth for a developer that wants to be compiling code etc?
What a weird argument; no shit a bargain bin CPU from 10 years ago is worse than a brand new mid-range chip. That's the exact point I'm making. That Celeron was bad 10 years ago. 10 years of progress, billions of dollars of investment and you get the same maximum RAM capacity, less external monitors at a much higher price.
And you’re ignoring all the things that the apple will do that your chip won’t, or the things it’s massively better at.
It has 2x the bandwidth of a Radeon 780M and runs at 35w, it has as much bandwidth as a PS5. there are pluses and minuses to doing it both ways, but, detractors only want to look at the handful of areas where traditional chips have an edge.
"Cheapest" but not cheap. A $400 Steam Deck can do 3 external monitors with an inexpensive MST hub and has a single USB C port.
The MBA is an extremely close competitor to the Dell XPS line too. And "Pro" doesn't even guarantee you more monitors. The $1600 M3 MBP is just as limited as the "consumer" Air.
Only if you ignore the shitty finger trackpad tracking on dell, windows (shit UX) or Linux (shit battery life and shit sleep/wake), and in general the real life battery duration in real life use cases.
We really don’t know. Personally I’m not surprised that a chip that came from a smartphone has difficulty with multiple monitors. I’m guessing that the Pro and Max chips need a much larger die area dedicated to that functionality.
I was amazed to see the new Air models support dual external displays!
> Apple unveils the new 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with the powerful M3 chip
The world’s most popular laptop is better than ever with even more performance, faster Wi-Fi, and support for up to two external displays — all in its strikingly thin and light design with up to 18 hours of battery life
EDIT:
mmmm... no.
>Support for up to two external displays: MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed
FFS Apple.
I guess it's something of an improvement at least :-/
Price: if that’s the major qualm that’s not really a product flaw. The best product usually commands the highest price.
Stuck with macOS: technically not true, Asahi Linux exists.
Connecting multiple monitors: a legitimate negative limitation unusual at the MacBook Air price point, but still something that only a small fraction of consumer laptop buyers care about.
Asahi Linux is still missing features a lot of people consider key. M1 even STILL doesn't support DP alt mode for example. That's a pretty serious shortcoming on something like a MBA where the only video out is through DP alt mode.
I agree 100% with what you've said, but this sentence:
> Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS.
Basically boils down to "Apple is selling a much better product, and they know it." I.e. your first bullets (over priced storage, RAM, charging for multi monitor support) all just boil down to "Apple charges more because they can". The "you're stuck with MacOS" is obviously true but just highlights that Apple has always been about optimizing hardware and software together.
If anything, I think the "dark times" for Apple laptops was the late teens during the era of stuff like the butterfly keyboard, the touchbar, and too few ports. I think Apple consumers have consigned themselves to paying more for a much better product. What they're not willing to do (as much anyway) is to pay a premium for a crappier product. The butterfly keyboard especially was such a disaster ("We shaved .2 mm off the width, all at the minor expense of any key randomly stopping to work at any time!") Admitting mistakes in big corporations is hard so I'm glad they just jettisoned all that stuff.
These days I want Apple's hardware (the M chips specifically, but the trackpads/screens/cases are nice too) but can't stand their software. While I'm not a big fan of Windows either, it at least provides basic window management features by default.
> thread making absurd claims about 'apple is way better than everyone' based on nothing but anecdotal experiences...
I'm not sure why you think "anecdotal experiences" are invalid when people are talking about a personal choice. I.e. I don't need some sort of double blinded study to "prove" Mac laptops are better. I've used other laptops, and I have a strong preference for Macs for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with marketing (to be honest I can't even remember the last time I saw an actual ad for a Mac). You may disagree, that's fine, but it's silly to pretend the personal preferences of others are somehow invalid or less than.
I didn't say anecdotal experiences are invalid. I said anecdotal experiences aren't a valid basis for the vast generalizations about 'macbooks are just much better than everything else' type fanboy comments.
No, the product is simply much better. If you pay $2000 for an Apple laptop vs. a PC running Windows or Linux, the Apple laptop will have twice the battery life and be in better physical condition after 3 years of equivalent use.
Have you ever used a Apple computer for long, like 1-3 months?
I ask because I used to be like you, calling Apple users "fanboys", throwing hard data from benchmarks in discussions, being proud of my true h4ck0rz Linux installation on a IBM ThinkPad for work that was a pain in the ass to maintain in working state, had to stop updating after too many hours spent troubleshooting. Or relegate myself to working in Windows on ThinkPads.
Until one day I begrudgingly accepted a Intel MBP at a new job some 15 years ago, I was going to install Linux on it anyway so didn't care. Started using macOS in the meantime, it had the shell utilities I needed so I kept using it while checking how you install some Linux on it, the UI worked flawlessly, the OS was a breeze to learn, after a few months I had barely had to troubleshoot anything, I'd just turn it on and work.
I never went back, I want my tools to work well and found a tool that worked much better than anything else I had used before.
When something better shows up I'll be very excited to try, unfortunately nothing in the past 15 years has changed my mind.
Not everyone likes it, and that's ok, but calling satisfied customers "fanboys" is a tad bit immature. The product works, and works well.
> Have you ever used a Apple computer for long, like 1-3 months?
I've used many apple computers for the last ~10 years. I work on them daily.
> I ask because I used to be like you, calling Apple users "fanboys"
I'm not calling 'apple users' fanboys, I'm calling people who are literally fanboying in the comments fanboys.
> Started using macOS in the meantime, it had the shell utilities I needed so I kept using it while checking how you install some Linux on it, the UI worked flawlessly,
Ahahaha, there are soooooo many bugs in the macos UI and macos in general, many of these are well known and have existed for years.
> the OS was a breeze to learn,
What kind of point is this? You said you've used Windows and Linux before... what else is there to learn for macos? A few new shortcuts?
> I'd just turn it on and work.
I turn my windows and linux laptops on and they just work! Magic!
So again, you didn't make a single rational argument for why macbooks and macos are actually better... literally a fanboy.
> Ahahaha, there are soooooo many bugs in the macos UI and macos in general, many of these are well known and have existed for years.
What's the point of this? I didn't say it was perfect and bugless...
The point about turning it on and working is that I never had an issue where my soundcard simply stopped working (many times on Linux), nor issues with sleep mode not working and draining the battery (many, many times on Linux), nor my graphics configuration randomly going out of whack and KDE/Gnome getting stuck in a bizarre resolution.
Maybe I should just disengage, you sound a bit deranged in your quest, best of luck!
Depends. To me, software is the thing that will keep me from Apple products. IMO Linux and Android are light-years ahead and are becoming even further ahead every year.
My daily driver before this was Linux and anyone who says "Linux is light years ahead" is kidding themselves
You have to set up a bash script to do something as basic as change the scrollwheel speed. Bluetooth is extremely spotty. Installing most software is still a pain unless you know all sorts of terminal-fu
You have to install software like UnnaturalScrollWheels or Smooze to get sensible mouse scrolling behavior out of MacOS (unless you use the horrific monstrosity of that Apple mouse that you can't use and charge at the same time). You have to install software like Rectangle to get actual window tiling + shortcuts for window tiling. You have to install Raycast/Butler to have a non-shit Finder alternative. There's dozens of basic UI/UX things Apple gets wrong that can only be fixed via either building your own hacks or paying for some ludicrously priced proprietary software (for example Smooze Pro).
I could go on, there's many basic features MacOS has been missing for going on a decade, let's not pretend they get it all right either.
How do you fix the keybindings on linux short of changing hundreds of separate software packages? Spoiler, I've and you can't. Why are there about eighteen million packages implementing each component on linux, each subtly broken and offering a different set of features? Because the community can't agree on anything (except keybindings adopted from the IBM PC, apparently) or commit to providing any single package that actually addresses all user needs.
Of course I don't expect everyone to share my opinions on what sane keybindings are, let alone what good software is in general, I'm just trying to illustrate how ridiculous you sound if you're trying to come off as engaging in the topic in good faith. I think it's pretty obvious why people prefer macos, personally, even if I don't agree with all the decisions apple makes for you.
Even if we say we agree (which we don't) how is this worse? Is a 25 gigabyte Windows 11 install better? I'd take this (IMO unrealistic comparison) over Microsofts and Apples way to do things any day.
I've used Linux on and off as both daily driver, dual boot and in my homelab. I'm definitely not kidding myself when I say I feel that for me, Linux is far ahead. Nothing you wrote changes that, even though I don't really agree with it. I won't add a long list of why as others have already done that, but saying “agree with me or you are wrong” as you basically did is just.... yeah. You are wrong, and it is a bit strange you think you know better than me what is best for me just because you like Apple better.
Can any OS? I've got an (apparently) HDR-capable monitor but genuinely can't tell much of a difference on Win10/11, any Linux distro I've ever tried and my Macbooks provided by my work.
The whole HDR thing seems more like a meme or weird flex type of thing to me, I've never noticed it ever really making a difference for me.
Also a weird hill to die on when talking about relative strengths of each platform, but you do you.
I use HDR all the time in Windows. Most newer AAA games support it, all my 4k movies, and being able to make true HDR photos and video is nice.
You won't notice a difference most of the time in normal desktop use because most desktop apps and the web are all SRGB, and get tone mapped accordingly when HDR is enabled. To really notice a difference with HDR content though, you need a good HDR monitor and not just one with basic DisplayHDR 400 certification, and either an OLED panel or mini LED full array local dimming.
Windows' HDR implementation is far from perfect (the gamma tracking on SRGB content is incorrect, for example), but it's a far cry from Linux where HDR support just doesn't even exist. I can't even realistically use Linux as an OS for a home theater PC anymore.
macOS is probably the gold standard when it comes to polished HDR support, especially with mixed mode use (HDR and SDR content on screen at the same time)
It has always been there and it has always been better for some people. Nothing has changed. The day Linux on the desktop arrive, for the masses as meant in the meme, is the day Linux dies.
Good lord no, the hardware is the actual good part of these machines, the OS is a piece of crap hobbled by catering to the lowest common denominator. I wish I could just wipe it off my work M3 pro, cause it drives me insane on the daily
Yes? Windows and Linux are by far the majority for most software work according to the SO Developer Survey[0]. Going by the survey, MacOS is 3rd after Win/Linux (of the 3 possible options).
I'm still using an original M1 Air and the thing is used nearly all day for light casual web usage, and I only plug it in about two times per week -- the energy efficiency is no joke. This kind of battery life really spoils you and when you see other laptops that nearly require the plug charging all the time, tethered, you realize what a big deal these M chips are for true portability.
I end up forgetting my charger when I go on trips because 99% of the time when I unplug my laptop at home (to use in a different room), I never need the charge cable. It used to be 50% of the time I'd take the cable with me, so I could be somewhere else for 2+ hours. Now I so rarely bring the charger that it just doesn't even occur to me when I'm unplugging the thing to pack.
Now that laptops (including but not limited to macbooks) can charge via USB C I just have one charger that I take for both my phone and laptop. Sometimes I take two cables so I can charge both at once. Sometimes I don't bother.
My problem was that I brought a USB-C to lightning cable to charge my phone off my computer, but I forgot a USB-C brick (and magsafe or USB-C cable) so that my computer had power. Fortunately there were Apple employees at the conference and they let me borrow a charger while we were hanging out at the bar!
I've been out of the house all day (6+ hours) with my M1 Pro and it's only just starting to get close to needing to be plugged in. What have I been doing all day? Just running the 23 different docker containers required for my local dev environment. This thing is an absolute beast.
Do you think the new M3 Air w/16 GB could be comparable CPU wise to the M1 Pro? I am guessing GPU wise (for inference like apps) it probably falls behind.
CPU was never the problem with the Air it's the thermal system. Depending on what you're doing the device simply can't soak up enough heat and so it ends up throttling the CPU.
It takes a long operation e.g. compilation for 10-20 mins before it really starts to fall behind the Pro models.
> Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops.
The plateau of 6 hours is less Microsoft's fault here and more a combination of stinginess by OEMs and their willingness to reduce cost by taking money to have extra installed software out of the gate.
> The trackpads are downright unusable.
This varies wildly by OEM and price point. Below some weird gulf, this is the truth. Above some arbitrary shore, there is a plateau of goodness, of which some rival the historic best from macs.
> The keyboards are a hit or a miss.
Again this comes down to the choices made by the OEM during their costing. I recently picked up a Chromebook from Acer just to have something that was not "very Computer" when I found myself needing An Computer to look something up with. It had surprisingly little flex to the chassis, and I found myself quite enjoying the deck, minus...
well
> And for some reason, so many companies are still shipping laptops with 1080p screens in 2024.
Or 1366x768, the Devil's Resolution. The reasons for this are weird and varied but the short form is that economies of scale have yet to make it more profitable for companies to standardize on higher density panels. It actually makes me insanely mad that the laptop I started college with (a dell c600 hand-me-down I'd been tinkering with since high school) had a better resolution at 1400x1050 and that the 2560x1600 beast that I carried after that... that in 2012 would define the lower side of "retina".
The problem is the storage is not removable in the Apple Macbooks.
It is disturbing it didn't sink the Macbooks. It speaks volumes of how little people care about their own data. About their own privacy. There should've been zero sold. It truly is dismal and a very large systemic problem a laptop like this is sold.
Because when it breaks, are you going to wipe it and restore from backup? No. You will just hand it over to a repair person and even an ethical shop much less Apple doesn't even have a chance to hand the disk back before handling it. An unknown amount of complete strangers will access your everything. Your medical records, your banking, your private photos, everything.
And people pay real world money for this, money they worked hard for. It's unfathomable to me.
Non-removable storage isn't the problem. You have identified one actual problem: privacy. But even this isn't a real problem if you turn on system-level drive encryption:
Soldered-in components make for higher quality, lower cost production. Anecdotally, every Windows machine I've had has failed. Every MacBook machine I have replaced after 4-5 years when I wanted to upgrade to the latest technology.
As others have said: encryption.
Even before they supported full-disk encryption, I made it a habit of making yearly encrypted disk image files where I store all my financial and medical data. I open them when working on the info, close them afterwards. Even some attack that somehow bypassed disk encryption (like a browser hack or something) won't get anywhere.
Nobody has access to anything unless you give them your password. Macs have full disk encryption built in. If you aren't using FileVault, you are doing it wrong.
FileVault encryption is on by default. The encryption key is derived from the login password and the login screen has delays to avoid brute-forcing the password.
Additionally, data in the flash chips are always encrypted by the unique key burned in the M chip (previously T2 secure enclave).
> Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could find in shops at the time cost the same, and felt like cheap rubbish. And this laptop just refuses to die, and handles my workload just fine after all these years. I'm dreading the day I have to replace it.
> Overpriced would be "costs more than it should for what it is," not "costs what it should but is more product than I can afford."
But it's also that, because their bottom configurations are weird/crippled.
It's hard to find a PC laptop with a 4k screen for much less than $1000, but then the $1000 machine has 12 cores and 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple's $1000 laptop has 8 cores and 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, i.e. overpriced.
Okay, but DDR5 is ~$3/GB and NVMe SSDs are ~$0.10/GB, so really that's only a value difference of like $100 and you could just upgrade it. Except that Apple charges $25/GB for DDR5 and $1.28/GB for storage and then solders everything, so you'd actually have to pay an extra $800. Except that the Macbook Air isn't available with 32GB of RAM, or more than 8 cores, so then you need the Pro, which is even more.
The bad part of Apple DRAM is that it's not upgradable or replaceable unless you can figure out how to open up the M3 multi-chip-module and nanosolder a new RAM module.
The good part is that the DRAM is connected to the GPU as well as the CPU.
Nothing stops them from doing both together. Put 8GB or 16GB on the APU package and then have a couple of SODIMM slots for more. The more wouldn't have the same bandwidth but it doesn't need to, because you're using it for browser tabs and filesystem cache, to keep that stuff out of the fast memory and preserve it for what needs it.
Moreover, they could put the APU in a socket and then if you wanted more of the integrated memory you could replace the APU without having to replace the entire machine.
I probably can't justify the expense myself anymore - last time I had a hefty student discount. But this doesn't make them overpriced, it just makes me poor.
No, it's I need a 2 TB SSD in my machine. That costs $100 for a PC laptop, and $600 for the Mac. I need at least 16GB of memory, that's $300 for the Mac, and $60 for the PC.
It's the fact that Apple is grifting everyone who needs more than the base specs.
> Apple does partially cover that market, but only via refurbished.
That's not the same thing. If you're budget conscious then you presumably need to keep it for a long time, but now you've got a used battery and a machine that will fall out of support sooner.
> The thing that's really sad is that the build quality on sub $1k laptops is just such shite
The secret to this one might be refurbished Framework laptops. Sure, you've got a used battery, but now it's easy to replace and costs $50 instead of $250.
Refurbished devices from Apple generally come with new batteries, and sometimes other parts will be replaced as well if needed. I’ve bought several devices refurbished and they’ve been excellent. With iOS devices they even replace the outer shell as standard.
Refurbished iOS devices from Apple generally come with new batteries. They replace the batteries in Macbooks if the existing battery is already defective. That doesn't mean it can't have 3 years of use on it already, and then fails 3 years sooner, it just means it's not already below the threshold for immediate replacement when you buy it.
Apparently many of them are replaced. I found a thread on Reddit where a few people were saying they've bought refurbs and they often have 0 or 1 charge cycles on the batteries, indicating they were replacements.
So you, what, keep buying them and sending them back until you get one with a new battery? Even if that works for one person, it obviously doesn't work at scale because soon the ones they'd have left in inventory would be the ones without new batteries.
Is a brand new battery really the minimum acceptable standard for a refurb? If got a refurb and it had 6 months usage on the battery for example, I think I’d be fine with that.
3 years no, but given brand new batteries is reportedly a common experience for refurb buyers of laptops a lot younger than that it seems unlikely that actually ever happens.
> Is a brand new battery really the minimum acceptable standard for a refurb?
Of course not, it's a refurb, but that's the point. You know it's a refurb and you know it's not going to last as long as a new one. That's why the refurb sells at a discount.
> If got a refurb and it had 6 months usage on the battery for example, I think I’d be fine with that.
That's the other issue though. You can see the number of charge cycles but not e.g. how many times it was left in a car in the summer sun.
People typically choose low-paying careers because higher-paying ones are inaccessible to them or they value something else more than money. They buy the less expensive product because they don't make a lot of money and then keep it until it dies because they don't make a lot of money.
I'm not sure those people are the intended Macbook audience, though. How many of those people wouldn't be roughly as productive using an iPad or something? I've found myself doing almost all my non-development, non-media stuff on an iPad Air as of late and the environmental constraints have been really helpful for focus.
(My iPad Air was $599 new, and I use a shockingly pleasant $30 case-and-keyboard combination for typing--no, it's not a mechanical keyboard, but c'mon.)
I have tried several different iPads over the years and I have never found them to be useful in any way. A laptop is superior in every situation for me.
Also the M1 MacBook Air was on sale many times for $700. That's less than $100 more than your iPad Air + keyboard.
Macs are better for me for a lot of things, too, sure. When I'm not doing computer-toucher things, though, I find it isn't materially different. And a lot of people want the affordances without the need to do those kinds of things.
Apple's presentation has mostly been the Mac is a work truck, and most people have light-duty needs.
As far as screen size goes, my iPad is about the same size as my 11" Air was, though not widescreen. And the keyboard's small, but Apple has prior art there too and you can get a bigger iPad if you really want to (though, sure, it costs more).
It's not a laptop, no--but that's also not inherently a bad thing. If you need what a laptop can do, sure. I have a 32GB M1 Max for a reason. But more and more it seems obvious to me that the median computer user doesn't need that, and the affordances from overlap with their more accustomed part of the ecosystem (their phone) are strong and pretty valuable.
Are thinkpads considered "ultra mobile" (or whatever the buzzword is nowadays)? I thought they were more hefty? The thin/lightweight laptops from back then had crappy clickety keyboards.
Of course they were heftier, but "nicest keyboard" and "nicest keyboard given ridiculous thickness constraints" are a world apart. No idea what you mean about crappy Thinkpad keyboards. The old Thinkpad keyboards are widely acknowledged to have been great.
> Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could find in shops at the time cost the same, and felt like cheap rubbish.
It seems like you've changed my requirements and then decided the thinkpads were a great fit.
Not at all. Maybe what you intended to write was "nicest keyboard given my other constraints". But that's not what you wrote. And it's not what "superlatives" suggest either.
There's a volume zones of people who want "a laptop and nothing more", will pay for better materials and Apple has perfected that segment with a few caveats [0].
To your point, then comes the lower end ("just give me something cheap"), the corporate middle ("the same laptop as at work"), and the super high end (gaming, CAD, anything needing special software or a discrete GPU), with the outliers (linux etc)
IMHO windows laptop nowadays are for people who either don't really care, or have already a very specific target or limitation.
For instance Lenovo or Asus definitely care about pushing laptops' limits and design. A lot. IMHO more than Apple.
[0] resistance to abuse isn't there. A macbook's screen will be dead pretty quick if not handled with appropriate care. A Lenovo Flex for instance will take it a lot longer.
> For instance Lenovo or Asus definitely care about pushing laptops' limits and design. A lot. IMHO more than Apple.
It's a bit more nuanced. Lenovo/Asus seem to be experimenting a lot more, but more like by throwing (relatively) easy-to-build variations at the wall to see what sticks, then release a few more polished SKUs. Apple doesn't really do that, but they do attack those limits and design aspects they care about very aggressively and with a ton of resources (e.g. battery life pre-M1, manufacturing tolerances).
One of the issue is laptops aren't a growth angle to Apple. For instance the efforts they made towards the CPU and processing architecture wouldn't have made sense without the other products benefiting from it.
We've seen that with the touchbar: it got a first release, and basically no improvements, no bug fixes, no better support from there. A laptop only feature gets no love from today's Apple.
Even the iPad saw little to no progress in recent years, outside of sharing specs with the mac.
I posit we'd see a foldable/bendable phone from Apple before we ever see something significant form factor change in laptops.
The touchbar got shit on and it was probably expensive at the same time. Worthy innovation perhaps, but the customers didn't value it. I think that was the reason it faded out. I actually used it for audio adjustments, but I didn't need it.
Similar stories. I usually had a windows laptop and linux and VNC'd into the linux box and with win 10 and 11 I just got tired of fighting all the garbage that microsoft tries to push on you in the OS. I really just want to get to work, so I bought a top of the line M2 macbook air and couldn't be happier with my decision. Apple has their apps on there but I don't get pop ups and ads and have to go through a bazillion privacy settings to turn of MS spying on every little thing.
I’ve been an Apple only user the last 20 years, but they simply lost me with the garbage they sold since 2016. The M series was too little too late. It also didn’t help that macOS didn’t get better anymore and the yearly release cycle only made it more buggier. I’m happy with AMD finally catching up to intel and nvidia with a performance to price ratio Apple will never deliver.
Tastes differ. My work MacBook unlocks with a fingerprint (with random sensitivity, if my hands are too dry, for example, it does not register) even in 2024. My Windows laptops had been unlocking with face recognition for 10 years or so. I find the latter much more convenient, especially when I have the laptop on a stand and use an external monitor and keyboard/mouse. Does not look like Apple is ahead of anything here. Hardware wise Apple is actually okay for the price in the low end, but you can only add memory/SSD/CPU (at ridiculous $/{GB,GHz} ratio) for the higher end, you can't get an OLED display, or a good keyboard, or bigger battery at any price.
>>Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
It is not correct, unless you select minimal amount of ram and SSD. Select versions with proper amount of memory and MacBook becomes much more expensive than comparable windows machine.
You'll like the way Apple does their screens even more then. They're 3-5k screens but they essentially scale up their UI 3X so it still looks like a 1080p except 3x sharper.
If you can't see the extra sharpness it's not really a pro...
A 13"-15" 1080p screen is pretty similar PPI to a 27" 4K display. This is pretty nice because if you have both at the scaling level elements are the same size on both.
>Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.
Until you want more memory or a larger SSD then the Macbook is all of a sudden double the price of the equivalent PC laptop.
>Increasingly feels like most manufacturers have given up on the laptop as an innovation center and are happy to just scrape up the consumers who can't or won't buy Apple.
That's basically true, but with Apple becoming more and more expensive that does leave a very large low-end market for them to play in.
Recently got a ThinkPad T14s gen 4 with top-of-the-line AMD 7840U, 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD, for just a bit over $1k. It has very good build quality, is powerful yet quiet, and has decent battery life. It supports up to 4 displays. That's basically one of the best Windows laptops you can get.
Of course, it does not have high-DPI mini LED screen, great speakers or 18 hours of battery life, but none of that really matters, and I'd choose this any day over a similarly speced Macbook Pro 14 that would cost me $2,399.
pls define decent battery life because for different people decent means different things. My biggest problem with windows laptops is battery life. My dell work laptop is spec't higher compared to my home m1 air but the ~4h battery life, worse trackpad and worse audio make it a worse experience overall...
You will not find a x86 machine that beats an Arm machine on battery life. 4h is bad for a windows laptop though. But if track pad and battery life is your thing, a Mac it is.
What keeps me from Mac is some people report some weird incompatibility issues with third-party things. Like external mouse, keyboard, monitors. All of my mac user friends complained about this to some extent.
Plus, on my laptop I just simply upgraded the RAM with another 16GB of RAM which will give me some breathing room for at least another year.
For me, a windows computer "just works". Everything I connect I know will work as expected. Not looking forward to learn some new quirks. Even the top left action buttons just irk me to death.
Yeah, whoever managed (or didn't manage) the Surface trackpad project needs fired. Can't count how many times I have belted out obscenities while working on my Surface Pro. Garbage. I forgot it had a touch screen and I never flip the screen. All that caused the trackpad to be ignored, I guess. Again, hot garbage.
I have a MacBook Pro M1, which is pure fluid bliss. It cost less, it's faster, and the battery lasts for days.
>Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops.
I've been positively delighted by my two Intel Alder Lake laptops I use during travel for play (ASUS Vivobook S 14X OLED, 12700H CPU) and work (Lenovo V14 G3, 1255U CPU) respectively. I can get 4 to 8 hours off of them depending on use with the charge limited to 80% for longer overall life, and as I just mentioned the hardware are quite powerful in their own right.
>The trackpads are downright unusable.
Both of my laptops I just mentioned have wonderful touchpads. Frankly though, this absolutely will vary by several country miles depending on manufacturer and even model. I suppose I got lucky here.
>And for some reason, so many companies are still shipping laptops with 1080p screens in 2024.
I'm gonna be honest: I fucking hate screens bigger than 1920x1080 (or x1200 for 16:10 screen ratios). My laptop for play has a 2880x1800 screen, but I've got it rendering at 1920x1200 because so many programs just assume pixel densities around that area and either can't or won't handle scaling.
I also have to still do some scaling up even at 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 at laptop screen sizes anyway because everything is so small, but it's still less compatibility headaches compared to physically denser pixels.
4 hours isn't exactly good... To me 4h sounds kinda bad
For trackpads it depends, there are some windows laptops with good ones, like dell xps or the carbon line, but mostly these are worse compared to macbooks, if you haven't tried mac trackpad - you should definitely try one
That's 4 hours of running the screen (by far the biggest power drain) and doing stuff, it ain't no M*-powered Macbook but to me that's impressive and in the realm of practicality.
My prior experiences with older hardware have been barely an hour or two, which is impractically retarded.
I also have an M2 Macbook Air and find its battery life even more impressive (literally days between charging), but I don't really use it because it doesn't satisfy my requirements which include games (for play) and clean interoperability with other Windows machines at home (for both play and work).
> What 'innovation' has Apple introduced in the last 10 years other than their M chips? Most of their 'innovation' is just marketing for people who don't know what they're buying
>What 'innovation' has Apple introduced in the last 10 years other than their M chips?
Computers that Just Fucking Work(tm) if you stay on the One Apple Way(tm), which 99% of people are perfectly content to be on because shit Just Fucking Works(tm).
In my experience, most people looking for "just a notebook" don't care about any of those things. They want a low maintenance, high performant (for day-to-day tasks, not gaming) portable computer with a great battery that runs Chrome, Office and Spotify, and comes with great customer service - nothing comes close to being able to bring your Mac to the next Apple Store.
If I gave these requirements to my parents they'd go to a random computer shop and come back with probably a random 13 or 15 inch DELL. And that's what millions of people get at work as a standard supplied computer.
I am not saying the mac isn't good at filling that niche, just that people who really don't care about computers also don't care if it's a mac, and will probably be fine with any recent default configuration machine from a major maker.
PS:
> bring your Mac to the next Apple Store
You need an Apple Store. In my experience people have come to terms with shipping devices and waiting for repairs. Cloud sync helps a lot in that respect, as keeping another computer around has become decently manageable.
> If I gave these requirements to my parents they'd go to a random computer shop and come back with probably a random 13 or 15 inch DELL.
And if I did that, they'd also come back with that DELL - and then I'd be stuck doing tech support for them for however long the thing lasts. I cannot begin to count the number of times they've gone and bought some junk computer that they got upsold on.
This is not an experience unique to me, either. The non-Apple laptop segment is (mostly) a broken experience in comparison.
> And if I did that, they'd also come back with that DELL - and then I'd be stuck doing tech support for them for however long the thing lasts.
I stopped doing tech support for family members using Windows. THAT was the main reason they changed to Mac. And now, hardly do any support for them at all.
The key is to treat Windows users like children and lock it down with an administrator password. You’d be amazed how well Windows holds up over the years if you just prevent them from installing whatever random bullshit they find.
I'm guessing if you want quality materials, you have to pay for it. I don't know if the pixel line of Chromebooks are still a thing, but even if they are you can just get a higher end laptop with more appropriate levels of local SSD storage and an actual OS for what I remember Google charging for them.
And in my experience most people looking for "just a notebook" don't want to pay the prices Apple demands. Especially when they see prices on the non-Apple laptops.
You’re going about your decision tree backwards. People don’t say “I don’t want a touchscreen” or “I don’t want to game”. You don’t make decisions based upon what you don’t want to do… you make them based upon what you do want to do.
I was talking with my dad recently, and he wanted a new computer that could handle email, a little Excel, Facebook, and some other light web browsing that didn’t get stuck in an infinite reboot loop for system updates (which somehow his Windows got stuck somehow). There are a bagillion options for Windows laptops that fit those needs. He ended up not being able to make a decision and is still using his same old laptop.
Whereas my son wanted a desktop computer that would support playing Valorant at 60fps at 1440. That narrowed things down substantially and ended up building one to his specs.
If a Mac fits your requirements, then you have far fewer decisions. And that’s part of the point. For the a long time, Apple has stuck to a restricted set of SKUs. This is by design. It’s not that they couldn’t offer a touchscreen, or a convertible, or a xMac. It’s that they’ve been there… had many form factors and SKUs and it almost killed the company.
Even if you say you want a Dell laptop — have you ever tried to browse their site? If you say you want a laptop you’re presented with 68 options (I just did this). 68.
>If a Mac fits your requirements, then you have far fewer decisions.
That's what OP said? Because now you have already decided you don't want to game, etc.
>Even if you say you want a Dell laptop — have you ever tried to browse their site?
This is the iPhone versus Android discussion all over again. Yes, many will be happy with the iPhone, but they also often didn't know they had the option to buy an Android phone that could do something the iPhone couldn't that they'd like to be able to do (like copy&paste or whatever). Ignorance is bliss for some. Others want the choices, and Apple have nothing for those buyers.
> do something the iPhone couldn't that they'd like to be able to do (like copy&paste or whatever)
it is amazing how much the android crowd loves to shit on apple "brainless sheeple" etc given how little they clearly know about the products themselves.
I keep bringing it up over and over and it's never not true, the android crowd is just so utterly uncivil and it's completely normalized and accepted as public discourse. The AMD fanbase has the exact same problem. It's constant "brainless sheep" and "the ONLY reason anyone buys [not my brand] is [infantilizing and insulting remark goes here]".
If anyone on the other side did anything remotely like that they'd be slapped with a mod comment etc. But if you point it out, that people are misbehaving and acting out, you're the bad guy, because acknowledging the constant microaggressions is the greatest crime of all.
> Because now you have already decided you don't want to game, etc
That’s exactly what I’m not saying. If you want to play games (with Windows only games), then a Mac won’t work for you. If you get a Mac, that means that gaming likely wasn’t part of your decision tree.
Think of the choices as a positive selection. I want to do X, does computer A allow me to do that? People make decisions based on positive selections… not negatives. If gaming isn’t on your requirements list — you aren’t actively rejecting gaming… you just don’t care one way or the other. The post I was replying to asserted that if you chose a Mac, then you’ve already decided not to do X and not to do Y and that you don’t want form factor Z. But that’s not it… decisions are made based on what you DO want. They aren’t made based upon what you don’t want.
Some people just prefer one ecosystem over the other… it doesn’t mean that they don’t know that other options exist. It’s not ignorance, it’s just a different choice than you made.
Am I so glad though that Apple didn't buy into the touch for the laptops. Now this comes with a caveat, if you have some like the Yoga that the hinge can go all the way around, touch isn't bad. But god, in the early 2010s when everyone was throwing touch on their laptop screens, I hated that so much. Laptop hinge only goes 120 degrees or something like that, lets throw touch screen on it! horrible idea.
Although I heard many complaints about the Yoga. Never owned one, but if I had a laptop with a touch screen, that seems like the route to go. The Surface too, but I've also heard those stop feeling snappy pretty quick and tons of thermal issues.
In LTT's recent video reviewing the Vision Pro he predicts Apple is going to go to touchscreens on their laptops because users will be used to it coming from the headset.
>Then sure there's about 10 models. But at that point is it much complicated than say, choose from the DELL XPS line ?
Yes. A thousand times more complicated. I usually get Apple gear for myself, but am always asked to help friends and relatives with PC laptop buying decisions...
Definitely agree with the simplicity of purchasing an Apple computer compared to other laptop manufacturers. Headphone brands and monitor makers also suffer from this same fate :/
Not that simple when there are multiple generations of each on sale, with wildly different prices should you change the storage or RAM toggle.
The MacBook Air used to have
a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything. So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.
> The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything.
I doubt this is much of a constraint in the real world. Most people plug power in, perhaps an external mouse, and that's it. (They should be plugging in external storage for backups, which might require an extra port, but I doubt most people do in practice).
> So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.
I'm pretty much USB-C only at this point, but even before then I never understood the fixation on "dongles".
The tablets are. Buy an iPad, then spend like $600 on hardware accessories and apps to basically turn it into a laptop. Everyone I know who bought one has just left it around the house as a random toy.
But I'm a heavy user, and that 2015 baseline MBP is still fine.
I think both are true. For non-tech people, or people who don't use a computer for real hard work, who want a decent laptop, they probably just buy the baseline Air. But once you get into doing some more professional stuff on a laptop that needs power, then you fall into talking yourself into more than what you intended. I am experiencing that right now. At the time I didn't have a lot of money, working full time to support a family and going to school, so when I needed a new laptop I got the base MBA M1. Fantastic laptop. But now I am doing more intensive stuff (I also make a lot more now so I can afford it) on it and I am looking at upgrading to an M3. I am playing with the GPU and some ML, so I probably should get more than a base model M3. From there it is, whatever I decided, the next upgrade it just an extra $200. More ram would be nice. Oh wait, for another $200, I can also get the better processor with 2 more cores for CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, why not? Oh wait, $200 more and I can double the RAM. Next thing you now, I started off with $1599 and now have talked myself into a like $2200 (haven't made the purchase yet, but that is what I am looking at).
Not everything. MacBooks have MagSafe for power, which frees a port for power or having to use an adapter with power passthrough.
Though it’s not a big issue in practice. When at home or the office, I just plug into a display with a USB or Thunderbolt hub. On-the-go, the Apple adapter works great.
Having to plug more than one cable is annoying anyway when you move between desks.
There's still some weirdness as you get higher in the lineup. They start to break out into different variations of each chip, with varying degrees of memory for each variation. Like you can get a Macbook Pro with an M3 Pro chip with 11 core CPU/14 core GPU, or an M3 Pro chip 12/14 cores, or an M3 Max chip with 14/30 cores for $400 more or 16/40 for $900 more. And if you do the 14/30 M3 Max, you can choose 36 or 96gb memory, but if you choose the 16/40 Max, you can choose 48 64 or 128gb memory.
Love my macbooks that I've had, but yea. When shopping, it is rather aggrevating that there is no such thing really as just M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra. Its really M3, M3 Pro (11/14/15), M3 Pro (12/18/16), M3 Pro (14/30/16), M3 Max(14/30/16), M3 Max (16/30/16), M3 Max (16/40/16).
> it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops
And the crazy thing is, despite Dell having 170+ laptop SKUs they don't use that fact to actually have a wide range of products.
You'd think with 170 different SKUs they could produce an ultrabook with ports, wouldn't you? A modernised version of the E7270? Apparently not, though.
Having 100s of SKUs is an information denial tactic to ensure that users forfeit all of their consumer surplus[0] and pay exactly what they are willing to pay in the hopes that they get a "good one".
The problem with this tactic is that there's a lot of SKUs that give people a terrible experience and they jump to another brand.
Apple's solution to this is to instead have 50 SKUs, organize them by a few very easily understandable categories, and then price every SKU exactly within $50-$75 of one another so that there's always a meaningful upgrade for slightly more money. This is also why Apple is very stingy with storage and RAM. They use the cost of upgrades to pull you to higher priced SKUs, which then need their own upgrades, and OH LOOK there's an even nicer base model for just a little more!
[0] The amount of money you save when the thing you want to buy turns out to be cheaper than what you were willing to pay.
I think System76 also has a pretty simple evaluation process. You mostly just select the form factor you want and then configure it. Also, unlike Apple, they make it easy to get a machine exactly tailored to your needs. They don't force you to pay $$$ for an expensive processor when you just want a bit larger SSD and some extra memory...
The only non-user friendly defaults in the Mac purchasing flow are the 8G RAM and 256G SSD. I think in 2024, 16G & 512G should be the default, with an option to downgrade.
With such bloated webapps now a days, those 8G of RAM are going to cook too fast...
> I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen".
Newegg's feature selector is pretty good at sorting through this. Just uncheck all the bad screen resolutions and CPU models and see what's left. Bonus: Require at least 32GB of memory in an exact power of two, excluding all the junk that solders 8GB to the system board.
12+12GB doesn't result in a power of 2. 8+24GB does, but there are no 24GB DDR4 SODIMMs to make it with, so that's only possible with DDR5. Moreover, even though that is possible, you can then look at the specs to confirm that it isn't the case, having already filtered out all of the junk where it clearly is the case, e.g. when the machine has 40GB.
Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple prdoduct? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. You basically have to refer to MacRumors to get it right. Apple has the same problem, if not worse.
Dell has XPS 13, XPS 15, and XPS 17 and now the plus designation. It's pretty easy.
Disregarding that there are 10 different laptop product lines to choose from, if I've already somehow decided that what I want is an XPS and I want a 13 inch screen size, my first two search results are
I gather that one of these is a newer revision than the other, but it's a lot more confusing than "M2" and "M3". I need to know whether I want (up to) a Core Ultra 7 155H vs a Core i7-1250U, and whether (up to) Intel Arc Graphics is better than Intel Iris Xe graphics.
Scrolling down further adds the XPS 13 Plus and XPS 13 2-in-1 Laptop. How does XPS 13 Plus compared to XPS 13 Laptop? What about to the other XPS 13 Laptop, is it better than both? Or is this a weird side-grade where you get a different form factor which is in some ways nicer, but then also comes with all the dumb parts of the Apple's "Touch Bar" and none of the good parts? (that's my 10 second interpretation of the product, but more clueless customers will have absolutely no idea)
No not really, I already narrowed down the product lines to only XPS. And 13" is actually one of their less messy sizes, there are the 4 XPS models and 7 Latitudes.
Then within each of these the configurable parts vary, but you're potentially picking processor, RAM, GPU, SSD, and even display resolution. It's not any simpler than the options within one of Apple's laptops, except Apple has a total of four laptops in all sizes.
If you wanted a 15" laptop from Dell, you have 1 XPS, 2 Latitudes, 4 Inspirons, 2 Vostros, and 2 G Series. All of which are an ambiguous mix of actually different models or new/old revisions of the "same" models.
Looking at pricing on the XPS 15, 64 GB RAM adds $450, the RTX 4070 is $1200, upgrade from i7-13700H to i9-13900H is $450, you can option Windows 11 Pro for $50, there's a higher resolution screen for $300 (or $800 if you didn't option the fancy GPU), it's not cheap over here either.
The one place where it really feels like Apple is screwing you compared to Dell is SSD pricing.
There are going to be screen and components options on any laptop, and that's fine. What's weird is how many different but similar products Dell has, same with HP.
The most confusing laptop lineup Apple ever had that I remember was early 2015: MacBook, MacBook Air, Macbook Pro, and the old non-retina MBP from 2012 that they were still selling.
So, if you have a device made after that transition and Apple doesn't already know the details (e.g. because you didn't buy it direct), they'll also need to know how much RAM and SSD space it has.
That's a great point. My guess is that Apple doesn't share that data with their trade-in partners, which would include the web-based trade-in estimator. I don't recall having to share this when I brought stuff into an Apple Store for an in-person trade-in.
They ask for serial which you can copy and paste from the "About this Mac" dialog box that is in MacOS.
From there it asks you the year of your laptop which is also in the same dialog box.
From there it asks you which CPU version and core count you have (for M series laptops with multiple options.) To get this info, you click on "More Info" on the same dialog box(In Sonoma you also click System Report and it is all there).
Afterwards it just asks the condition of the laptop (ie, does it turn on, screen cracked etc.)
I don't see why you would need MacRumors for this.
I’ve done a trade in a few times with Apple and it’s always been simple. There’s a serial number on the device, or you could just select it from devices attached to your account
Actually I just did this the other day with an iPad Pro and it was kinda neat. Instead of asking me to enter the serial number, it said something like “it’s this device” or “use this device”. After I tapped that it just continued on and asked me about the condition of the iPad.
I have seen that serial number prompt before though, I don’t know what makes it ask for a serial number versus prompting to use the current device’s serial number. I’m not even sure how it knew what device I was on to be honest.
If a normal person just wants a “simple laptop,” they can go to Best Buy or whatever brick and mortar and pull one off the shelf. They don’t need to dig into hundreds of SKUs unless they want to do so.
BestBuy will still have a ton of different options that look similar but one is inexplicably a lot more expensive than another, even within the same brand.
Really surprised not to see any mention of the 2x2 grid Jobs introduced in 1998: Pro, Consumer, Desktop, and Portable. It was the solution to exactly this problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10cZg8pLmXk about 6 minutes in.
> I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops.
If you remember back in the day, Nokia also had a crazy number of SKUs for their phones. Nokia is no longer the power it used to be. Could it mean many SKUS means a lack of focus ? Thinking you can out market / out segment your competition rather than try to concentrate more on the product ?
I find AMD also has less SKUs than Intel. Here, as a challenger you can't really afford to segment the market as much as the leader. You need to concentrate your offerings in a few potent products.
They do it so that the consumer can't price match nor return swap from one retailer to another. The model number ultimately becomes a type of trace to reveal which retailer sold the device.
If you know what you want then most sites will have filters to narrow down the choices very quickly. If you don't know what you want and nobody told you what you need then any model is probably fine.
I don't get it. What's so great about Apple's lack of choice?
Even at a logistical / production level.. having all theses different units, options, suppliers, information, incompatibilities, tests, after sales.. insane.
This will sound slightly provocative but I genuinely wonder: why would anyone buy anything else than an apple laptop? Gaming? ideology? budget constraints? lack of familiarity with MacOS?
They are marginally more expensive, but they also very easy to sell second-hand. I'm speculating that the monthly cost is on par with a PC.
Lots of people doesn't see Apple laptops like you obviously do. Ask provocative questions and you'll get likewise answers. For my needs and my opinions:
- The software is worse. Linux is better. Windows has much broader options. I run both.
- I game.
- Ideology? Yes, Apple is an awful company.
- Familiarity? I have used it enough to know it cannot do a lot of things I need, want, like, etc.
- Budget? Yes, but not because it is too expensive, but because it cannot do anywhere near what Linux and Windows can do (for me) for way less.
>I'm speculating that the monthly cost is on par with a PC.
What is the monthly cost of a Mac that can run games, run old software I require for work and hobbies and (importantly) isn't locked down in either hardware or software so I can use it for something completely different later in life?
> What is the monthly cost of a Mac that can run games, run old software I require for work and hobbies and (importantly) isn't locked down in either hardware or software so I can use it for something completely different later in life?
Yeah, the Mac model for long term use is that you sell it later in life so you can get whatever it is that you need later in life. (Not saying that it is a good thing nor a bad thing).
The biggest downside of macOS is that it breaks compatibility with old software so often, compared to Windows which prioritizes compatibility above all else. So if you use lots of third-party apps that are often abandoned but still useful, Mac is a non-starter.
> They are marginally more expensive, but they also very easy to sell second-hand. I'm speculating that the monthly cost is on par with a PC.
They aren't marginally more expensive. I'm writing this on a Chromebook I bought for $300 before the pandemic. Including electricity, cables, etc., I figure it has cost me about $6.50/month.
If you need Windows programs for your work, or need the ports, or want to play games, that kinda answers the question. The Mac laptops are otherwise just better for most people. And the often-repeated "every user is different" is not really true; most people fit the mold.
I mean that most people who buy laptops fit the mold of needing web browsing, email, documents, and maybe file management. They can solve that with Windows, Mac, or maybe even Chromebook. There isn't usually a reason they need one in particular, the Mac just tends to be the nicest option, or the Chromebook if you're on a tight budget.
I don't like MacOS these days, I like the idea of being able to repair my computer if something breaks, and I want the option to at least attempt data recovery if I have a drive failure.
While I can sympathize with you, I'm not seeing myself repairing my MBA. It would be like trying to repair an F1 car. Not doable for the average person and even the constructor just swap the broken piece. I also backup everything important and encrypt the whole disk. I'd say the tradeoffs are worth it for the combination of lightness, quiet, performance, display and battery life I got. It's the perfect portable device for general purpose computing.
Reasons for buying other laptop (at least for developers):
1. Better choice of desktop environment (KDE/GNOME vs OS X)
2. Wider/better selection of applications
3. Better development environment
4. Ease of deployment of your own apps
5. Better fit for your budget (why spend 3000 Euros on a
limited set of features, when you can spend the same amount and get huge number of features/better features)
6. Capability to connect upto 3 external displays (which Macbook has got only recently)
There's no chance I use a Linux laptop again. The Mac will run all the open source type stuff out of the box most of the time, or if you're really deploying for Linux only then you use Docker anyway.
#2 is untrue unless you're installing Windows. #3, well somehow there's no iTerm2 equivalent on Linux, and the terminal emu is one thing you'll always use even when SSHing elsewhere. #6 is a serious point, though.
Gaming is a big one. Apple has now forced gaming companies twice to do work that is not necessary for a percent of their customer base. Thrice if you are picky.
The picky one is the death of Rosetta 1
Then they killed 32 bit binaries. This is the main reason the little Mac icon on steam is useless.
Then Arm processors and yet another recompile that was probably more than a recompile.
If you buy a windows machine, the last 30 or so years of gaming are available to you. And everything older can be emulated.
For me personally, it's a few things I dislike. I do computer graphics for fun. I like using OpenGL and Vulkan because it's the most accessible both in terms of audience and material available. Apple doesn't support either (OpenGL is deprecated, Vulkan only available via translation layer).
Additionally, and this is probably more problematic because I actually like Metal as an API, I don't live in the high income region of the US. I know I won't be happy with the default SSD. I know I want at least 16GB of RAM (can't run integration tests locally at work with 8). For a Windows laptop I go for 1TB SSD and 32GB RAM. But the added premium makes this really difficult. I'm in Germany so it's not like a Mac would eat up a year of my net wage but it's enough that I'd maybe rather go for the thinkpad.
And if I actually tried to get a bit more beef in my GPU and by a larger model because I think the 13 inch are a bit small, I'd probably spend 3k or 3.5k. That's a maxed out gaming laptop. Really hard to justify the price.
Oh come on, you're overexaggerating a bit. If you follow your pattern with Apple, you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing.
(And with more and more Electron apps, might struggle even with that once you hop onto a video call.)
> you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing.
I must be doing something wrong then. I've got one of those measly models and I do quite a bit more than just basic browsing without any problem. Video calls are the least of that, and they work fine.
Video calls require trivial amounts of memory and no real storage at all. Video editing, on the other hand, would pretty quickly fill up a 256GB drive. If you want to play with the fun new AI stuff, 8GB of RAM isn't enough.
Modern machines also have a nefarious failure mode. It used to be that you needed more memory to cache the hard drive, but SSDs are pretty fast and that doesn't matter as much anymore. So now you have the opposite problem -- if you're out of memory and start swapping you don't notice as much, because SSDs are pretty fast. Except that now you're silently wearing out your SSD. Which in the Macs, is soldered.
Anyone who says the 8/256 Airs are throwaway machines has literally never used one. Full stop. You have an opinion about what 8gb of memory is capable of, which is influenced entirely by Intel CPUs and Windows. It hits different on the M1 platform and MacOS.
I have the base level M2 Air and it’s anything but a basic browsing machine.
Runs everything I throw at it development wise, while a good few other things are open and it has never felt slow. Compare that to any Windows laptops with the same spec and it would be chugging along with just Chrome open.
I do all of my development on a measly 8GB/500GB model. The only application that has performance problems for me VCVRack, and that’s only after I surpassed 900 modules
While they do swap more often than one with more RAM (obviously), at least with the M1s, the SSDs are stupidly fast, to the point that you barely notice it for day-to-day work. They nerfed the SSD on M2 base models; not sure about M3.
For the record, on my base M1 Air, I generally have Safari, Spotify, and Alacritty open at any given time. I can also run Docker Desktop if necessary, although I prefer colima since I don’t need any of the bloat.
Ah. Apple fanboys and their partly-usable, overpriced laptops with notches. You have to buy ONCE, it's not like you have to worry about what other laptop you could've bought every single time you use one. Do the research, buy a $600 laptop. It's usually adequate for everything except gaming.
This was Apple’s secret - they punch bigger with large quantities of components.
When the original iMac came out, it was by far the #1 computer SKU. It was way better than competing products at the price range because of those economies of scale.
Okay, without googling tell me: what is an Apple model number Z15T_5108?
> All other details can be configured in the buying flow but there's not much to think about if you just want a simple laptop.
You would think so, but unfortunately not. Apple is quite good at upselling and their price gating for screens, ram etc. is very opaque. In other words: whether you want the air with non-sabotaged specs or the pro or the pro pro or the pro max is not simple.
Anyone who says this has never used an 8/256 Air post-M1, and is complaining about them hypothetically. They're fine. They're fantastic computers.
You can upgrade to 16/512, which puts the machine at $1500. This is $200 cheaper than a Dell XPS 14 16/512. "But the Dell has dedicated graphics" no it doesn't. "But, well, the Dell has a higher resolution display" no, its actually 1080p, the Air is higher resolution. "But, but, the dell, its, uh, no wait never mind don't buy Dell, buy a (insert some other brand)" the thing a lot of people really don't want to accept about Macs, right now, is that they're actually so extremely obviously the best computer money can buy that its irresponsible to buy anything else at $1000 and above (unless you're gaming or doing AI, but get a desktop at that point).
Just checking: are you saying that the M2 and M3 make 8GB/256GB viable, or that they were for the M1 Air too? Because I had an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM for a while, and that thing was painful. I haven't had to be careful about how many tabs I had open in a browser for a long time--but I also haven't had 8GB of RAM in a long time, either.
I’ve had my base M1 since a few months after launch, and the only slowdowns I’ve experienced are when I turn on low power mode. Even then, it’s more that apps are slow to launch, not that they’re unresponsive once open.
I generally have between 4-10 tabs at any given time; how many do you have?
I mean I haven't had it for a couple years because I swapped it for a M1 Max. But a lot more than that, just absentmindedly. Even when they unloaded over time.
Meanwhile, HP elitebook with current AMD chip, 2560xwhatever, 120Hz screen, 1TB of storage, 32GB of ram, both replaceable, 1200€. Comparable macs cost at least twice that, so color me highly unimpressed that twice the price gets you a nice machine.
An HP Elitebook 645 G10 with an AMD Ryzen 5, 1080p display, and 32gb of memory costs exactly $1,919 US Dollars. They're running a sale on the 830, so you could get that for only $100 more than an entry-level Macbook Air, but you'd get a much less powerful CPU, worse battery life, larger frame, and worse screen [1]
Again, I think a lot of people on here have this bubble-sense that laptops are cheaper than they actually are, because its been so long since we've bought laptops. Or something. Laptops are crazy expensive, all of them. And the degree to which Windows OEMs have fallen behind Apple in both pricing and performance is deeply concerning.
I'm still very bummed with Apple's strategy in using # of supported external displays as a feature to gate laptops.
I had to return a decently spec-ced M3 Macbook PRO 14" because it only supported 1 display (base M3) and pay more for M3 pro even though I don't need the extra horsepower.
And now the base M3 Air's support 2 displays? This is wild
I believe we are now in the 9th year of 8GB being the baseline Mac laptop RAM config.
It’s incredibly stingy. For a while you could make the argument that a lot of Air purchasers wouldn’t need it, but I don’t think that’s the case any more. My wife has an M1 Air with 8GB and between Office, Chrome, Teams, and Slack she quite regularly gets beachballs and weird performance hitches.
My wife has been complaining to me about how she regularly gets the "choose which application to terminate" dialog on her Air. I knew in my heart that 8GB wouldn't be future proof, but I underestimated how fast it would be a problem. She pretty much just runs Safari and Libreoffice Calc too, nothing that should really tax the machine.
I get this on an M1 Pro with 16GB. It's astounding. It claims to use swap but the trust is broken. I keep the Activity Monitor around and try to guess when it'll go flaky on me, but I never guess it right. I just restarted my machine now to reset whatever stupidity it has going on.
Never had it with Windows. Or iPad, or iPhone. Why does the pro computer do this? My guess is 5k external monitor and a few desktops, but...really. I'm not running multiple layers of VM's, it'll crash it with a few VS code windows, browsers, command lines.
There is an intermitted and basically unacknowleged memory leak in M1, which is supposedly addressed in M2. It also depends what app you're using - Logitech Options was somehow hogging top to 12gb on occasion, but was fixed sometime in the past few months.
So what you're saying is you're running multiple browsers (VS Code is a browser), each of which takes anywhere from 1 to several GB of memory, and you're surprised that you're running out of RAM...
Correct. I often have hundreds of browser tabs open on my iPhone, but it knows how to manage resources by unloading the ones I'm not looking at right now. The Mac can also swap tabs or apps to disk. Or warn me when I hit 90%. The only wrong option is to start freezing when it's too late. I'm a software developer who has been coding for decades, and I'm surprised by this failure mode. What would a random non-techie need to learn to reason about this? It's not like Macs are marketed only to technical professionals who keep an eye on resources.
Look, at least the Apple is smart enough to wake up basically in the same window state after having refreshed the resources. That's fantastic. But even better to fix it without going through the whole "have you turned it off and on again" routine.
> I often have hundreds of browser tabs open on my iPhone, but it knows how to manage resources by unloading the ones I'm not looking at right now. The Mac can also swap tabs or apps to disk.
Different models of computing. The iPhone only displays one tab inside one application at a time. And switching is slow enough that the OS can prefetch the swapped memory for the new view. A desktop app usually keeps everything alive as switching is very random and instantaneous. And you don't go open things that require a lot of RAM when you don't have that many (Each electron app is a whole new browser which is already a resource hog)
That is interesting, I run Firefox, VSCode, containers and whatever code I'm working on. I never even need to look at RAM usage. It would be interesting to know what triggers the RAM limit in your case.
The only application I ever need to terminate is Notes, which for some reason is extremely crash prone on the mac.
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted -- macOS uses available disk space as swap, and if your disk is full (and thus has no more room for swap) then it will pop up this dialog.
Since a person cannot look at 1000 tabs at the same time, most of the tabs can be frozen. I'm writing to you from Firefox which has 826 tabs right now.
Firefox is just really good for handling huge amounts of tabs because you can install alternative tab UIs like Tree Style Tabs and scroll/search tabs like they are bookmarks.
Any browser can use massive amounts of RAM if you open a lot of tabs. Especially if they are running a lot of JS that doesn't release its memory properly. There are some sites I can go to that just continue to chew away at the RAM as long as the tab is open.
In any case, it's pretty easy for the OS to swap out browser data as it is chunkable by tab. Just because it had allocated 22GB doesn't mean that it was all active. Must was certainly swapped to SSD.
> between Office, Chrome, Teams, and Slack she quite regularly gets beachballs and weird performance hitches
Considering how bad all of that is about "weird performance hitches" (read: running an entire browser for every single app) are you sure that has anything to do with the memory?
I have a 14 MBP M1 16/512. It’s… not great. The other day photoshop was running super slow so I opened up process manager and discovered that not only had it eaten all 16gb of ram, it was also using up ~30gb of swap space. Even just general day to day safari use will give me random lags and slowdowns that I don’t get on my desktop which is running an i5.
Obviously a planned obsolescence tactic. If the base models were 16GB there's a fine chance Apple wouldn't see another dollar from those customers for another 10+ years at minimum. The average customer doesn't understand their memory requirements and cannot be expected to predict how they may change in the future. It's the only thing they got left they can use to trick customers into buying a machine that will need to be replaced sooner.
Look, I'm not happy about the base ram situation either, I really do think they should put in 12/16GB at minimum.
But at the same time, I've never seen non-techies complain that they can't open a few tabs, reply to a few emails, watch youtube, listen to music, and study on their base laptops. They're amazing for that.
If we need more memory to accomplish the above tasks any time soon, we're in a sad state of software development and bloat.
We're already in a sad state of software development and bloat, once upon a time you needed around 1/32nd the RAM to do all the same things you can do today (1/128th if you count the 90s state of the web as "the same").
A web browser adds a significant amount of memory usage to any task, even with basic static webpages, and then almost every other app you use is secretly also a web browser but none of the RAM usage from it can be shared with the web browser you're already running.
We are in a sad state of bloat. 99% of what people do on their computers now goes through a web browser, and opening lots of tabs chews through RAM like nothing else.
I use my M1/8GB Air pretty much exclusively for web browsing and run into 'out of application memory' errors on a regular basis. Relaunching Safari generally solves the problem. It's just such a bad look for Apple to be selling premium priced products that can't do the most basic task people want them for without throwing errors.
If we're going by anecdotes, none of the people in my circle with base machines have ever complained about their computer running out of memory for their basic tasks. I'm sure Apple is looking at their telemetry data and they aren't seeing it either.
Again, I'm personally not happy about shelling out $400 for 24GB of memory on my next Macbook, but I gave away one of my base machines with 8GB to a family member, and they simply did not notice.
That's so extremely backwards in relation to everything else it's mind boggling. 16 gb being considered and priced at premium, where I had a single chrome tab eating 3gb easily few time's recently.
What about colima vm for docker? Intellij, gradle daemon, android studio, xcode, electron apps, android virtual device, slack, spring boot apps, iMovie, Davinci Resolve, python notebooks?
Do you use everything together? My opinion is that if you'd use any of that seriously you buy the device that let it run correctly. Opening a multi-module project in Android Studio that requires something like 6GB or ram for the index, then running it inside a 3GB emulator on an 8GB laptop is just asking for problem. Be mindful of your RAM usage and select the suitable amount for your use cases.
No, what’s worse is Apple, or is it random self-styled influencers, spreading the false narrative that Apple Silicon magically requires less RAM and people actually believing that.
> macOS tends to have a better memory compression algorithm
Compared to what? Linux? Windows?
Are there any published benchmarks anywhere, otherwise this just proves my point above.
> Apple tends to have faster RAM (way more bandwidth), faster SSDs
Yes, sure, due to its integrated nature, but that does not reduce the RAM requirement. My 8GB M1 MBA, which is used as a home browsing-only laptop, is almost always in yellow on memory pressure once we have a few tabs open.
But that’s what I said: My post starts with “no”. The other points in the “but” are all still true.
The RAM or SSD are specifically not faster because of its “integrated nature”. The RAM is faster because Apple engineered an actually wide bus + multiple channels for memory access. The fatter Macs have the equivalent of up to 8-channel memory, which not even server CPUs of the competition provide. The SSD gets easily 7 GB/s reads in my testing. Both Windows and Mac have a working memory compression algorithm and a sister post claims that it works better due to hardware acceleration, which I’m inclined to believe. Memory compression on Linux is a mess as you cannot keep compressed memory pages in physical RAM, instead forcing you to partition the memory and manually handling how much and what to put in compressed zram.
Low memory situations are thus handled better than on other operating systems. Memory and memory pressure are neglected concepts in the competition, both the hardware providers and operating system providers.
> The fatter Macs have the equivalent of up to 8-channel memory, which not even server CPUs of the competition provide.
8 channels has been standard in Epyc chips since they released in 2017, the latest Epyc Genoa does 12 channels. They're also not splitting that memory bandwidth with a bandwidth hungry GPU.
SSD performance scales somewhat linearly with capacity, and modern 1TB drives are capable of 6+GB/s reads. The 256GB M2 does a measly 1.4GB/s, and from what I've seen the 1TB is also lackluster at ~5GB/s.
This comes up often, but it's honestly totally fine for a non-technical user who only occasionally uses anything other than Safari and Photos.
The vast majority of their market would not fit into the developer, content creator, or just plain power-user category. There's people who just log on to do internet banking and email when they're not on Reddit or Facebook.
For some anecdata, 16/512+ would be a waste on my parents, in-laws and my whole extended family for that matter. They would benefit from it, but they're not screaming at spinning wheels, and are probably a bit more patient and accustomed to 'slowness', which is pretty subjective.
This is why for my Mac needs I have a cheaper Mini. If I'm going to have to be stuck with 8GB or pay insane markups for 16gb, I'll get the 8GB Mini, and only do the purely Mac-centric stuff on it to minimize pain.
I disagree, and I always upgrade the RAM even though I don’t like paying more. Why? Because it puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control.
Think of an alternate universe where Apple does the opposite: every new model they push the envelope and double the baseline RAM compared to the previous year. In that world you’d have all the software growing in memory use without bound. Consumers would be forced into a treadmill of computer upgrades like we haven’t seen since the 90’s when CPUs were skyrocketing in performance every year.
For anyone who forgets what the 90’s was like, here’s an example with Mac models:
1990 saw the launch of the Mac LC which had a 16 MHz Motorola 68020
1999 brought the Power Mac G4 at up to 500 MHz
That’s a 31-fold increase in clock rate (and several times that in overall performance) in the same timespan we’re discussing. Software that was written for the G4 had no chance of running on the LC (ignoring CPU architecture differences).
MacBook Airs are the mainline consumer machine these days. Apple does not want users to feel like they need to upgrade them every year (despite what people say).
> I disagree, and I always upgrade the RAM even though I don’t like paying more. Why? Because it puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control.
Shouldn't you be doing the opposite then? Keeping the baseline amount so you can know what it's like for people without a large budget and stop patronizing the applications without acceptable footprints in that circumstance?
> In that world you’d have all the software growing in memory use without bound.
We already live in that world. In the 90s you could run Netscape Navigator on a machine with 8 megabytes of memory. I've seen individual browser tabs use more gigabytes than that.
And not all of this is Electron bloat. The Stable Diffusion XL model is ~13GB. In general the quality is going to be proportional to the model size. So for the thing to get better, people need machines with more memory. And 8GB is already too small.
Shouldn't you be doing the opposite then? Keeping the baseline amount so you can know what it's like for people without a large budget and stop patronizing the applications without acceptable footprints in that circumstance?
I'm not a developer of native Mac apps. If I were, I would definitely have a baseline machine for testing.
The Stable Diffusion XL model is ~13GB
That's not a baseline consumer application. See my other reply (re: grandma and little Billy). If you're developing a native Mac app for grandma and little Billy, Apple probably doesn't want you shipping a 13GB model with it. This is an example of the point I'm trying to make: find a way to compress the model so the end user doesn't have to deal with that kind of bloat (or host it in the cloud).
> I'm not a developer of native Mac apps. If I were, I would definitely have a baseline machine for testing.
You expect every developer to buy a second Mac? They're all doing what you're doing and paying more for the machine with more memory because other applications need it, and then their application runs fine on that machine so they don't even notice the problem for the people with 8GB.
> That's not a baseline consumer application.
It will be before any of these new machines go out of support.
It's very easy to check the memory usage of your project (it's kinda in your face on XCode). If you do a few minutes test or let the app stay open for a few hours and usage has ballooned to a few GBs, that usually means you have a leak somewhere to fix.
And is there any wonder Electron has such a terrible reputation?
The thing that really bothers me is that if you look at what regular home and office users were doing on their computers in the 90's it's almost identical to what those users are doing right now, except in the 90's they had orders of magnitude slower computers with orders of magnitude less memory. Yet in many cases those 90's computers were MORE RESPONSIVE than what they have today.
All of those countless billions of investment in technology hasn't done a damn thing for the productivity of Sally the office worker or Billy the 6th grader. Arguably, it's made their lives worse (viz. social media's deleterious effects on mental health). Now everyone's pushing the heck out of AI and all I see is high schoolers using ChatGPT to cheat themselves out of an education. They can't read (critically), they can't write, they can't even spell!
So in light of all that, why should we be pushing more and more computing power (and memory, the original issue) on regular users who aren't getting any benefit (broadly, to their way of life) out of it?
> And is there any wonder Electron has such a terrible reputation?
Certainly not, but you can't fix it by putting less RAM in the machines of people with budget constraints. The developers will just pay for more themselves and then not care about those people because people who can't afford RAM generally aren't lucrative customers.
And it's also worth considering what actually causes this.
Developers want their code to work on every platform. They don't want to write different code for each platform. But each platform wants them to have to, because that makes it more likely there will be software that only works on their platform, or that doesn't work on some new competing platform. So they refuse to develop or implement cross-platform standards.
Then someone else has to do it, but that's rather a lot of work, and it turns out the easiest way to do it is to piggyback on the work already done for browsers to make them work on every platform. That's Electron. It's terribly inefficient but it saves the developer a lot of porting work, so it's widely used.
If Apple doesn't like this, they should provide cross-platform native APIs for developing applications.
If Apple doesn't like this, they should provide cross-platform native APIs for developing applications.
It’s not in Apple’s interest to do that. It would cost a lot of money to develop and only benefit the competition. It would also slow down Apple’s own ability to innovate on the APIs until the competitors catch up.
Or are you saying Apple should develop the APIs for Windows and Linux as well? Why would they do that?
There’s a lot of profiling tools. There’s even one in the browser’s inspector. It’s not something exclusive to XCode. You can even use Task Manager/Activity Monitor/System Monitor in a pinch.
RAM usage has barely budged for years. Taking the '90s as baseline again: In 1991, you could get a brand new PowerBook 100 with 2 MB of RAM. In 2001, you'd get a new PowerBook G4 with 128 MB of RAM, a 64-fold increase. But in 2013, a MacBook Air came standard with 4GB, and we're looking at only 8GB in 2024.
You're taking as your example the thing people are complaining about. 8GB of DDR5 is ~$24 retail, and that's the amount Apple is putting in their $1000 laptop. PCs of the same price typically have 32-64GB.
You're also using a time period that includes COVID and when the DRAM manufacturers got busted for price fixing.
It kind of is, e.g. Steam hardware survey has more than 80% of people with at least 16GB of RAM and almost a third with 32GB, and that's a measure of installed base rather than new computers.
In the second case it started only 3 years into your measurement period instead of 7, and then right after that was COVID. It's only now that the prices are starting to resume their historical downward trend and they're still slightly above where they were when the price fixing started in 2016.
But that explains why it's not a factor of 64 during this period. It's still the case that 8GB of DDR5 is ~$24. What reason is there to not include $100 worth on a $1000 machine? Or, if some excuse for that could be generated, why isn't there a $1100 machine with four times as much?
> But in 2013, a MacBook Air came standard with 4GB, and we're looking at only 8GB in 2024.
You're saying "RAM usage", but your evidence is "RAM provisioning", which is the entire basis for the criticism. The reality is that RAM usage has increased significantly, but Apple has been stuck by the addressable memory limits they've baked into their architecture.
As another point of comparison, a 2013 iPhone 5c (technically not released until the last quarter of 2013, but we're being generous here) had 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, though you could upgrade that to 32GB. A modern iPhone has 6GB of RAM, and comes with storage from 128GB to 1TB.
>As another point of comparison, a 2013 iPhone 5c (technically not released until the last quarter of 2013, but we're being generous here) had 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, though you could upgrade that to 32GB. A modern iPhone has 6GB of RAM
Fine, take that as your reference. It still shows that growth in memory was 1000% faster not too long ago.
No, it doesn't. It shows that Apple's RAM offerings have grown at widely different rates depending on their product. Apple has been stingy on memory compared to the broader industry. The biggest EC2 instance you could get in 2013 had 244GB of memory, but today you can get one with over 24TB of memory.
...and that still proves nothing about the growth of RAM usage in that time period, because the size of the offerings in individual products are largely independent of the increases in RAM usage.
> Why? Because it puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control.
I've yet to notice the impact on getting web sites to stop using incredibly bloated JavaScript that leak memory, video conferencing & streaming apps from using codecs that redline the CPU, or game developers from writing games that make the GPU cry uncle, or...
> 1990 saw the launch of the Mac LC which had a 16 MHz Motorola 68020.
You got lucky, because we got the Mac II Si back then, but they were both kneecapped on the factory floor by the 16-bit memory bus that crippled the 68020's 32-bit memory bus. 2 year old PCs ran circles around it. Planned obsolescence was was one of Apple's crowning achievements back then.
> 1999 brought the Power Mac G4 at up to 500 MHz
The Macbook Air from ten years ago would be Retina I had: a 2-core i7 that could go up to 3.5 GHz. Ask me how well that runs software written for the new M3's. ;-)
> MacBook Airs are the mainline consumer machine these days. Apple does not want users to feel like they need to upgrade them every year (despite what people say).
You might have missed this bit from Apple's blurb on the new MacBook Airs: "13x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air". The fastest Intel-based Macbook Air was produced [checks notes], 4 years ago. It's hard not to read that like they aren't trying to convey a need to upgrade.
If you're wondering why people are saying what they're saying, it's because Apple is saying what they're saying.
> It puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control
If you are talking about "native" apps, maybe. Otherwise, nah. Cross-platform apps based on web like Teams and Spotify won't put too much effort on performance as long as it is not too slow. And if you haven't realized, most of the stuff you interact with is online. People just shove an entire website.
As for professional apps -- if you can't run a heavy audio/video editing application smoothly, I'm pretty sure that's your problem. Developers can put more effort into optimizing for 8GB RAM, but at the end of the day these workflows require large amount of memory, and after a certain point it is not worth to optimize for this segment of users
I'm talking specifically about native, non-professional apps targeted at regular consumers (such as grandma, aunt Suzie, little Billy working on his science project). These are the kinds of apps that are published on the Mac App Store. Apple specifically includes Performance as a section under its App Store review guidelines. I bet if you submit an app that gobbles up more than 8GB of RAM and starts swapping like crazy on a baseline Mac, you'll get rejected by the review team.
Seriously? A 9 year gap and you go from that to not wanting users to feel like they need to upgrade every year? Mighty slippery straws you're grasping there.
I had a Macbook Pro 2015 with 256GB SSD. (Base model was 128GB). It was a very painful experience even back then. Yet almost ten years later, we are here, still paying $200 to upgrade to 512GB, when almost every Windows laptop comes with 512GB. FYI a 1TB NVMe gen 4 drive costs less than $100.
Agree it is crazy, I am writing this from my M1 Air with 8GB of RAM and I am yet to ever have a real issue with a RAM limitation... the OS does an amazing job juggling RAM.
The RAM being so low is confusing. Given RAM is one of the cheaper components. I guess they do some smart swap memory using SSD - but my Air laptop struggles to run PowerPoint, few browser tabs and video calling at the same time.
The way Apple has always had e-waste laptops at the bottom of the line is pretty disgusting with their environmental posturing. MacOS barely works on 128GB space and 8GB ram yet for many years that was the baseline, it was particularly bad because the ram gets full just browsing then your baseline OS and a few files is enough that the swap disk would get full soon after.
Have a crate with about 40+ of those machines at work, essentially useless from the era where the person in charge of buying laptops just bought the bottom end for every employee and considered it a job done.
Seems like a borderline conspiracy to fry the internal SSD over time, adding a wear-point to the product family, and making sure consumers keep consuming. I'm talking about system paging: virtual memory on the disk.
Even worse, if one plots the (price, unified memory amount, chip type), and looks at it from right-to-left, then the dollars per system capability is disgusting when you order a lesser system. You get the most value for your money when you buy the maximum unified memory configuration (on those three points).
Better yet, with a maxed out unified memory configuration, one can further save on SSD writes by using (and loading/storing) RAM disks for their projects!
Most people buying a MacBook for work are likely getting a higher unified memory, so their workstations live longer. Meanwhile consumers will have to keep consuming as they fry their internal SSD's on their airs...
I was also wondering if a 1TB apple fabric device is simply an 8TB fabric device with 8x the write life...
It sucks since the M series laptops have been amazing, with this one glaring problem.
I have a great M2 pro machine, but officially it can only support 2 external monitors. I should be able to close my screen and power 3. I can do this with a dock so it's not a resources problem.
I am curious what is different between the Air and the Pro that the Air can power 2 external monitors (it does say when the lid is closed) and the Pro can only power 1 regardless. Or is this a software update and the Pro page just has not been updated.
I keep hoping that this is a problem that is only temporary and eventually it will be removed or as time goes on each series can run 1 more monitor or something.
I tried a DisplayLink dock once with my M1 Max MBP. It was incredibly laggy, pegged my cpu at 40%, and didn't let me set the correct resolution/scaling level for either of my monitors (horizontal 4k 32" and a vertical 4k 27", nothing exotic).
A TB4 dock fixes most problems, but I have to hack the EDID to disable YCbCr and force RGB, or the colors look like absolute shit. The external monitors still look significantly worse under macOS than either Windows or Linux, and I have no idea why.
External display handling is easily the worst part of using a Mac for me.
i think the fact that so few are supported is part of the issue (not parent commenter, also not a user of apple products so i admittedly do lack experience in this area)
Relying on DisplayLink too. It's neat, but it's a hack. Uses a fair bit of CPU constantly and makes my Mac say "your screen is being observed." Was disappointing coming from my 2009 Mac Pro which could run 5 displays no questions asked.
Really? I just recently tried out (and took a photo of) an m2 macbook pro with 2k displays attached, lid open and screen mirroring on. 4 screens with 60“ tv in the distance. Would that really not work on an m3 mac?
I can do 4 monitors with my lid closed with my Dell XPS 13. It is crazy to see an Apple Laptop that costs $2000+ cannot do a laptop that costs $1000. People with money really don't know how to shop.
Keep in mind 2 displays are only supported with the lid closed. So the only change is that now you can use an external monitor in lieu of the internal display.
Lid closed? Depends on the exact Macbook version ... The lid of my MacBook Pro (M1 pro, 16-inch, 2021) is open and actively displays stuff and additionally two external LG 4K monitors are directly connected to it via USB-C. The third USB-C port is in use for external disks, but maybe I should try sometime to connect a third monitor ...?
But nevertheless, Apple's hardware strategy sucks ...
I feel like I accidentally discovered a huge hack for this by upgrading to a 49" DQHD monitor. It's the exact same resolution as two 27" 1440p monitors so it's like any Apple silicon chip has always supported dual external displays. And it was a much better overall value compared to buying 2 displays + over-specced macbook.
Do you mind sharing the monitor model? Found the Samsung LC49G97TSSNXDC for $999[1], but also a reddit thread about some issues with it and a 2019 MacBook Pro[2] (which is admittedly Intel rather than Apple silicon-based).
Samsung CRG9 (previous sale at Costco for $749, currently $849) connected through HP USB-C Dock G5 (models are confusing, exact one I bought was https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RGC9QSL/). I'm using original base M1 Macbook (currently $749 at Costco) and have had zero issues with the monitor. Without the dock you might need a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter like mentioned in reddit comments you linked to, but I already had the dock from a previous workstation and everything just worked when I plugged it in.
Considering minor Macbook upgrades can get you into >$1500 price territory pretty easily I think this a fantastic value. If you wanted to buy my full setup right now it would be $849 + $749 + $145 = $1745 but you're getting “dual” monitors and dock that can be reused with any modern machine, making it easy to switch between work and play. I can even plug my Steam Deck into it. :) (No affiliation with any of these products!)
I have two Samsung Ultrawides, one at home, one at work. They both work perfectly fine with my M2 Max MBP, including at 120Hz. I have connected them directly and via a Lenovo TB4 docking station. No issues either way.
One thing you should be aware of is that having two seperate monitors can be an advantage for Window management on macOS. With two monitors, I can swap spaces on one of them and keep everything as is on the other. With only one it's not that easy.
I am hoping the limit is just a MacOS thing, like how MST1.2(?) was supported on my old MBA(2015) hardware but not available on MacOS. I could Daisy chain DisplayLink monitors on Linux, but MacOS wouldn’t let me, and I was limited to a single monitor.
I use Asahi Linux on M2 now, and the USBC display support isn’t done yet, but I am hoping it would be better than MacOS.
Unfortunately it isn't. There are only two display controllers in the M1/2/3 and that can't be worked around in software. MST won't work in Asahi Linux because it's not present in the hardware. It worked on x86 Macs because the GPU supported it.
You can use more external displays using a dock and DisplayLink Manager though. I got three extra monitors to run on my M1 Air with no problems that way.
If it can identify something people will pay more for, while not quite putting off most people, it'll do it, no matter how mad.
So if most people think 8GB is fine for a laptop, they'll buy it, and everyone else pays through the nose for more.
Most people only want one extra screen? That's what you get on the base machine and you must pay (alot) for more. If one day most people need two, then you'll get two.
Apple seem to spend a lot of design time on how to extract the most money out of those willing to pay, no matter how annoying it is.
Stuff like this is why I can not switch to Apple, I would not expect or even think to look up which Macbooks can support at least 2 displays if they otherwise had decent enough specs for them. Who knows what else I am failing to consider?
I don't want to waste time migrating to a new system, only to find out I need to return/resell it, or later down the road find out another arbitrary/artificial limitation Apple has set that I either have to find a work around for or suck up until I can switch machines again if none exist.
This is unfortunate since there are some features that have made it very tempting to switch.
It's on-chip silicon, not a marketing feature. This kind of product design is just really hard. Mask sets get well into the billions of dollars, you can't just assemble a list of features as if they're all free. You need to decide upfront, often years in advance, what feature you think people will want to buy for the market you think you'll find yourself in. There are no easy answers.
But just in general, Intel has always prioritized lots of I/O flexibility on its chips. If you look at the datasheets there have always been dozens and dozens of units on every SKU that are never plumbed out to ports on the device. Three or four display outputs, six or eight USB controllers, stuff like that. Apple is the opposite: they won't include something if they aren't absolutely sure they need it. So after the shift from x86 to Apple silicon, laptop users are feeling a squeeze on I/O that used to seem "free".
Even if there are technical limitations that prevent Apple from adding more I/O easily, as a consumer it feels like artificial segmentation/limitation.
Apart from the initial M1 MacBook Pro release, it feels like most products Apple has released in the last few years has always been missing one or two features, and the next release happens to have that feature. E.g. the first M1 Air did not have MagSafe even though the Pros did, and then Apple included MagSafe in M2 Air, but it didn't support multiple displays; now Apple is including multiple displays in M3 Air.
It feels awfully convenient that each generation conveniently has a nontrivial feature upgrade.... Apple has less incentive to make each generation "complete" -- by delaying features (more) consumers will feel obligated to upgrade per generation.
It does seem odd, though, to brand a laptop as "PRO" and limit it to 2 displays, then release a non-PRO device that can handle more.
Edit: Better wording, I suppose, that the non-PRO supports two external monitors with the lid closed, the PRO supports 1. Still an odd overall offering/branding.
In principle I agree. But the M3 chips are similar for the M3 Macbook Pro and M3 Macbook Air. The PRO laptop is the one that only supports 1 display while the AIR supports 2 with the lid closed.
I had a 2019 cheesegrater Mac Pro. With Catalina, I was able to drive two 4K screens at 144Hz in HDR10, because Catalina apparently supported DSC 1.4.
Then they introduced the ProDisplay XDR with Big Sur which had people agog at "how were they able to drive this 6K display given the bandwidth limitations?"
Well, the answer is because they absolutely nerfed/bastardized DSC 1.4 from Big Sur (and it's maybe only been updated in Monterey? Unsure, I no longer have the screens - ironically I bought an XDR) to make it happen with some proprietary magic: those same screens could now only be driven at 60Hz in HDR10 or 95Hz in SDR.
Proof in the pudding was that my monitors (LG27GN950-B) actually allowed you to change the advertised/supported DSC version, and when I "downgraded" the monitors to DSC 1.2, performance actually improved, and allowed 120Hz SDR and 95Hz HDR.
This happened with many many users, across many screen types.
Apple studiously ignored it, and may still be. They simply don't care if you're not using an Apple display.
But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it.
The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality control that confuse consumers and leave them unhappy. This is the flip side of choice in prioritizing, say, gaming performance over battery life while optimizing price or vice-versa.
Also my personal opinion is that 90% of consumer frustration comes from the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep between Windows, Intel/AMD, and OEMs. Consumers expect to be able to close their laptop and for it to preserve battery instead of becoming hot or dying the bag. That really needs a solution.
> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU.
People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.
Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.
Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 14" 14ACN6. Got one at Costco over a year ago for around $700US. Runs Pop_OS! really well.
Weight is very much light enough for me.
Edit: There is one downside I found. I replaced the 512GB SSD with 1TB and nearly needed stitches because the bottom plate was so sharp. Oh and I just looked it up, it's listed at 3.04lbs
A big factor is how these machines age too, though. 4 years ago the 2020 M1 Macbook Air dropped, and it's still a fantastic computer today. On the other hand, I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today
I'm still using this beautiful 12 year old Samsung series 9 laptop. Unlike my 9 year old Macbook it still receives official security updates (Win 10) and can run any new application (Xcode refuses to install on the Macbook, too old).
can't you install linux on an older mac? (similar to how you installed win 10 on a 12 yr old laptop) for newer m1+ macs we still don't know the max age support
I probably can install Linux, but I'm fairly certain Xcode would still refuse to install... The upgrade from Win 7 to 10 was seamless, replacing MacOS with Linux would be like replacing the computer.
I'm just thinking more in terms of hardware. Trackpad, keyboard, display, hinges, ports, support, battery life-- all of those (in my experience) tend to either be poor out of the box or decay rapidly for many machines. I've used an "enterprise" HP laptop that's just a couple years old recently-- the battery is totally cooked and it feels like it's made out of takeout containers.
I'm a year and a half in and everything is running smooth. I still get a full workday out of the battery - and that's using Linux. That's plenty for me. It opens smooth. The keyboard is good - no deck flex. The screen is fine - even at only 300nits I don't need it brighter as I don't work in bright areas.
I really really don't see how this won't last another 2 and half years or even more.
Eh, I've been using a Dell Inspiron (the ones with aluminum chassis) since 2019. I've been using a 13 inch Dell model of the same type since 2016. They're great quality, great track pad (actual clicking, instead of haptic garbage of the MacBook) and quite reliable. I say this as someone who also owns and uses an M1 Air, and uses a 2019 MBP and a 2023 M1 for work.
Apple isn't the only one making great machines that're nice to hold and nice to use.
A 4 year old Lenovo is an eight core Ryzen with 32gb memory. Battery still lasts a day. I'm not sure there's anything significantly better available yet.
I have a Thinkpad T480 from 2018, bought it last year for $100. Peoples needs in a laptop are far lower than marketers would have you believe. Where as many M1 macs users are finding their laptops a struggle to do basic tasks. I use it for programming, 7 hours battery life with hot swappable battery. My fan spins up less often than the Apple silicon pros in the office which is nice because I hate fan noise.
>I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today
Why not? I have a M1 Max supplied by my employer, and it's awesome. But guess what I use as my daily driver? An old t450s, running Ubuntu. Does everything I need, I can fix and replace anything in it (including the battery), and the keyboard is awesome. I think it's 10 years old.
I mean, for most of the work I do my computer is just a client anyway.
Dell Latitude 5400, i5-8265U [0], 14" matte screen. Bought refurbished, self-upgraded to 32GB and 1TB M2 PCI SSD with about 10 mins worth of work.
Currently running Firefox (14 tabs), LibreOffice Calc (spreadsheet), LibreOffice Writer (word processor), 3 WebStorm project windows (JetBrains JavaScript IDE), Kitty (terminal emulator), on Arch Linux w/Gnome (Wayland). No fans running, about 6 hrs battery life on WiFi being productive. Around 3.4 lbs, so maybe a little heavy for a 14" machine. But the extra 0.x lbs is worth it.
Total cost under $600, been using as daily driver and dev machine for about 4 years now. Handles VMs, containers, whatever with no fuss. Parts are easy to source, easy to find repair helf for, and not too bad to replace. Spends about half it's life plugged into an external 42" 4K monitor, I get 30 FPS but that is just fine for everything I do. Point being, it handles fancy external display just fine. And that's with integrated graphics.
It's not a fancy computer. Fellow nerds sneer at it. I have people wonder at the fact that I do so much with like the same Dell that their non-tech acquaintances bought at WalMart or Costco or maybe second hand off Facebook, but this thing just works. I don't care if it breaks, or if I drop it, or if I spill something on it. The cost for replacing or upgrading is easily justified by ease of doing so - plus the money that has been saved by not getting a higher-priced machine. It is silent during web browsing and most day-to-day tasks.
Literal skylake processor is not in the same performance class as M3 no matter what you tell yourself. The battery life alone is literally an order of magnitude different.
Just like OP said, this is not really a comparable machine. It’s fine if it meets your needs, but the apple is also a better machine and you shouldn’t dump on people for acknowledging this reality.
> not in the same performance class...it's fine if it meets your needs...the apple is also a better machine
all responses here have been along the lines of 'i have x many tabs open no problem. i develop y no problem. i use z containers no problem.' i tried to mirror that, in my response. sounds like the same class for most people in this thread by real usage, if not same performance class by benchmarking.
> you shouldn't dump on people for acknowledging this reality
sorry if i burst the bubble a little, if you excuse me i'll get back to being as productive as the other people crowing about the machine - possibly more so because I've spent the remaining $700-$2200 on other things that boost my productivity.
Hello, laptop buddy!! Paid more than $700 in euros for it two years ago though. Can totally relate to the sharpness, but otherwise still very happy with it. Had to patch my ACPI to nuke S0 and get decent S3 suspend though. Did they ever patch that with firmware?
> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.
Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it
People don't think about sports or boxing etc in the context of talking about laptops, and some people here speak English as a second or third or more language.
But no, let's be snarky about HN peeps being literal and misinterpreting things.
> Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it
I've always wondered why that is. No other community I'm active in insists so much on explicitly spelling out everything and very literal language – most will actually reward playing with language, if done well. Writing as if targeting Commander Data seems to work quite well though.
This might come off as projection, but in my experience, HN has a lot of people who pride themselves on their rationality, and part of this is giving off the image of never joking and always being serious. You can see this when people get mass downvoted for making jokes, which is also uncommon in other programming communities. Somehow this often spills over into metaphors as well as jokes. I think that jokes and metaphors are quite similar in that regard, both not to be taken totally seriously and/or literally. The HN insistence of being above jokes inevitably leads to being above metaphors.
Tech is known for being international, and even in the US is staffed with a lot of foreign-born labour. I don't find it surprising that a community with a high amount of non-native speakers sometimes misinterprets metaphors.
It's just not a good metaphor in this case, where weight is an actual determining factor. In boxing, weight class is literally your weight, saying nothing of your power.
League or class would have probably been better here.
The other issue with linking is that the "best" in the windows market is that it's heavily dependent on current promotions. It's easy to find windows laptops discounted >20% which really throws off the direct comparisons at retail prices.
>That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.
Hard to be when other oems need to profit from hardware and pay windows/Intel/Nvidia/etc. For using their parts. But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.
Apple just metaphorically throws out a MacBook at the slightest inconvenience, they don't even bother trying to fix their own devices.
> But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.
Do they? At least for the slimmer models, I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess.
>I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess
ultrabooks, yes. everything is so crammed and specs are relatively low, so you're mostly stuck with what comes in the machine.
Most other laptops (the "pro" competitors) tend to not do that. There's no good reason for an OEM to do that if they aren't optimizing for some sub 4lb laptop.
It's part of the reason Apple has so few SKUs compared to others, because everything is conjoined; Dell will have five SKUs that are identical except two removable pieces (RAM and SSD) are varying sizes.
I'm not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops, especially since the latter generally don't come with any sort of warranty. And when you're buying off ebay (and can't inspect beforehand, like with craigslist/nextdoor), you don't even know for sure if it will work on day 1.
> not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops
It of course makes no sense at all. For any given laptop, you can also buy it used. Including MacBooks, believe it or not. It's a way of puffing up a comparison when the person making it knows the comparison doesn't stand on its own.
Yeah, I'm kind of 50/50 about comparing them for the purposes of this conversation too.
In practical terms though, when I'm looking for a new laptop I do check both pricing of new and what's on Ebay. Sometimes I'll go with the new thing, and other times I'll get the Ebay thing, depending on the situation.
I always keep an eye on those, but certified refurbished from manufacturers (whether Apple or Dell or HP, etc) are really good deals, quite often, and a known quantity.
I've no problem buying certified refurbished for work, whereas for home eBay off-lease is more acceptable because I know it's me dealing with issues if they crop up.
Yeah, I've bought refurb Apple devices from Apple, partly because they're always in pristine cosmetic condition, but mostly because you can buy AppleCare for them just as if they were new.
I think for the general public this is a reasonable comparison, since the performance is good enough for most things on a 2 year old eng pc for less than half the msrp. I would expect most corporate refurbs on eBay to be moderately reputable, and eBay is know to be consumer friendly.
I would consider buying a used computer from a person, if I could test it in advance. I don't think I'd ever buy a computer sight-unseen off ebay. They may be customer friendly on balance, but they're unpredictable enough that I wouldn't want to spend that kind of cash and risk being completely screwed.
Are we talking weight class as in weight or performance?
I find the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 'in the weight class' with about the same weight, but with a less performant CPU and not as high res screen. It's also 8/256, has good battery life, and is fine for a lot of workloads. It can be had for $400ish factory recertified, or 100-200 more new brand new depending on sales.
Keep in mind I'm not saying that the two go toe to toe here, I'm just listing a lightweight alternative.
This is an excellent laptop, I've found it to be great. Plenty of people can't stand chromeos, but you can run linux in vm mode, I find the ability to have a safe env but run any x / linux apps natively makes for a very compelling combo. You can run emacs, any x-windows software like dev tools natively. I also like the ability to run android apps - with the limitation that some app disallow running them unless they are on a 'native' phone; over time it seems more and more mainstream apps allow this.
Yep same. I wanted a cheap decent laptop for when I'm traveling, which isn't often, so didn't want or need best of the best. It dawned on me I spend about all my time on the web, in vs code, or on the command line. With their Linux VM setup I can install about anything, and it both installs and runs as if it were a native app. Perfect for my use case, at least.
I'm not a huge fan of the ChromeOS UI and whatnot, but spend very little time interacting with it or Gnome on my main machine, so it's fine enough.
Which might not be a consideration whatsoever. It isn't for me; I bring my laptop to the office, or from the office, and am never using it where weight makes one bit of difference.
Again, not for me. I throw it in a backpack and because I'm in the US without good public transport, the distance I carry it is precisely from my house to my car (25'), then from the parking garage to the office.
I "carry" it maybe a total of 3 minutes. The weight is literally not an issue for me.
Commutes can be very different, too. Someone who walks and uses public transport will feel differently about the weight of their laptop than someone who just has to lug theirs to their car and across the parking lot. Same with travel: Flying with just a carry-on bag and crossing big airports on foot makes lightweight laptops a lot more attractive.
also, there isn’t even a barrel let alone any sort of rifling? So how could we conceivably measure laptops in terms of barrel length if there’s no diameter or length?
Please link to a model, just one in the 500-600 range that is comparable to a 1K Apple model.
I have owned half a dozen Windows laptops in the past, in all kinds of price ranges, cheaper and far more expensive than a Macbook Air.
None were even remotely comparable to the build quality and practicality of a Macbook Air. This was true even in the Intel CPU era. In the M processor era, the gap only increased.
You cannot even do research on a good Windows laptop because the makers constantly change the model numbers to confuse the customer and hide the flaws of these systems.
You buy a Windows laptop then either the screen, the battery life, the touchpad or the keyboard will suck ... maybe all four.
The sole reason to buy a Windows laptop and put up with all these flaws is playing games. If you need that you will put up with all that crap.
The parent isn't saying that there are $500 laptops that are as good as $1k Air. They're saying that there are $500 laptops that are "good enough" for most people's use.
Personally for home use I buy pre-owned Thinkpads and then put Linux on them. They're fine for normal use - Internet, Email and light to moderate SW Development. The screens are mediocre, but I pay £300-£400 (UK). Oh and I don't care about battery age because replacements are inexpensive and require sliding one catch to make the replacement.
Yes, for work I want something more performant and I'm considering pushing work to get me a Macbook (instead of the high-spec Thinkpad I currently have), but that's a different use case.
it has all the functionality that you might need it has map, a browser, runs facebook and twitter apps, tiktok what else do you need
can I use that as an argument that why buy an iPhone for 1K if you can get a great phone for $30 - no because when you talk about phones or laptop you are talking about comparable products
what I was saying that you cannot buy the same value you get with a Macbook in any laptop product
$500 laptops are good enough until they have to call over a tech consultant (me) to work through some issues once every 3 months. At trip charge of $65 each, they aren't saving money with a $500 laptop - and then the battery gives out 2.5 years later.
This isn't theoretical, it happens all the time. I worked with a person who had a 10 year old MacBook Air - it still worked and held a charge! They got their money's worth.
As someone who likes to keep at least one machine dedicated to each major OS around at any given time, the thing that’s frustrating about non-Apple laptops is that just about all of them, including machines costing well in excess of base Macbook models, make big tradeoffs somewhere or another. Very few are good all-rounders, even if many are better than Macbooks in one or two aspects.
I would kill for a version of ThinkPad X1 Nano or X1 Carbon for example that had the battery life, silence, and unplugged performance of a Macbook Air for example, but no such machine exists even if I were to spend twice as much as the cost of a MacBook Air.
> I would kill for a version of ThinkPad X1 Nano or X1 Carbon for example that had the battery life, silence, and unplugged performance of a Macbook Air
Ditto on the Nano. I wind up looking at it every few months and then begrudgingly walking away because it just doesn't make any sense to buy.
I have the first gen and it’s about the perfect size for an ultraportable in my opinion, and its screen, build, and general feel are great but its battery and CPU are underwhelming at best.
The newer gens are even more confusing because they don’t offer the cooler, more efficient U CPU variants, only the hotter more power hungry P variants, which exacerbates heat and battery life issues.
Where would you set that? The only PC I’ve seen that lets you explicitly set a target TDP is the Steam Deck, the most I’ve seen elsewhere is the ability to turn off turboboost and limit clock speed.
Regardless, a default TDP above that of a U chip in a Nano is still an odd choice given that machine’s lack of cooling and battery capacity resulting from its size. It means that a lot of buyers who have no idea how to reduce it are going to have a subpar experience.
> The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality control that confuse consumers and leave them unhappy. This is the flip side of choice in prioritizing, say, gaming performance over battery life while optimizing price or vice-versa.
This is 100% it, Lenovo has been killing it lately with their Yoga/Slim series, but for every laptop they have that competes with a MacBook, they also have a myriad of other options that are just e-waste. At the end of the day, the average consumer is not going to do the same kind of research that a tech enthusiast might do, and Apple has a somewhat simple catalog (although incredibly overpriced once you step out of the entry configs).
I bought a laptop for about $600 with a GPU (RTX 3050).
The display... is not comparable. Sure, it's 144hz compared to the Mac's 60hz... but it's only 74% NTSC at 250 nits with 1080p, so the color accuracy and dim picture is distractingly bad.
And as for sleep, it's just useless. You close it with 70% at night and it's dead by morning. Supposedly the battery is the same size, but even when it's awake, the battery never makes it last more than ~2 hours. Also, that's two hours... when I'm not gaming, as I painfully learned when trying to download a Windows ISO. When I'm gaming, well, then it's shorter.
I might as well mention the thick, heavy, completely plastic construction. Feels like it will shatter from one drop. On the upside I managed to upgrade it from 8GB to 16GB... but then I'm wondering why this laptop even shipped with 8GB in the first place.
Ultimately though, it runs Windows with a basic GPU. Desktop Parametric CAD isn't coming to Mac anytime soon.
I was initially issued a Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows at my new job last year. I really liked my bottom-tier IBM Thinkpad back in the mid '00s (running a heavily-tuned Gentoo) and WSL exists so it's possible to do real work on a Windows machine without just using it to run a fullscreen Linux VM (... though WSL2 kinda is that) so I decided to give it a real chance.
I was working on getting issued a MacBook within a week. Right back to battery/outlet anxiety that I had escaped years and years ago by switching to Mac. Goddamn thing was losing over half its power over night. Six hours of useful time before you'll be hunting for an outlet at best from a full battery. WTF.
My MacBook that I've been using on battery almost three hours this morning and that hasn't been plugged in since about 5PM Friday is still over 70% charge. I didn't even think about or check the battery level when I opened it this morning, because there's no way it'd be a problem. Ahhh. Relaxing.
As a dissenting example, I got a 14" Lenovo Ideapad with a Ryzen 7 for $250 on Ebay. It's got a nice 1440p HDR display, a great iGPU for gaming at low-power, and an 8-core CPU.
If you want an ultrabook experience, get ultrabook hardware.
I use soldiworks on an M1 Pro 14" macbook pro under parallels and it's fine for professional work (including ~2000 part assemblies). Not fast but on par with my 2019 13" macbook pro and I've never been unable to do anything that I can do on my desktop.
Things that matter to me and that all Windows laptops in the same price range or lower as the MBA have shittier speakers, camera, monitor (both brightness and color accuracy). The trackpad feels entirely wrong on those plastic devices and often you have loud fans turning on at random times. Furthermore they're usually heavier despite being made out of plastic rather than metal.
Why has it been so utterly impossible for a single Windows laptop manufacturer to match the build quality? Just matching the body itself would at last be SOMETHING.
I suspect it has to do with the effect of scale. Apple operates with limited number of models and that means they get volume for each mould and assembly lines. If you did 20000 laptops of one model versus 2 million you can definitely can put way more thought into every detail and that translates into higher quality.
The 2023 version is made from magnesium alloy with plastic at the back while the macbook is unibody aluminium.
The 2024 version is aluminium unibody like the macbook and the new speakers are nearly as good as macbook ones from the reviews I have read. However I have only been able to find the 4070 model which is much more expensive than the macbook. There is also the XPS 14 but it is also more expensive than the macbook
If you get the m3 air with 16gb ram and 512gb ssd the g14 is 100 dollars more expensive but the price will probably drop to lower than the macbook in sales
I solve these problems by: 1) only ever buying machines without fans; 2) barely ever touching a mouse; and 3) using my phone for speakers and camera... all three of which I was doing even when I used to use a Mac as fans have always sucked, I am a software developer and don't need or want a mouse, and Apple's laptop cameras have always been much worse than the phones in their phones AND meeting software tends to do dumb things if you screen share and try to just be in the meeting at the same time (and do it is often better to have an external camera device off to the side).
I then just have to buy any laptop that: 1) doesn't weigh much; 2) doesn't have a fan (this is so much more difficult than it should be it is insane); and 3) has a good enough monitor... I care a lot about resolution and brightness but it might be I don't care enough about color accuracy as I am a software developer and so honestly barely have much use for more than 16 colors and mostly look at photos, again, on my phone (which is also my camera and my media device in general as it is simply better at that so this makes sense). If you are a graphics designer, though, I get it... but weren't they always Apple's core market?
> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives
I would pay more for an acceptable alternative - no fan, Windows 11, good battery life, top quality screen, no gimmick features (touchscreen! detachable screen! whatever).
You can tell Windows laptops are general computers, the hardware fires off the gesture recognition and gives the command to the OS, so you swipe, it's recognized, then you get the action.
On Mac, the gesture is registered as it's happening, you can pull the screen, cancel, flick it, etc.
Not to mention the convenience of taking it to any Apple store and the battery life.
I game on Windows, host on Linux, and travel with Apple.
Probably some vendor provides the trackpad, and provides a driver for that trackpad, and it recognizes the gesture and then sends Windows a `GestureHappened()` event.
Versus macOS being fully integrated and effectively generating `GestureProgress(0.31)` events.
I don't notice anything unusual in that sense on MSI laptop with Linux. I start pinching, browser immediately performs gradual zoom. Swiping with 3 fingers immediately starts a "desktop switch" which is controlled by my movement - so I can pause, revert the gesture, and you will see on the screen exactly what you expect, second desktop partially showing, pausing, and then going back.
Can't test on Windows right now but I would expect it to have even less problems than Linux.
> The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market
Another way to look at that is "MacOS vs non-MacOS" laptop market.
There is only one manufacturer of MacOS laptops. That helps keeping the number of models down. Same thing for the iOS vs non-iOS phone and tablets market. If you want MacOS or iOS you must buy Apple. Hackintoshes do exist but are a rounding error compared to the number of machines Apple sells. And if you want Apple, you must get MacOS and iOS. You can run something else on that hardware, but again we are writing about rounding errors.
There are non-MacOS laptop manufacturers with even less models than Apple have. Maybe it's very niche but the Framework laptop has been popular on HN lately and it has only two models.
On the other side if you want to buy non-MacOS, then HP, Lenovo or Dell have a zillion of laptops each, ranging from the very low end to the very high end. Some people pick features and look at which models are left with those features (that's me.) Some people pick a price tag instead. Probably the laptop is a commodity to the price tag people, much like gas. Who really cares about the gas company? If you need to fill the tank everything will do.
And about
> the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep
this is something that Microsoft throw at us and we can't dodge it much. My laptop runs Linux and it's from the pre Hybrid Sleep era. I didn't investigate if Linux sleep works well with new laptops.
Hybrid sleep being broken is the #1 dealbreaker issue I have with my work-supplied XPS 9570. I know that machine is pretty long in the tooth at this point, but in some ways that actually makes it worse, that it's been all these years and Dell just shrugged and moved on.
It really doesn't make me want to reward them with more money, only to find out what exciting new issues will be present and trivially reproducible for the entire next revision of the hardware.
I buy myself supposedly overpriced Macs and never have hardware issues, but buy family, that prefer Windows, more affordable $400-800 HP/Toshiba laptops. Over the last decade and a half, the HPs/Toshibas invariably have keyboard failures within a year or two, with ignored keypresses and key labels rubbing off, and internal fans seized, overheating problems. And those cheap plastic cases are never the same once opened. I hate them so much. Although, I suspect if I spent as much on a PC that I do on a Mac, we wouldn't have those issues, but I can't bring myself to spend that much on a Windows laptop.
The reliability issues are real. I have a MacBook Air that is 11 years old now, I haven't done anything but replace the battery, and it still works fine. The only real issue is that the memory is not upgradable, otherwise it would still be a generally useful machine (instead of just light web browsing and Zoom).
Certain vintages of Apple laptops have proven more durable than others in my experience.
My 2007 MBP went through a battery every 11 months for about 3 cycles before I finally missed the boat on getting that 4th battery replaced under warranty.
My 2013 MBA still has a perfectly healthy battery today, though it doesn't see much use and its disk just died yesterday.
My 2017 MBP's battery degraded significantly after about 300 or 400 cycles (within spec, I think). A few keys on the keyboard partially failed due to dust or whatever (common in this vintage). The screen had some sort of damage that gave a subtle color cast to parts of the image. The USB-C ports wear out after like 20 insertions and won't hold a cable in place anymore. A year or two ago I replaced the screen and bottom case (keyboard, battery) and it's still doing fine.
> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives,
I don't think this true, unless you have extremely low standards for "acceptable". I've tried a number of $400 laptops and in every single case got fed up with the shittiness within minutes.
> Also my personal opinion is that 90% of consumer frustration comes from the extremely subpar implementation of Hybrid Sleep between Windows, Intel/AMD, and OEMs. Consumers expect to be able to close their laptop and for it to preserve battery instead of becoming hot or dying the bag. That really needs a solution.
Mind boggling that so many smart people at Microsoft/AMD/Intel/HP/Dell have not been able to figure this out yet.
Here’s a better way to think about it: whose boss thinks that _they_ need to fix something as opposed to all of those other people? If your MacBook had a problem everyone involved knows that Tim Cook is going to pull their bosses into his office and ask why he’s reading a news story about unhappy users. In the PC or Android world you have coordinate different parties who each have a financial stake in saying that their part is working but the other guys screwed up.
This is an area where I think part of the solution should be regulatory: require manufacturers to take back defective devices within a much longer period of time after the initial sale, for example, or requiring them to cash out advertised features which don’t work reliably.
>Mind boggling that so many smart people at Microsoft/AMD/Intel/HP/Dell have not been able to figure this out yet.
Follow the money. How much demand is there for it, Who's incentivized to fix it, how much does it cost to R&D, and will that feature increase profit margins?
The sad workaround is simply SSD's having faster boot times and setting a computer to hibernate instead of sleep when closed (and not on battery). It gets "close enough" for many.
>The sad workaround is simply SSD's having faster boot times and setting a computer to hibernate instead of sleep when closed (and not on battery). It gets "close enough" for many.
That is not a workaround since, as far as I know, only MacBooks have a sufficiently good reputation that when you close the lid, it won’t still be on in your bag.
I assume if this hibernate option was viable, then people would be slamming their Windows laptop shut and stuffing it in their bag at a moment’s notice.
>I assume if this hibernate option was viable, then people would be slamming their Windows laptop shut and stuffing it in their bag at a moment’s notice.
it's viable for me. sleep has never been consistent on any of the 10 devices I had, no matter the cost or build of the laptop. But that's the default settings when you receive a new Windows device and changing this means going deep into the settings (Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Power Options\System Settings in case you're curious). So most people won't ever have that configured. It's probably at best what pops up if you google "how to fix windows sleep issue" or "my laptop not turning off when lid closed" kinds of stuff.
That's one mantra Apple usually lives up to: "it just works". i.e. most of their defauls align with what a consumer expects, and is consistent with behavior. Windows/Linux can do almost everything a mac does, but you may have to spend days figuring out the settings and how they interact with your specific machine.
This is a lazy troll - for example, note how conspicuously people making that claim are unable to identify specific equivalent hardware at significantly lower prices or any discussion of the total cost of ownership over the service life of the device. Simply repeating a cliche forum comment doesn’t contribute anything like those details could.
> note how conspicuously people making that claim are unable to identify specific equivalent hardware
At this rate, if you show someone a laptop that's genuinely better than a Macbook they'll complain that it's missing a notch. Setting a nebulous standard of "equivalent hardware" is a lazy goalpost intended to waste the time of good-faith commentators. It's an ivory throne in the swamp, if it suits you.
You didn’t, actually. You listed a vague description which could apply to multiple models and years and it would hardly make sense to compare an old used device to any new one.
Now, if we look at Lenovo’s current Ideapad lineup we start to see something interesting: most of them have these crappy low-res displays and once you’re talking similar display quality, you are shockingly looking at similar prices:
Mine's the 5800u model, but the 4800u one has gone as low as $450 new in the past. It supports Linux and Windows out-of-box, it's cheap as chips and it's fast enough to swap spit with whatever my Macbook Air would be running.
I like some Apple hardware; I've got a couple Powerbooks stacked up somewhere, and the early unibody models weren't terribly flawed. Modern Macs though... if you manage to ignore the OS issues, you still have to baby the hardware out of fear of a $700 topcase replacement (or worse). It's investment on top of investment on top of investment, and the returns keep getting smaller after every OS update.
To each their own. I simply don't subscribe to the "one size fits all" mentality towards Apple products, even as "normal people" computers. It's not worth starting a flamewar over though, so I'll leave it at that.
That cost over a grand new according to the reviews at the time and it’s still over $600 now. I’m not saying that Apple is the only company who can make a laptop worth using but rather that when people are saying they can get something as good for far less, their definition of “as good” inevitably has some major caveats like screen or build quality. Once you aren’t making huge compromises, you’re paying similar prices.
Similarly, you mentioned “you still have to baby the hardware out of fear of a $700 topcase replacement” but that’s true of all lightweight laptops, and the metal cases are quite durable so it’s uncommon that you need to do that. Again, my point is simply that this isn’t some big distinction between devices in that class but rather a characteristic of the concept – it’s like going around saying that a Tesla is a ripoff because you can buy a used Camry for less and being surprised when people do not find that insightful.
They became a trillion dollar company by doing that. There was nothing stopping other enormous companies to compete on quality and customer service, but they decided against that. Follow the money indeed...
>There was nothing stopping other enormous companies to compete on quality and customer service, but they decided against that.
I mean, are we pretending that Microsoft also isn't a trillion dollar company? They are the only one with an incentive to do that strategy, but they probably got a good share of money from licensing their platform to other OEMs.
The next closest thing to "full OS vertical integration" are game consoles. Specialized devices focused on entertainment instead of general purpose ones.
Microsoft became a trillion dollar company with another approach, yes, you're right. Walmart became a trillion dollar company doing completely different things. Nobody is pretending anything.
But when somebody says "follow the money" as the explanation to why other brands make crap laptops, I think it is fair to point out that most money goes to the company that makes laptops that aren't crap.
>Microsoft became a trillion dollar company with another approach, yes, you're right. Walmart became a trillion dollar company doing completely different things. Nobody is pretending anything.
your point here more or less argues with your point above and goes back to what I was trying to tell you. "Follow the money" doesn't mean "follow the money of the biggest companies that you only tangentially compete with". It means "understand the business in question and use their motivation for money to figure out their priorities".
Take a look at what makes Microsoft money, then what makes HP/Acer/Lenovo/Razer/etc. money, and even what makes Intel/Nvidia/AMD money. Now ask how much "fixing a proper sleep mode" will make any of these entities. That probably gives some clue on why no one has solved this yet.
>I think it is fair to point out that most money goes to the company that makes laptops that aren't crap.
I think I explained this above, but I should emphasize that we both know the best product doesn't always make the most money.
>I think I explained this above, but I should emphasize that we both know the best product doesn't always make the most money.
Look at the thread title, look at what specific products are being discussed in the thread. There is no dispute that for laptop computers, the best product is making the most money. And I'd argue that it is the case for smart phones as well.
There is a market that is probably in the size of millions of people who would love to buy a non-Apple laptop that was a bit closer to the Macbook in quality. But other manufacturers don't seem to give a damn, even though Apple has demonstrated that it pays off making quality products and caring for the customer. Everybody would benefit from better competition.
It's the heterogenous combination of multiple and constantly changing hardware requiring tweaks or adjustments to the sleep modes. It's not satisfactory to write that down but I think that's what's happening.
My Asus zenbook 14 is around that price, has a 1TB disk, and 16GB of ram. I'm sure the processor on the M3 is faster, and probably a fair amount more battery out of it, but now I'm comparing a $1000 zenbook to a $1700 13' macbook once I add disk and memory, without the upgraded cpu.
About a year and a half ago, I was looking to get a new MBPro to replace my existing one. I loved the hardware, but having used Linux since the alphabet floppies, the software was always meh. So I was in Costco one day and they had cheap Lenovo ideapads (Ideapad 5 Pro 14") on sale for something like $700US. I bought one, put Pop_OS! on it and it's been running great since. Has and AMD processor, 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. It's really snappy and best of all it's pretty solid with no deck flex.
I'm curious what you can do in Pop_OS that makes MacOS software "meh" in comparison? I have a few friends who are Linux devotees yet watching them do stuff seems so tedious and slow in comparison to my workflows. Like I get that you can setup all sorts of keyboard shortcuts and stuff to do whatever you want, but that's also possible in MacOS, so what is it exactly that you can do better/faster in Pop_OS?
For most of my Linux friends they claim it's because they prefer the customization, but in practice it really seems more like they just dislike the Apple ecosystem in principle. I have yet to find a workflow they have that I can't do more easily and faster in MacOS. Similar experience with working in git in the terminal vs GUI apps. So many devs swear the terminal is "faster and more powerful for git" but in practice I am doing basic git functions faster and with fewer errors than they are just using the GitHub desktop app.
I would very much like to be proven wrong, I think OS competition is a good thing, I just want to see some practical examples.
I've got a M2 Max MBP I'm not using yet because there's no way to get sshfs/fuse working with free as in freedom software on macOS, and Asahi doesn't support external displays yet, so it can't take over for my ThinkPad T440p with either OS.
Package management and package availability is much worse in the macOS world. Nix is weirdly broken, at least the ARM macOS packages. Homebrew is okay but not very good, similar to Chocolatey on Windows.
When you need extra software for something on macOS, chances are it's proprietary and may even cost money. This is not the norm at all in the GNU/Linux world, and it comes off as quite disturbing to me. It's like a community of everyone scamming and mistreating each other instead of working together to improve things.
I'm not even a dev, for the record. GNU/Linux is just what works best for me.
> It's like a community of everyone scamming and mistreating each other instead of working together to improve things.
I was saying this exact thing to a friend of mine who is big into apple products and suggested that you could technically do the things I wanted to do on apple devices.
The general ecosystem between windows/linux/mac is very different. Windows freeware is all packaged and provided on sites last updated in 2002 and look like you'll get a virus despite the site being the defacto source.
Linux software feels a lot more unified(despite n+1 packaging schemes) and feels a lot more like a collective effort where anything is possible.
Mac software wants you to break out your wallet and contribute to the APPL bottom line in order to get some basic custom functionality for some app written by a single developer that will be quietly given up on in a couple years.
Additional software being free by default is definitely an advantage Linux has, although usually not the benefit I see pointed to by most Linux users.
That being said I am a dev and a designer and I can't think of any paid software I use beyond Figma (which is free for basic use) and Texts.app which doesn't have any free or paid equivalent on Linux.
It does if your machine has a hdmi port. It just doesn't support displays connected to the USB-C ports.
To comment on the topic, for me the window management on macOS is a deal-breaker, I just never manage to make it do what I want without having to constantly fiddle with the windows to put them where I need them, and focus just works on a weird way.
I tried amethyst (I think) and although it improves things, it really looks like a hack, a constant battle against the native behaviour.
Agreed the built-in window management isn't ideal (although I do like Spaces and Mission Control a lot more than what I've seen in Linux/Windows defaults) but there are a lot of free and simple apps that significantly improve it in just about any way you want. I can arrange my windows in a couple key strokes to whatever layout I desire.
>I'm curious what you can do in Pop_OS that makes MacOS software "meh" in comparison?
Having used Linux since forever ago, MacOs was "meh" to me because while it is a unix, it was just different enough for me to find it "meh". IOW, I found it to be "meh" for the fact that it just wasn't Linux.
You're absolutely right that they make a damn fine laptop (the build quality stands out to me) and they do a great job in that market.
Anecdotally, my Framework 13 AMD ran me 1500 and I ended up with 64 GB of ram, 2 TB of storage, and an AMD 7840U. I bought my RAM and storage separately to get that end cost, to be fair.
I wouldn't be surprised if the M3 actually outperforms my processor by a bit, but having way more RAM matters a lot to me. All that on top of being able to repair my own machine is a no brainer to me.
I know most laptop users wouldn't care about this stuff, but I really hope Framework does well and helps bring repairability back to laptops.
> Anecdotally, my Framework 13 AMD ran me 1500 and I ended up with 64 GB of ram, 2 TB of storage, and an AMD 7840U. I bought my RAM and storage separately to get that end cost, to be fair.
HN used to say that System76 were the best laptops ever, so I bought two of them. They’re an incredible pile of shit, in addition to the battery life or the clunky build, the fans turn on and off like my gamer boyfriend’s PC back in 2001.
System76 said they won’t take them back, after I tried to give it to every intern.
I’m absolutely flaggerblasted at what Linux or Windows users tolerate, it seems fine for them, since all of their laptops is like this! The problem is having low standards, and compared to this, they think their laptop is great.
> HN used to say that System76 were the best laptops ever
Are you sure about this...? Every System76 convo I've ever seen on here has plenty of people chiming in to note that they're simply junk Clevo shells. It's a known issue with them.
Ideologically I love System76 (and I would buy one of their desktops, if I was still a desktop man). I would never buy one of their current laptops.
Just remember that those Macbook batteries are glued in and still subject to degradation over cycles/time.
A consumable component designed to be excessively hard to replace, to encourage you to upgrade sooner than necessary. (Not everyone lives near an Apple store, and nobody wants to mail the laptop off for what should be such a basic service, being without it for who-knows-how-long)
Going to copy/paste from a comment I posted a year or so ago.
I have a 12th gen Framework 13", 13" M1 Air, and a 15" M2 Air.
I use the Framework laptop for work because I need to use Linux.
The Framework laptop is mediocre just like pretty much all PC laptops. The hinges are awful, if you pick up the laptop upright, about 50% of the time the screen falls flat 180 degrees.
The trackpad is arse in Linux.
If you're lucky you can probably get 5 hours battery life, but on a realistic workload you're looking at 2-3 hours.
The keyboard is pretty nice, but I wish ctrl/fn is swapped like Apple and it has the inverted mini-T keyboard arrows (or at least I wish someone would make a swappable keyboard for the Framework).
The speakers are bloody awful.
Display/Webcam/Mic are fine.
I would like more ports over modular ports, but I appreciate the design that went into the modular ports.
Speaking of modular ports, sometimes they abruptly stop working and require removing and reseating.
All these small nits really add up and it just feels like a mediocre experience. It is my work laptop, but I try my best to avoid using it over my PC with WSL2 or either Air laptop, but I try my best not to mix work and personal.
Both the 13" M1 Air and 15" M2 Air are just amazing compared to the Framework, and I suspect PC laptops in general. They have their drawbacks, price (gouging in some ways), less ports, can't drive dual displays, but their trackpad, finish, speakers, etc. are just amazing. I personally prefer MacOS to Linux for a desktop experience as well.
Edit:
For one C++ project I work on I need 32GB of memory to compile as sometimes the oom-killer will kill the compiler. That's one of the only reasons I use my WSL2 desktop or Framework laptop since memory is cheap.
Battery life is important, but does 6hr vs 9hr vs 16hr actually matter to you? Do you actually carry your laptop around all day without access to power outlets? If not, I don't see why that should be a factor.
Apple users do - 9hr is short enough that you’re going to want a charger for a full day’s work unless you’re certain you’re only going to do very untaxing activities. People get worried when they start approaching the low battery warning point.
The run time Apple’s ARM systems get is very noticeably better - I don’t even bother packing a charger even knowing that I’ll have a full development environment, containers, etc. running all day because I’ll still arrive home at 60%.
Why would you be torn? To me it seems pretty clear cut. Does all your SW run on ARM mac AND do you need that long battery life? Then get a mac. Otherwise get a framework or something else.
I've oscillated a lot on "my next" laptop over the years. For a while (at the height of the butterfly-keyboard/touchbar-madness) I thought about going to Linux for my personal machine. I haven't gotten there, but the Framework gives me hope that a really really excellent, serviceable, and understandable laptop can and does exist.
Just out of curiosity, why? I have ~200 tabs open in chrome, and have ~10 different apps open. Mac could handle it perfectly well due to reliance on swap and compressed memory. My swap used is 20 gb but really can't say that even when switching apps fast.
Is all the memory getting used at the same time? Mac has very good swapping of memory and extremely fast SSD. Also I work in ML modelling and I figured out at any rate I need to run(not develop) my code in cloud.
Videos, music, photos, all of these add up fast. I have encountered plenty of family and friends needing help when their storage is exhausted.
Then there is the ever increasong bloat of software, web apps, etc. that chew through RAM.
If this isn't a daily driver, sure. It is fine. But for those where this is their only computer, this is a lot of money for an 'entry level' model that can't do as much.
I dunno about Chrome but a single YouTube tab in Safari can use over 1GB of RAM these days. It's absolutely insane to sell a computer in 2024 that's gonna struggle to open 10+ browser tabs.
Worse battery life, such weak hardware (you're bringing up $200 models) that they're laggy and shitty even with a few Chrome tabs, bad trackpads, terrible accessibility options compared to Macs (I was very surprised to discover this latter issue when configuring my elderly father's Chromebook, given the market for Chromebooks is basically kids and old people)
$200 Chromebooks are the kind my various teacher friends complain about because they're so shit that they even drive elementary school kids crazy.
But they don't want to. This is what people who are spec chasers miss. They want to use a MacBook because it's a joy to use compared to a shitty $200 Chromebook
It's not crap, though. I am using the exact config with an M1 and it's really quite usable, even for development. Also I have hundreds of tabs open. You can even watch movies because the speakers are so good - opposed to any PC laptop I ever owned.
It might be usable but the cost difference of 8/256 and 16/512 is negligible. But Apple wants to price gouge you if you want the latter. Computing hardware was always about providing the maximum upfront to give headroom in the future.
I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck. Actually I had to have my last work laptop replaced because 8GB wasn't enough for Chrome and a Teams video call! If I tried to screen share a browser tab of Jira everything would start paging.
I have zero recent experience with MacOS or the M1,2,3 ARM hardware but I doubt even the very fast RAM is going to make that much difference to the above.
I have been a minimum-16GB-of-RAM guy since 2012 or so, but I got a great deal last year on a base model M1 Air that I mostly just use for web/email while traveling, and as a thin client back to my Linux desktop with 64GB of RAM. I've found it surprisingly adequate, even as someone who is not so good about closing browser tabs.
I can certainly get it to start swapping easily enough, so I don't necessarily agree with all of the people I've seen claiming that these machines are revolutionary and 8GB is the new 16GB, but it does seem to manage better than I would have expected.
Apple's pricing on memory and disk upgrades really aggravates me, though, and was a significant factor in deciding to switch to Linux for my primary computer.
RAM usage even vs Intel Mac was completely different - I did push my M1 Air a while back and it complained about running out of memory but that was once in the past 1.5 years after I'd skipped rebooting for 4/5 weeks. On my Intel with 16GB this happened more often.
For my kids and parents, the M1 Air has been flawless (even for me - it's my travel Mac). But if you know you're a heavy user definitely get more RAM.
8GB of RAM is extremely usable on macOS - until last year I was using that for VSC, Podman, etc. and the only time I noticed it was running x86 Java containers in emulation. Beyond the much leaner base OS, they have hardware memory page compression which seems to make a huge difference. My corporate Dell with 16GB feels slower in every way even running the same apps (Teams, Edge, etc.).
> I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck.
Honestly, even 16GB isn't enough if you keep a modest (say, O(100)) number of tabs open. I regularly find my MBP slowed down due to "memory pressure" (swapping) at that point, with closing/restarting the browser to be an instantaneous fix.
I’m writing this from an x230 with Windows and 8GB of RAM. It’s a pretty old machine I’m using for FreeCAD, 3D printer slicers, and simple admin stuff, and it’s pretty usable?
Cloud storage is a thing. I don't run games on my hobby laptop. I also have external storage for sensitive docs (encrypted). I use like 50% of the storage right now.
People always respond with "cloud storage is a thing" as you have, but the point that people are trying to make is: Apple is hella overcharging for memory and storage.
And instead of everyone going "Apple, stop this" and creating change, they'd rather defend the $1T company by spouting "but the cloud".
Everyone going "Apple, stop this" won't do anything. Voting with your wallet might. Otherwise, you have freedom of choice to select a different platform/vendor.
I have tons of complaints about Apple, but this isn't one of them (the 256GB works for my family machines).
In what world is "keep buying Apple hardware but also pay for cloud storage" "voting with your wallet"
If you want the most well integrated cloud storage with these machines you'll be paying for cloud storage from Apple anyway, I'm sure Apple will be fine
my phone has 16gb ram and 512gb storage, if i'm paying 50% more than i spent on it i expect at least those specs on a current, or maybe last gen macbook, not half the storage and memory on a 2 generation old device
8 GB is barely enough for web browsing these days. What will it be like in a couple years? A MacBook will generally run fine for years, it is well worth future-proofing a bit with more memory, since it is not upgradable.
Hotter, heavier, and worse battery life, for sure. Slower is up for debate --- having more ram, more cores, and possibly discrete GPU is great for all sorts of things. The Ryzen 7840HS is not any worse than the M3 in multithreaded things.
Just recently there was a Thinkpad P14S on sale for $999 that blows the Macbooks out of the water in terms of ram and storage, while having a high quality OLED display and a Ryzen CPU that can easily trade blows with Apple silicon. It is hotter and heavier and has very bad battery life, though.
I just find it fascinating that people think Macbooks are faster without even bothering to at least look at some benchmarks as context. Sure, M processors are good, but Intel and AMD aren't really sleeping the past few years, but rather made some significant improvements that are worth acknowledging.
In $999 13" M2 Air you get 8GB Unified RAM and 256GB memory. Intel ARC seems to be better than M2 graphics. Weight is exactly the same. Usual downsides remain - fan and smaller battery life, although still pretty good.
My opinion is you can pick two: low cost, high build quality, good specs.
No one matches Apple's build and screen quality. But their base models are pretty underpowered, and it's not until you're spending closer to $2k that you get specs that feel appropriate for 2024. On the Windows side, there are lots of cheaper options, many of which have beefier specs, but the build quality pales in comparison.
The right tradeoff depends on your budget and what you really need out of a device.
Please post links to benchmarks of a windows laptop that costs the same as a base model Apple laptop but is faster, while being similar in weight, battery life and heat.
Underpowered in terms of RAMs, storage, and possibly GPU. Agree that M2/M3 are faster and have better battery life. Weight/heat to me fall under build quality, not specs.
How can a laptop be "underpowered" when in fact it's faster?
Next you're going to tell me the new I6 turbo engines are "underpowered" compared to the V8s they're replacing, even though they have more power, more torque and in the same vehicle produce faster 0-60 and 1/4 mile times.
Your definition of "underpowered" is interesting to say the least.
I think it's good to correct some exaggeration, but personally I would still prefer an 8gb M2 with small storage on a laptop that easily gets all day battery life. If it were going to sit on my desk 24/7 connected to a monitor, then I'd take the Asus ExpertBook. But as someone who travels and works from home but works all over the house or out of coffee shops, I would easily prefer the Mac.
>personally I would still prefer an 8gb M2 with small storage
And it would specifically have to be an M2 since they upped it to 256GB minimum. I have the lowest end M1, and the tiny SSD is a constant pain when combined with the lack of RAM.
You can, but you're getting a glorified iPad with a keyboard. Bottom-spec systems have 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. What is this, 2012? As usual, making it a machine that's useful for light development or other more demanding tasks rapidly run you into Apple's usurious expansion pricing; what should (IMNSHO) be their bottom-end device with 16GB memory and 1TB of storage is $1,699.
That will be a great little machine to use until it starts throttling. You'll need an MBP to keep consistent peformance.
But add the mandatory upsells to a sensible amount of RAM and storage, and the 'bargain' Mac will be rather more expensive.
But yeah, there's still a real lack of Windows laptop competition these days, especially if you want a GPU. 'Gaming laptops' tend to come with severe heat/noise/weight/battery problems.
(And why are competitors touchpads still shit-tier compared to Apple? Even on those bulkier gaming laptops where space isn't at a premium and the price is on the premium side)
To me it doesn't really make sense to have the computer spend all those CPU cycles on pixels I don't even see (because of the size of a 13-14" laptop screen).
The CPU isn't the component spending the cycles. Also not seeing pixels is a feature. I am reading text roughly 99% of the time I'm on my computer. Shitty low DPI screens make my eyes ache and my head hurt. My Air's screen I can turn the overall brightness down yet still have great dynamic range. I can also see it from just about any angle unlike the typical shitty 1080p panel on the average PC laptop.
Depending on your use cases the software environment for the mac has never been worse right as the hardware has gotten so powerful and cool running. Major mac devs have totally abandoned the platform in recent years. Apple needs to rebuild good faith among developers especially game developers, or at the very least get ahead of the software drain and put and end to what factors have been causing it.
I think performance of Apple silicon is mediocre in many applications. Direct memory access by the GPU is pretty nice, but even with that it doesn't really convince. There are scenarios where it is surprisingly good though and that even includes some applications in x86 mode.
The only thing I really like about MacBooks are their displays. If notebook manufacturers would get their houses in order, they could have more attractive devices again. Perhaps their management suffers from bad eyesight.
Although one strength of Apple is also that Windows is so incredibly terrible right now. And I don't see that improving in the near term, their strategy is anti-user for decades. Apples strategy is too, but to a lesser degree and I don't see Windows getting anything right.
No calendar included in taskbar in OS like Windows has, only a calendar app that you have to launch
Per folder sorting in finder doesn't work in the file dialogue, finder never remembers which folders I want by date, alphabetised, etc.
Everything hidden away and abstracted, finding out what's actually consuming memory and swap can be much more difficult than it should, esp for ppl that got 8gb model bc AAPL want to make 99999% profit on ram and ssd upgrades.
Lots of features that are only available when your other devices are also in the Apple ecosystem. If they could get away with making MBs only connect to special "Apple AirTalk™" (WiFi) APs then they absolutely would.
Why do you care about filesystem performance in containers? If you're running a DB from it, you surely have <10-20 concurrent users (e.g. other containers) to that DB, so who cares whether a lookup takes 1us or 10ms?
Newer macOS is actually really good about running with less RAM. The only problem is then your SSD will suddenly fill up. If either was upgradable, this would be no problem.
App binaries, sure. But most of what is stored in memory is content, video, image, file cache. These will not differ much from OS to OS, the only difference would be baseline memory usage before I start opening YouTube tabs.
> The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me.
It's nuts that the entire rest of the industry basically has own-goaled Apple into a dominant position. Apple's playbook:
1. Model-year build stability over faster go-to-market on new components.
2. Better build quality.
3. Better battery life.
4. Better display, especially in value models.
That sounds very strange. I got my Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen8 (13th gen i7 U-series w/ 32 GB RAM) with a 4K 16:10 OLED display. Best laptop I have ever had, amazingly fast and lasts the whole day. When I did my research before buying, I know the X1 Carbon was available with at least a 2.5K OLED display.
What I will never understand is that the screen options differ depending on which market you're in.
When I was looking at Thinkpads there was never any better options than 1920x1200 but if I switched to the US site I could order with the HiDPI OLED screen.
That might be your opinion, but it isn't out of line with their competitors. You don't have to look particularly hard to find other premium thin-and-lights at 8GB and a ~$999 price tag. I think that is ridiculous, because the Air is better than all of them.
Memory bandwidth doesn't matter for these types of devices, it is memory latency that matters. But best of all is actually having your application in memory and not having to do disk reads.
Most usual applications (native) runs under 100MB of real memory. If you're insisting on using electron apps from developers that does not care about performance...
Thats great for you I guess. When I work, I want vscode with all the fancy linting and language server bells and whistles. I want to be able to have a ton of chrome tabs for browsing and docs and I want a local version of whatever I am building to run. Im gonna make the bold assumption that this is quite common in the dev community. Given that, 8gb is pushing it, no matter how you spin the "but my memory is fast" or "but native apps"
It does when you have very fast solid state storage beneath it. Most computers make use of swap. If the performance gap between swap and ram is small, you will feel like you have more ram than you actually do.
And what relevance does that have with memory bandwidth? Of course a faster SSD helps if you're swapping, but you said faster memory bandwidth is what's making the tiny amounts of RAM on modern Macs "not as bad"
If you had said "the fast SSDs make these tiny amounts of RAM not feel as bad" I would've agreed
On the Surface Pro 9, it is $300 to upgrade from 8 to 16GB. To go to 32GB, they require you to choose a higher tier processor which brings the normal retail price to $2599, but it currently has a $500 discount, so the total is $2099.
Framework isn’t using LPDDR5/5X like the surface or the macbook. LPDDR adds to the cost quite a bit, as does the advanced packaging apple uses etc.
But it’s the only way to keep pushing bandwidth forward, especially for graphics/iGPU, and keep pushing power down. Socketed memory inherently is much slower and less efficient, same reason consoles don’t come with ram sticks.
AMD’s solution is a package with cache instead, to try and reduce the amount of data they have to push around. But that adds a bunch of cost and still isn’t as efficient - but it lets you keep scaling socketed memory a little farther. Can’t help but feel like the days are numbered though, there isn’t an infinite amount of runway left for socketed memory.
Not surprising. Framework has a wildly different business model than mainstream computer manufacturers.
And if we re-address the "999 for a laptop with 8 gbs of ram in 2024" comment above, it is worth noting that the Framework 13 also starts with 8GB of RAM at $1049.
Honestly I don't think it is worth bringing Surface devices into the discussion. Microsoft isn't even trying. They only care about enterprise customers and are not competitive in the consumer market at all.
Maybe look at some high-end Lenovo or Dell laptops.
I mean, it makes sense now that they essentially merged their mobile and desktop architecture to be one for all. That plus full vertical integration means they can do a lot of things that'd end up costing double in a windows laptop to have a pale imitation of.
With that said, the specs on a Mac air are extremely modest when you really look at them. Apple is simply optimizing to do more with less.
Fun fact, the M3 Air is exactly the weight of one m3 air at room temperature; at 15C, one m3 of air at 1ATM is 1.23kg, which is the exact same weight as the M3 Air.
And for contrast, the M2 Air (1.24kg) was a tiny fraction of the weight of air on one m2 (10332kg) at 1atm. In other words, the relative weight of the latest MacBook Air has increased by a factor of ten thousand! I know Jony Ive was keeping the products lightweight, but I didn’t realize it would get this bad without him…
I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.
> I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro
I don't know why you bought a new one. You can have two ways to look at this, one way is your ultra pessimistic view, my view is I don't need to upgrade my laptop ever 2 years anymore.
Before the M1 Max I was upgrading so often because intel macbooks sucked so much. Now I can comfortably say I'm keeping my M1 Max for a decade.
As for being "exploited" by ads, just don't be, stop mindless consumption...
I max spec a laptop and ride it as long as I can. Replaced a 2012 MacBook Pro just last year, and will likely be doing the same around 2032 ;)
I’m doing most of my daily driving on whatever computer work gives me anyway, this is just the personal dev/audio machine. I do the same with a gaming computer too though, my gaming laptop from like 7 years ago is still going strong. I turn down shiny graphics settings to get good FPS anyway, I care way more about gameplay than visuals.
As a dev I was getting ~4 years out of Intel MBPs. The old ones still did the job well, but the new ones just did everything fast enough to justify the expense. Now I just realized I have over 3 years on my M1 MBP, and I realize I'm closer to the middle of my upgrade cycle than the end.
> Now I can comfortably say I'm keeping my M1 Max for a decade.
That's a nice thought but the computer will probably lose security updates in the next 10 years.
And that really annoys me. The press release says that the new computer is "built to last" and I'm sure that's true, physically. I have a 2015 Macbook Pro which works fine (obv. slower than a modern computer but fine for everything I need to do), it does still get security updates (it's two OSs behind the current macOS at the moment), but I think the time until it doesn't is probably measured in months.
As I say, it works perfectly, was indeed "built to last", but I guess I'm going to have to throw it away (bad for the environment) and buy a new one soon?
That also makes me less enthusiastic about dropping huge amounts of money when I do finally buy a new laptop.
My long-term plan is to drop a lot of money on external peripherals (monitor, speakers, etc) and then get the cheapest 16gb MacBook on sale to keep the portability option. Then I can upgrade to another cheap laptop as needed. I should’ve adopted this strategy originally.
An interesting difference with the new pro models, if you want to pay around $5k,
is that you can have 128Gb unified Ram in them and run inference locally with exciting LLMs.
It seems like a pretty speculative use. That much money would go a long way on a $20/month subscription, and the field is changing rapidly. Unless you’re an AI researcher, might as well wait a year or two and see what changes?
Using M1/2/3 Max for LLM inference isn't at all "speculative", it's a thing today and high end Apple Silicon being an option for LLM inference is becoming general knowledge among the local inference community. The original author of llama.cpp (one of the leading LLM inference projects) developed it on a Mac and it has full Metal acceleration support.
The $20/month subscription is going to give you access to commercial models, but generally you have to run the open weight models yourself. With the unified RAM you can trivially run the larger 70B+ models.
AI researchers generally have to use CUDA due to how the ecosystem is still mostly CUDA-only for training and fine tuning, but those who need to occasionally use custom/local models for inference will likely find high end Macs being a good fit for their use cases.
Okay, but this is rather low-level. Most users aren’t going to care about “running an LLM.” They want to ask an AI chatbot questions or get code autocompletion or something like that. What applications are there that need a local LLM and who is using them? What do they do with them?
Personally, I’m reasonably happy with GPT4 and Github Copilot, and I’ve sometimes used Midjourney, though I cancelled my subscription since I’m not currently generating any images. Are there important apps that I’m missing?
If you're happy with the commercial offerings there isn't a very compelling reason to use local models. The local ones are not "better" in general. But sometimes people have reasons to use local models, eg. privacy, customization, control, etc.
I personally use it mostly to keep tabs on the latest models released on huggingface. There has been a lot of interesting developments since last year, and models have become more and more powerful.
I suspect LLM performance will be a differentiator for Pro and newer Apple laptops in coming years.
If Apple releases on-device AI, this will be an effective way of getting people to upgrade like they used to, but haven't had to recently. For example, I bought Pro-level computers in my younger years, but now would only consider an MBA, mini, or iMac. But they could get me to go for a Pro if it were the only way to get more RAM for better AI performance. It will also likely shorten upgrade cycles since newer computers would have the latest and greatest performance. When I bought my M2 MBA years ago I suspected it would last me a long time. Now I'm not so sure since I don't have a ton of RAM.
You can only get 2tb of storage max i believe, you are probably bottlenecked elsewhere if you are actually needing to move that much data that fast into memory in practice. I wonder what the temps would even be doing something that maxes that ram bandwidth
Useless for LLMs. Limited system memory bandwidth kills it. GPU will be mostly idle waiting for memory access. The H200 has 4.8 TB/s bandwidth. System memory is below 90 GB/s
If you have a use case for an h200 class gpu you are probably making enough money off of it to not care about $40k and the 900gb/s bandwidth mentioned in another comment would seem absolutely pedestrian in comparison. If these things were really that compelling of a performance per dollar ratio you wouldn’t be able to buy them. They’d be sold out because people would be filling datacenters with them.
What a waste. Build a 4090 desktop for that price, sheesh. Or spend the money renting spot 4090 instances whenever you need to via a MB air or whatever other laptop. And you'd probably still not end up spending the full amount.
It doesn't make sense in any world, it only exists to be there so people get to into the checkout flow and throw a few hundred dollars to get it to a usable spec.
The "pro" isn't for work or productivity, its for the appearance of work and productivity. Most people who buy Macs don't really understand what they are getting, developers included.
Speaking only of the Air here: The newer laptop feels thicker, since it doesn't have the nice tapered front. In general use, outside of only one external display in clamshell mode, the M1 feels similar. If you push things, like for video editing or rendering, the M2 or M3 are markedly better.
However, you quickly hit throttling if you push for more than a couple minutes at a time (like when you export in Handbrake, it will slow down and only run marginally faster than the M1, in my experience).
This is a cool idea, although presumably m3 would be faster even for single thread apps? Also, are there cases where memory bandwidth could leave cpu at less than 100% on m1 but still be faster on m3?
The M2 and M3 are more evolutions of the M series. If you already have an M1 machine, there's no real need to upgrade. But if you don't, the M3 seems like a great device to get.
Eg: The M3 Max is a substantial improvement over the M2 Max in both CPU and GPU. But the M3 Pro is a moderate improvement at best compared to the M2 Pro.
> I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.
It's also why you should understand your personal use case and do research. I think this is on you, not Apple. Corpos gonna corpo -- you have to do the research to figure out whether the gains from new chips will actually impact your workflow.
> I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro
If you bought a M3 Max just to fuck around on Facebook and Hacker News then of course you won't notice a difference. If you are running workloads that actually require that level of performance then you will notice a significant difference. M3 Max is twice as fast at rendering 3D scenes in Cinebench.
Let's put it this way. M1 Max can build some amount of code in 134 seconds. M3 Max can do it in 70 seconds. Does this sound like a small bump? Source: XcodeBenchmark
For sure, capitalism requires a certain level of consumer savvy to remain sane.
For most real-world users, the M3 really is about 30% faster in single-core and 100% faster in multicore. That is really significant for a lot of us, especially software engineers. But the really big speedups mentioned in Apple's marketing are more niche and it takes some savvy to recognize that.
(I'm plenty content with my M1 Max for now and I expect I'll continue to happily use it for a few more years)
> That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.
I wouldn't exactly just avoid them, though most are useless, so it's not a bad idea. You just want to understand what they are... even honest ones will only present information that is a reason to buy.
E.g., when I saw the iPhone 15 ads and the best thing they could say about was that it had some titanium, I knew it was a product I could ignore. (Not that I have an iPhone 14 either, but I already knew that one wasn't worth an upgrade to me).
I really wanted to love the 13" Air but two things made me switch to the Pro after trying it for a few weeks. One is that the internal speakers suck in comparison to the Pro. I 'm not looking for audiophile quality from laptop speakers, but the Pro speakers are good enough for casually watching youtube videos, TV shows, podcasts, etc, whereas the Air speakers are harsh and tinny. The second is that the default resolution isn't .5x the native resolution, as it is for most Apple desktop/laptop displays. It's some weird in-between resolution that creates aliasing on text and such. If you bump it down to a true .5x, it's 1280x~800, which is borderline unusable for desktop browsing these days.
I'm curious what your comparison point was for the audio quality of the MacBook Air.
In the Windows world, I rarely if ever come across a laptop where the speakers weren't clearly last in precedence for engineering and BOM consideration. Just astoundingly bad sound quality accepted as normal in the Windows laptop world, even in supposedly premium machines.
In comparison, even the least impressive MacBook Air speakers are good.
But if you were coming from another MacBook Pro when evaluating the Air I can see why you would have come away wanting better. The Pro machines are indeed a clear step up, and the larger 16" models are even better given the extra space they have to work with.
Yep I was coming from an older Intel MBP, so the downgrade to the Air was dramatic enough to be irritating. But I agree, the sound engineering in the Air isn't bad in absolute terms, probably even pretty good... just not close to the Pros.
I have an Air and I felt like its speakers were pretty decent, but my wife bought a Pro and they're just incredible.
Sometimes I hear her watching some movie or show a few rooms away, and I can never know if she's watching it on the TV or on the Pro just by the audio alone. Those speakers do fill the room, and them some.
Do a lot of folks actively watch media content on laptops these days?
I have never really watched more than short content on that form factor. I like a bigger screen and a remote, watching anything like a movie on a laptop feels klunky.
You’d think it feels small but go ahead and sit in front of your tv and pull out your laptop. In terms of effective size from where I have the tv and the laptop, the laptop screen is bigger in my field of view. 40 inch tv too, no slouch.
This is also the case with Pro M1 Max. Font is very blurry. It's funny how they turn off "scaling/sharpening filter" when video is watched. I've tried a bunch of things to fix it and none of them worked.
A 4K monitor I use works perfectly fine on Linux, but with Macbook Pro, even though resolution perfectly matches, it still has blurred font (the filter they apply completely changes the look of the font, even though I use the same one), everything just remains blurry and again, watching video disables it.
What are you comparing the font rendering to? Linux/Windows?
That's one of the things that pushed me to Mac from Linux: fonts finally looked nice. (This was around 2010.) I tried everything I could to get Linux to render decently but eventually gave up. I recognize that this is so much down to personal taste. If you prefer Windows-style ClearType to Mac's rendering, Mac (especially on a non-Retina screen) will look awful. If you like Mac's rendering, Windows tends to look awful at any resolution.
So you can get the 0.5 resolution without text aliasing (which I agree is annoying) you just get a smaller viewing area. I keep hearing complaints about aliasing on the Air, and I can respect that since the default resolution causes it, but it is fixable at the expense of reduced viewing area.
Lets not gulp down the koolaid. The speakers on the pro are nice for a laptop but thats it, they are nice for a laptop. A basic bluetooth speaker laps it. Honestly they are balanced poorly and very “boomy” where I feel like I need to turn the volume up more than I have to just to start to discern spoken words from a sort of mumbly bassy sound.
As an Air user who pretty passionately hates hearing a laptop fan, my wonderment at the quality of the Pro's audio would end the moment I heard that fan whine.
I've had a similar train of thought, based on my experience with earlier Macbooks -- that I would pick the Air over the Pro specifically because it does _not_ have a fan and therefore could never make fan noise. But like spinningarrow, I don't think I've ever heard the fan on my work-issued M1 Pro MBP.
Going on a tangent here but it's interesting seeing the love for Apple in this thread right vs the (well deserved) hate in the thread about Apple being fined for 1B in EU [0]
Apple has a serious anti consumer practices and we should not be supporting this company. The EU fine is just a start and hopefully there is a serious crack down to force them to open their hardware and software. Cheers to EU and its wonderful policies, let's hope the rest of the world follows through!
In any case, encouraging their behavior by constantly purchasing their services and computers should be discouraged.
Their hardware maybe good but we should cease to support this company until their attitude changes.
Apple Cynic/Windows user here with a genuine question - why is this interesting? I'm currently looking at my wife's old corporate-issued windows laptop, which is running 2 external monitors as well as it's own display - am I missing something here, or is this just a case of Apple being held to different standards to other manufacturers in terms of feature parity?
Well, it's definitely "interesting" because it was a weird and user-unfriendly restriction on previous M1/M2 Airs and now it's gone. So that is interesting for sure.
Perhaps more to the point, you're right -- Apple doesn't deserve to be lauded for removing something that was a dumb restriction in the first place. But it is interesting considering this is the most popular laptop in the world.
I don't think there is anything interesting. Someone on the hardware side thought it would be great to hardwire one of two the display controllers to the internal display. That would explain why M1 and M2 can't be fixed in a software update and why the Mac Mini supports two external displays.
Restriction implies they made the deliberate decision to withhold or break functionally. Limitation is probably more accurate, because they didn't put the extra work to make it work properly.
From a consumer standpoint? Apple sells about six million Macs per year and the Air is their best-selling computer and anecdotally it is popular with the HN crowd. So it is objectively impactful. I would call that therefore "interesting" but at that point we're splitting semantic hairs so whatever.
It's not interesting in a "wow, Macbooks can finally support two external displays" as much as "this does make this intentionally-small form factor slightly more tolerable."
Comparing the port count/capabilities of the two isn't a fully fair comparison though. The Apple Silicon Macbook Air models are likely 1) much faster than that corporate-issued laptop (even if it's workstation class), and 2) much smaller and quieter (no fan noise even under load).
Though I'm not sure why all the griping about how many monitors an Air can support; users can buy a Macbook Pro if they want more monitors? I don't understand the logic behind buying a tiny, thin laptop only to dock it as a workstation.
It’s interesting because the whole M# line started with a smart phone and built a pc out of that. As a result it has some unfortunate restrictions that aren’t there when you build a machine out of capable yet pretty clunky intel hardware. I don’t doubt there are similar tradeoffs in the WoS world but I’m not aware of what they are specifically.
The restriction I am most annoyed with these days is the lack of external GPU passthrough. I’m not even sure the asahi Linux folks have gotten that working yet.
So folks are probably just happy they’re not having to deal with as many compromises and tradeoffs (they get to have their PC that works almost just like a smartphone but does more things their intel machine could now). That’s totally understandable.
You needed an agp video card of some kind.
You're making a false comparison.
Once again they clearly made tradeoffs to get the best balance for product experience, cost, and their own supply chain considerations (for entry level laptops, tablets, phones).
You needed a video card of some kind. You can stick multiple PCI cards in one PC just fine, alongside one AGP card. And this is the time when the usual gaming video card had a whooping 32-64Mb of RAM. There is absolutely no reason a computer can be limited in amount of displays it can drive. And if 20+ y/o PCs could drive multiple monitors there is no reason the top notch tech company couldn't do that.
> You're making a false comparison
No, you are just trying to justify the greedy corporation habits.
> Once again they clearly made tradeoffs
No, they segmented their products and their fanbois are not only drunk their koolaid but eagerly defend it too.
> No, you are just trying to justify the greedy corporation habits.
You're really showing off your ignorance here, and you're assuming a lot around my defending of greed etc. My view's on Apple's pricing are pretty irrelevant here, and I have nothing to say for or against them because I frankly don't care and don't know the logistics behind them.
All the times I've worked on projects that involve shipping an operating system, hardware, etc I've found that there are a lot of tradeoffs especially when you're doing something a little bit different. This is the case with M# silicon and also the case with Windows on Snapdragon systems.
They aren't starting with expandable hardware built for running desktop PCs, they (apple, Qualcomm) are starting with highly integrated SoCs that have some really narrow goals around power and battery life. Their systems are more designed for running phones and tablets than for entry level laptops.
> No, they segmented their products and their fanbois are not only drunk their koolaid but eagerly defend it too.
Don't like it? Don't buy one. But fact is, their more narrow model for how a PC can be built is selling really well and very few regular people miss their second monitor because of it.
I’d take marcan’s word over yours if I have to be completely frank.
> Yes, but don't sell me "Apple M* is da best" shit, okay?
I never did, once again you’re assuming a lot. I originally chimed in to mention that people like these machines and others (like the newer windows on snapdragon systems) because they strike a good balance between mobile phone and desktop systems.
> Ah, yes, lack of a second monitor is freedom. Koolaid in it's finest.
Once again you’re assuming a lot. What straw-man are you trying to beat up here?
>> Ah, you see, that's a different story. On M1 machines, no, that routing is hardwired as far as we know. On M2 machines, yes, in principle you can route both display controllers to external outputs (and disable the internal panel). That's how it works on desktops.
>> DisplayLink of course works, but it's an ugly virtual screen thing using compressed data over USB3, not a true directly connected external display.
From marcan himself. So yes, they just didn't want.
> I never did
>> get the best balance for product experience
> Once again you’re assuming a lot
Let me remind you of your words, because looks like your forgot what you wrote:
>> their more narrow model for how a PC can be built is selling really well and very few regular people miss their second monitor because of it.
> From marcan himself. So yes, they just didn't want.
They’re not going to ship that, knowing their engineering team they’d probably consider it a huge hack. They probably also have considered how proficiently their gpu can drive two versus 3+ 6K studio displays under varying circumstances.
It’s actually probably possible to get this going on asahi via usb a display link. Good thing no ones forcing anyone to run macOS on this hardware.
> Let me remind you of your words, because looks like your forgot what you wrote:
There’s nothing controversial in what I wrote. They clearly have grown Mac marketshare by building computers using their more restrictive phone hardware.
That’s not my opinion, that can actually be measured from the increase in web traffic from WebKit.
Your post is nonsense. I was talking about the Apple Silicon chips. Which combine all the logic on one chip. That means, they are limited in the capacities by what is put on that corresponding chip. Apple chose to put 2 display outputs on the smaller chips, and more on the larger ones. That is a conscious choice trading off chip area with other capabilities.
Could they have done differently? Sure. Does it make sense? Yes. For the people, who need or want more compute power and more capabilities, they have two different chip offerings in the laptops, the Pro and the Max. And in the Mac Studio the Ultra, which are two Max and consequently raise the IO capability even further.
And I have certainly not talked about any other platform, which usually uses multi-chip approaches.
Exactly right. I think some of my points got garbled in all this back and forth: that their conscious choice makes A LOT of sense when you take into account that they want their smaller chips to share supply chain with iPads, Vision Pro etc.
No ones saying “poor apple.” The pricier models don’t run the same soc. With the air you’re getting the same constraints as an iPad. They made tradeoffs.
Which basically means the others could do it (all M1 processors can handle two displays, which is either two for the Mac mini or internal + external for the laptops).
The addition is the ability to have two external when closed; likely this could have mainly been done in software if they cared.
(You can get more than one external on a laptop with the screen open if you go up to the Max or Pro or whatever.)
It's easy to deduce that it's a big deal for macbook air users because it wasn't possible before.
It's easy to deduce both from the article and from other comments here, which presumably you read if you're going through the trouble of responding to someone else's comment.
I typically despise this type of question, where you're obviously trying to make a point but playing dumb and playing it off as if you have no clue what you're talking about.
This type of question is used all over the place and super obnoxious.
I'm not American, genuine question, why is it a big deal that you're getting free healthcare? I've had free healthcare my whole life, shrug.
As a European, genuine question. Why is it a big deal that Biden wants to forgive student loan? I've gotten free education my whole life, shrug.
As an apple user, why is it a big deal that Dell is extending it's warranty to 2 years? My apple device gets updates 4 years later, shrug.
How is Dell warranty comparable to iOS/MacOS updates? Maybe at least compare that to something related to operating system, like Windows 10/Ubuntu LTS support lifecycle, or Android major version updates, which are usually much longer than the 1 or 2 year warranty that comes with the device? That's too much a rant that is completely meaningless and way too cynical.
It seems like their question struck a nerve. Did you really feel it necessary to bring up hot political issues to explain why it's interesting that the new apple laptops can drive two external displays?
Just for clarity, it's so far from novel in the world of windows laptops that it's genuinely confusing why that would be an advertised feature.
The limitation started because the M chip combined the CPU and GPU and combined the RAM with the VRAM. That's why its battery life and power efficiency blows Windows laptops out of the water. So they didn't just limit it for no reason.
It doesn't because the M3 has two dedicated DP outputs. O̶n̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶r̶o̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶T̶h̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶b̶o̶l̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶.̶ ̶O̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶M̶3̶ ̶M̶B̶P̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶P̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶H̶D̶M̶I̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶v̶e̶r̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶n̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶p̶u̶t̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶.̶ ̶O̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶M̶B̶A̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶n̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶o̶u̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶p̶u̶t̶.̶ The M2 also has a routable output, you can connect two USB-C displays to an M2 Mac mini if you don't use the HDMI port. It's unclear why Apple didn't enable that feature on the M2 MBA.
Edit: I had a brainfart and forgot that both ports are routable. It's market segmentation or stupidity like with the M2 MBA.
Can't edit anymore: this also applies to the M2 MBP, and both of them could get this feature in a software update like the M3 MBP. But it's unlikely, because of greed.
So I still need to use Instant View with my docking station, got it. Been using that on my M1 air to drive 2x4K displays (the 30Hz display isn't that useful if I'm mousing around, though)
It's set up as 3 separate displays, from left to right: 4K30 (you can also notice compression in color saturation), 4K60 (main monitor), built-in display. Even at 30Hz, the second 4K monitor is good for keeping up documentation.
The M2 MacBooks should also get that because the hardware supports it. The M2 Mac mini allows to connect 2 displays over USB-C if you don't use the HDMI port.
It could but only if you connected one of them to the HDMI port. The M2 allows to connect both over USB-C. One of the M1 display controllers is hardwired to a DP output which goes to the screen on laptops and iMacs and to a DP->HDMI converter on the Mac mini. The controller isn't hardwired anymore since the M2, only the output is.
Since October, I've replaced my M-series 14" Macbook Pro for a M-series Macbook Air and I'm pretty glad with it. I can do almost anything I could have done with my Pro (Figma, coding, Docker) with so much less weight on my shoulders (commuting to work, working in cafes, etc).
£1,699 for 13" Air with M3 (8/10/16), 24GB RAM, 512GB
vs £2,299 (from Costco) for 14" MBP M3 Pro (11/14/16), 36GB RAM, 512GB
I'm unsure if £600 extra is worth it for average dev use? The main points I know are: better screen, speakers, fans, 12GB extra ram. But not sure about valuing those at £600. Hm
(I'm making this specific comparison because I've just ordered the MBP, but could return it, and get the MBA :D)
My personal machine is a 16GB M1 Air. I never wish I had more horsepower. It's simply never an issue.
My work machine is a 16GB M1 Pro. Ditto. Really, I'd probably be fine on an M1 Air for that, too.
[EDIT] Yes I run local docker containers, though not with huge production datasets or for load testing or whatever—all that works fine. And, hell, they run faster than the shitty oversubscribed VMs our K8S cluster hands out anyway—I see way worse performance in prod.
[EDIT EDIT] Oh and I used to compile a fairly big C++ program on my Air pretty regularly, and use it to test/develop a big 3D application. Worked fine. Took a damn beefy server to compile that project much faster than my Air did.
Half the reason I'm getting is a Mac is because they're so nice to look at, so I think I really want the better screen. And the extra RAM is always nice. And I know I'll appreciate the decent speakers.
Plus it'll arrive way quicker. I think I'm happy with the MBP...
I'm biased that my current laptop is a 2015 MBP (never owned an Air). But I'm still tempted to return it and get a 15" M3 MBA and save £600.
I think I underestimate battery life and over-emphasised performance. I've been running some npm & maven tasks every 1 minute, run a docker container, playing music on the speakers, set battery to power saver, set brightness to 50%. And after 4.5 hours I'm down to 72%, so I think I'm happy with that.
Looking at this list comparing the M3 with M1 doesn't motivate me to want the M3. It seems most gains are GPU related. The M2 was underwhelming, and it seems the M3 isn't much better than the M2 so comparing against M1.
> M3 takes MacBook Air performance even further:
> Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip.
> Enhancing an image with AI using Photomator’s Super Resolution feature is up to 40 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 15x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
> Working in Excel spreadsheets is up to 35 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 3x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
> Video editing in Final Cut Pro is up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 13x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
> Compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor, MacBook Air delivers up to 2x faster performance, up to 50 percent faster web browsing, and up to 40 percent longer battery life.
Combining the two datapoints 15x faster than Mac with non-Apple-silicon and 2x faster than PC with i7 makes it seem like Intel parts have improved a lot since Apple stopped using them.
I’m sure they know most people aren’t upgrading yearly so it makes more sense to target people two gens or more behind.
Regarding your last point, it’s because of the video accelerators on the M series chips which is why they mention Final Cut. The latter comparison to Intel laptops also has to take into account that it’s been ~4 years since Apple shipped that.
After the big bump with the M1, we are back to the 10-20% generational improvements of old days. The deltas between generations are not impressive, but they do add up after a few years.
I am kind of interested in the M3 Air. I generally prefer MacBook Air over MacBook Pro, since it's lighter and more compact than the Pro, but I am currently still using a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro due to the limitations of the earlier Airs. It seems that these limitations are getting lifted slowly, with the M2 supporting up to 24GB RAM and the M3 supporting two external displays in clamshell. If the MacBook Air M3 supported 32GB RAM, it would pretty much be a no-brainer to go from the M1 Pro to Air M3.
Speaking of video, I’m on my second MacBook Air and have been very happy with them both except for one consistent concern, their unreliability with regard to external displays. It bothers me sufficiently for me to bring my Apple TV with me when delivering training, which is kinda ridiculous. I think my next one will be a Pro. That’s a pity really – I like the Air form factor and I don’t really need the extra power. I do think I need a real HDMI port though.
If you're dependent on the adapter, you need to use the Apple ones, or you need to have multiple. Sometimes HDMI works, sometimes it doesn't, changing the adapter usually fixes it.
Sure, but there are plenty of adapters that drive 4k@60Hz without an issue, such as the latest revision Apple's adapter (old revisions would only do 4k@30).
What do you use to connect the screen to your Air? I've got an M2 air, and recently purchased a 5120x1440 screen with HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. I first connected it through HDMI to one of the USB/HDMI/USB-C Apple adapters, and the result was terrible. But I ordered a DisplayPort->USB-C cable, and it worked perfectly.
Depends on your use case. What little heavy software I run is all terribly optimized single core stuff, so even going m2 to m3 the single core gains are appreciable to me. Iirc its about a 30% bump worth it for a little bit more in price for me. Then of course much better battery life from more and faster e cores too.
Outside of pricing, why would one buy Air vs Pro these days? I've had OG Air back in the day and tapered form factor was great. I recently was in an Apple store and looked at pro and airs.. they felt same, and also air seemed heavy (compared to ye olde tapered one). Now with Pro at 14" and Air pushing to 15".. why?
The weight of the 13" Air vs 15" Air vs 14" Pro is 2.7 > 3.3 > 3.4 lbs. For developers who do development on remote machines, weight and form factor are more important. I would pay top dollar for a 12" Macbook with M processor because I do my focused editing on a big screen. Other people use their laptop for everything so a 15" screen is preferred. Also, different strokes for different folks.
To me the 14" Pro feels like a brick, the 16" is a veritable paving slab. I want something I can toss in a backpack and not feel it's there, which the Air is still just about light enough for. That may be because I live in a very walkable and bike-able area in Europe, and I do lots of both, I'm sure the trade-offs are different if you drive everywhere.
As for the screen, I think "gimped" is not doing it justice. I regularly use both, the Air's is a very nice screen in its own right and while there is a difference, it feels more like a relatively small increment on something already very solid, at least to me (I don't do any pro photo/video work). Same for the other differences, the Air's speakers are already pretty good, connectivity is fine (for me), I like not having a fan, it's way powerful enough for what I do.
Well if you had a fan you could always turn it off too. On the other hand once it is throttling its over. I used an air in the old case without the notch but with the black bezel and I gave it to the parents. Couldn’t stand throttling and how it affects the performance of my use cases. Like every five seconds a stutter like a scratched up CD. Two fan macbook pro for me. Even going all out its quieter than the 2012 era mac fans I am used to, but thats only when I push the cpu. Most of the time the fan is off entirely not even by my own doing.
I have an M2 13" air for a personal computer and a 14" pro for work.
The Air is noticeably lighter and much easier to throw in a bag without thinking about managing weight. The Pro is a fine weight for commuting, but for traveling longer distances, the weight definitely makes a difference. To the point where I'm seriously considering setting up a work partition on my personal machine so I don't need to lug the pro around on an upcoming trip.
Probably depends how big and muscular are you. I don't feel 14' PRO in my backpack at all, 16 PRO barely. Its not a flex but it definitely matters if you are a 5'1 female or 6'2 male.
> For developers who do development on remote machines
Gosh having started program on 286s in the 1980s, my M1 air feels blazingly opulently fast. What sort of local development are people doing that requires heavier compute than an M1 air, but doesn't require a full on cluster?
The only time I have heard the fans on my pro was when running games on ultra. If you hear the fans chances are if you had the air instead it would be throttling. Up to you if that is tolerable. I can’t stand throttling so I got the macbook pro with two fans.
I have owned probably 7 laptops over the past 20 years and every single one with a fan turned into a rattling jet engine mess. Do modern laptops not do this anymore? It was at least half the reason I got the Macbook Air
AIUI, because the macbook air's fan is contained inside the machine that has no external ventilation ports that means the fan is mostly moving clean air with no particulate in it that will eventually build up on the fan whihc make it perform poorly.
I imaagine that the lubricant in the fan will still age, but that is also going to be less of an issue because of less dust contamination.
Macs fans are good, by the time my 2012 kicked the bucket a few months ago the fan still sounded the exact same as it always did. Different story with every other electronic fan I’ve owned of course but I guess thankfully apple doesn’t buy the cheapest fan possible.
Better monitor, better speakers (much better in both cases), HDMI, SD. Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Support for high-resolution and multimonitor setups. If any of these are attractive, you get the Pro.
Apple's "Pro" branding has become increasingly meaningless but in the MacBook category, which I believe is where it originated, it's meant to suggest "media professional", a demographic which has reason to care about all of these things.
There are even shades of this in the iPhone and iPads Pro, which have a few features which are mainly of interest to professional media types. For AirPods it just means "the expensive ones", and for Vision Pro it means "this is expensive". That's the main signal for phones and tablets as well, realistically.
exactly, outside of pricing. I see people say Air is noticably lighter, but I may then have a heavy hand because 13 air and 14 feel almost the same in weight to me, unlike OG Air which was light and thin. Hence, why buy Air? it's not even smaller.
Framed differently: it's 37% taller and 25% heavier. In the context of laptops, this is pretty hard not to notice. I have an MBA and my wife has an MBP — the difference is very easy to see/feel.
Its not like killing you lifting a little bit more, its already so light. Its certainly appreciably much lighter than the 15 inch 2012 mac still kicking around my house. It feels easy to hold one handed even.
I wouldn't mind that much, but my petite wife sure wishes that she could swap her MBP for an MBA! She takes her laptop in purses and other bags, so it's both about size and weight.
I just lugged my work-issued MBP through a couple of airports today, and wow, I wish I had my own MBA with me instead. That weight doesn't make a huge difference on your lap. It sure makes a difference in a carryon bag.
For me: price and weight. I frequently travel with my laptop, often with a single backpack or on a bike.
The Air is also way overkill. I had a 12" MacBook before that. It ran the software that I wrote. I write markdown in Sublime Text and run python scripts.
There just isn't a reason to get something beefier.
I could have probably gotten away with the air but there are times when it would be throttling with my uses. The extra io and other hardware upgrades are worth it imo. Especially the screen, its just bright enough on the pro to use the computer outside in full sunlight. I had a 2022 air at one point and that screen was just a bit too dim to use outside without finding shade.
For photo/video editors, the Pro screen alone is worth more than the entire laptop. To be clear, the Pro screen is equal to a professional HDR reference monitor, and the entire laptop costs less than a professional HDR reference monitor.
It’s good but they should’ve upped the memory from 24G to 32G. In my opinion a new Macbook Air only makes sense when you can get more memory. And I still think it’s the best laptop.
Yep. I work on a C++ project that requires up to 32GB of memory to compile. If I could do that on the air, that'd be amazing. I don't think I'd ever want to get the Pro though, it's too bulky for my liking.
I get it! My MacBook Air M1 is honestly perfect. I'm considering a Studio upgrade only because I find myself working on ridiculously large (24K x 30K) 16 bits-per-channel image files lately.
So, the cheapest configuration with 16 GB of RAM (and still with a measly 256GB of SSD) begins at €1479 (previously incorrectly stated as €1700) in the EU with VAT and that's with the older M2 chip. As for the external display thing, you basically have to "sacrifice" the laptop's screen and built in keyboard and trackpad in order to use a 2nd display. Jesus wept.
CORRECTION: The price for 16/256 is at €1479.
You can get open box macs from some retailers a few months after the sku releases for huge savings sometimes almost 20%. I got a mbp for like over $400 off iirc from best buy with three cycles on the battery. At that price it didn’t even make sense to go with apple refurbished.
I don't think many people use a laptop with an external display without closing the lid. Laptops are terrible for ergonomics and the only solutions are using a stand with a separate keyboard and mouse or closing the lid and using it like a desktop. In both cases the built-in keyboard and trackpad aren't being used.
You know, I really wish I could add a few things to the macBook. A number pad for example, since VoiceOver can use them for quick and simple navigation and item selection. I mean, I also wish VoiceOver was even half as good as NVDA, a free and open source Windows screen reader, but that's for another day.
Also, make the modifier keys symmetrical. Add a control key to the right side of the keyboard! Yeah, the keyboard is a big deal for blind people like me. I do know a few blind people that use Macs sometimes, but I don't know if they just hook up an external keyboard as much as possible like I do, or just use the built in one without a nampad and such.
I was legally blind for 15 years. Apple has been there for me with their screen zoom since Powerbook G4 12" on OSX 10.3. I've since had surgery on my eyes, and I still find myself relying heavily on the screen zoom. It's probably my all time favourite feature of OSX/MacOS.
Thankfully I haven't had a need for VoiceOver or NVDA, so I wouldn't know how to compare those. But I think it's great that Apple actually puts in internal effort on accessibility unlike Microsoft/Linux.
Will these, like previous models, have varying SSD performance depending upon how many chips are populated resulting in varying parallelization of SSD operations?
If so, knowing those configurations would be useful. I have a friend I recently told to wait for the M3 models (and for reviews of same and for the initial bugs, etc. shakeout to subside).
I'm also wondering about the reported/speculated internal bus width and bandwidth differences between the M2 and M3. Supposedly, the M3 is/would be a bit narrower, hopefully making up the resulting impact upon performance through other improvements.
I own a fully maxed-out MacBook Air M2. I suppose, there's no point in upgrading, from the point of view of a developer?
I'm not quite sure why the comparisons on the marketing page are against the M1 Air.
For a desktop (which does the Docker things) I use a maxed out Mac Mini M2 Pro. Still, it's painful to see an upgraded Air which I do not own, but also a little bit warming that they don't seem to pushing a comparison with the M2 equivalent. Crazy times.
I'm always a bit irritated when editors still use inch measurements exclusively, when it's only used in 3 countries officially still.
Not talking about screen sizes obviously, but I really don't have an intuition for what 'less than half an inch' thickness is and I'm sure there are a _lot_ of people who use English as their interface language outside of the US.
It's the US Apple website, what do you expect? Of course the measurements will be in football fields and eagles/freedom units.
Go to other local websites and the specs will be in the local units (most likely metric), but even in Europe, display sizes or car wheels are almost always denominated in inches.
If it is the US website I'm just asking where the international english website is I guess. Choosing UK or South Africa doesn't make the inch go away.
This is totally fine for companies targeting US domestic markets I guess but I suspect Apple sees itself as an international company and they should have the budget for proper internationalization.
Maybe they just don't care for people to know how thin the Air is, but the number of search results for 'thin' on the page let's me think otherwise.
To be fair to the editors, the inch measurement is just coming from Apple, that's how they refer to it. If the editors converted the model name into centimeters they'd be using a different name than Apple, and probably losing some search traffic as well. But I feel your pain: it's not even a great description, because the screen isn't 13 inches, it's 13.6 or something like that.
I can deal with the screen sizes, as they are used everywhere ( it's similar to e.g. 3.5mm jack I guess) and you know what's meant by that, but stating the thickness in inches got me.
I get it. It'd be nice if all these major companies used both in and cm. Americans have to go back and forth with metric a lot and it would be useful to think of every day items in terms of both inches and cm.
Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage but aside from that do you really want to argue that Apple doesn't care about the total spending of, say, India just because they make up a smaller percentage of the world's GDP?
> Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage
... so? Total spending is the key factor; Apple gets exposure to 25% of the total human economy by catering to one polity which is also the easiest one to do business in. That's a no-brainer if I've ever heard one.
By contrast, India's economy is only 3% of the world total. [0]
It's interesting to note that this understates US dominance in luxury products - due to being rich-person-friendly, they actually have far more than 25% of the world's rich people - 38% according to page 28 of [1]
It's not either-or and they do cater to the rest of the world. But when they release something new, they'll always try to make it work for their US customer base first.
If you check these specs in a month, it'll probably tell you the size in mm. I just checked the iPhone page from here in Canada and it says this: 5.77 inches (146.6 mm)
my biggest regret of 2023 is buying the MBA with M2 chip. it is so underpowered compared to the MBP - no right hand ports, lower memory, no support for 2 monitors - that it was not worth the few hundred dollars saved and lighter weight which was something i thought I valued.
so just a word of advice to fellow devs - go for the MBP. if you're on here you need it.
Finding a laptop that runs Linux natively and acceptably is always a challenge. My Dell XPS 9315 touts linux support, but only with an older version of Ubuntu using custom drivers (as I discovered after purchasing it). So I've got manjaro running that took quite a bit of coaxing - though the built-in webcam has never, and probably will never work with any linux other than Ubuntu 20.04, and the APM has always been extremely wonky (also, much BIOS and config tweaking to get it to work acceptably).
In any case, if these ARM-based macbook pros can run linux native with minimal fuss, I'd buy one -- but AFAIK, they're not there yet.
>Finding a laptop that runs Linux natively and acceptably is always a challenge.
Its pretty easy to do a compatibility check on forums before purchasing. My IdeaPad Gaming works flawlessly with Manjaro, even supports the charging settings and performance modes.
Yea, yea, I know. The one time I just assume it'll be fine, because Dell sold a developer edition of the 9315 with ubuntu pre-installed. Then I receive it and find the linux support is a total kludge with custom drivers and disabling most of the power management features in the BIOS.
I have a ~2018 Dell XPS that runs Ubuntu and Debian fine.
I still prefer the ~2017 ThinkPad X1 Carbon, despite the much slower CPU, half the memory, worse screen, and the coating peeling off. Not sure why I prefer it, perhaps some combination of it being lighter, quieter, and the screen opening 180°
My kids both needed computers and when the MacBook Air M1 came out I bought a couple for $1200 each (I normally spend $2000 on a new laptop). I wanted decent performance, compatibility, and battery life, and ideally something that would survive a typical teenager's treatment. I'm not a mac person- I would be happier with a Windows or Linux PC or laptop.
It looks like they have had the laptops for 3.5 years now, and I've never heard a single complaint about performance or compatibility. One reports the battery life has dropped tremendously. But frankly, these things are basically reliable appliances. I was expecting both to be completely broken by now and have been very pleased.
For anyone having issues with only one external display at once, DisplayLink adapters work very well, allowing you to connect much more displays if you need them.
It comes with a bunch of downsides though. It is lossy, requires a third-party driver (and you become dependent on them to provide timely updates for new macOS releases), protected content from iTunes and other players is not visible on the laptop display when DisplayLink adapters are connected, a bunch of HiDPI resolutions are missing on Apple Silicon Macs, etc.
USB-C Alt-Mode and Thunderbolt always trump DisplayLink. So it's best to figure out first what displays you want to connect and then buy the Mac that supports that configuration. But if you already have a Mac that doesn't support the number of displays that you want to hook up, DisplayLink is a solution.
Luckily, these new MacBook Air models support two external 5K@60Hz displays with the lid closed.
I was cautious about this issue before buying the device, but the fears turned out to be unfounded. Sure it won't be good enough for competitive gaming or something like that, but watching youtube is pretty good, and text rendering is indistinguishable from regular display. The only issue is that refresh rate seems to be about 30fps but for many tasks it is acceptable.
> USB-C Alt-Mode and Thunderbolt always trump DisplayLink.
Yes, but does it allow you to connect 3 displays to your notebook? I actually wanted just 2 external displays, but the DisplayLink device had 2 ports, and I have many HDMI displays laying around, so I connected 3 because I can.
Not to mention, you need to give the DisplayLink driver permission to record your screen. Which is probably fine from a security standpoint, but doesn't feel great.
I've used both and while Displaylink works, native support is definitely snappier. Not by much, but just enough to be able to notice.
DisplayLink can get an LCD to re-engage from sleep which Apple's built in ports often can't. Try switching off your Dell LCD attached directly to an M2 Mini.
Works fine for me across a bunch of LG and Dell displays hooked up with DisplayPort (DP-Alt over Type-C). I only had this issue with a StarTech Thunderbolt hub (used to work fine until it didn’t).
Depends very much on what you're doing. DisplayLink adds noticeable lag, compression artifacts, and will prevent HDCP video from playing on all monitors including ones not using DisplayLink.
Maybe things are better in the Apple Silicon days, but I tried using an external "carry it with you" monitor that used DisplayLink on an old Intel MacBook and it was an endless stream of headaches. Frequently the computer just wouldn't see the monitor at all until I restarted both of them, custom settings like color and rotation would often reset, etc. The DisplayLink drivers seemed like total shit.
For me it works like a charm. I had to change the USB hub though, first one was buggy and would randomly stop working. But on a second one everything is fine.
Am I the only one who is bothered by the cut-out for the webcam and the rounded corners of the screen?
Fortunately, laptops are just toys for me, and I save a lot of money by not buying one from Apple anymore.
I love the rounded corners honestly. The screen feels more natural with it. The camera notch however bothers me daily. The most annoying bit about it is that the notch is so large that the mouse cursor can get lost in the dead zone behind it.
It's awful design... It would had been forgivable if it was just a small circular camera cutout, but I'm guessing they didn't do that purely because they wanted to be different. Plus to go with a circular camera cutout on their Macbooks would suggest that it's not a great design choice on the iPhone either.
It's the only thing I genuinely hate about my M3 Macbook. Almost everything else is great.
I'm a senior software dev that is still using the last of the intel macs (granted a maxed out 16" not an air).
These kind of comparisons are still valid for me. There are plenty of others less technical than me that want these too. The youngest intel Airs only just aged out of applecare coverage last year, and for most casual users getting 4 years out of an Apple computer is totally expected.
My personal laptop is 7 years old so these comparisons are relevant to me, too. I’ve operated on my Air a bit to reduce thermal throttling and I don’t use it for anything crazy so it’s still useful, but one of these days I’ll upgrade. I’m sure there are plenty of people like us with these old beasts.
Apple could dramatically improve performance if they just tasked one Metal engineer on llama.cpp. Like, just to finish up flash attention and quantum KV cache, and optimize the Metal kernels.
I wouldn't be surprised if they could double performance.
I know Apple is pushing MLX, and MLC-LLM is fast too, but in practice most Mac users (I think) are using llama.cpp based stacks.
What is the appeal of running this sort of stuff locally though? Its still slower and less memory than a cluster or just a strong server. Just ssh into some horsepower and keep your lap cold.
Lots of worthless criticism. If you want the latest and greatest buy it. If you are upgrading from an Intel macbook air than get the m3 - who wants to buy last years version
I've been streaming and recording locally with OBS in 2K (1440p) with an M3 Max MacBook Pro and it works like a charm—with a Sony ZV-E10 being capture by Elgato HD60X.
I can even develop and run Apple MLX code while I'm streaming. (I lose a few frames when generating images with Stable Diffusion or load big LLMs like Gemma 7B.)
My MacBook Pro M1 wasn't there for streaming and recording at the same time. But even an M1 Max could do the job as well.
A great laptop but also a bit of a heartbreaker for me.
The quality of the 16" MacBook Pro (Liquid Retina XDR?) is way ahead of the MacBook Air... which is a shame, because my dream form factor is the 15" MacBook Air. The 16" is so bulky and heavy.
(On the other hand, most of the time I hook my 16 up to Apple's Studio Display, which is definitely not ProMotion or anything exceptional!)
I currently have a 16" M1 Max and thinking about picking up a 15" M3 Air. My understanding is the M3 is faster in single core performance but the M1 Max is faster in multi-core because of obviously more cores. Am I really going to see a performance difference switching from M1 Max to M3 or should I splurge and go for M3 Pro or M3 Max?
Depends on what you do. Best bet is to find benchmarks from the various M3 reviews and see if any are similar to your workflow. For Geekbench 6, the M1 Max is about 2400/12700 while the M3 is about 3100/12000, so for CPU constrained tasks they be almost the same, with the Air perhaps throttling a bit if you run at full power for longer periods of time. But an M3 Max gets you a multicore score of 19600, which could be a nice improvement if you do a lot of parallel work.
MBA in the last few releases has just been a gimped macbook pro vs a totally different paradigm of product as it was when steve jobs pulled the first one out of a manilla envelope. The weight difference isn’t even that significant anymore its like a half pound or so. Eat a big burrito for lunch and you’re carrying more than that around all day.
>Working in Excel spreadsheets is up to 35 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 3x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
Is this really a benchmark someone would diffrenatiate buying options?
I can appreciate the aesthetics of the “air” line but have been burned in the past due to poor heat dissipation. Hope apple has improved over the number of years, especially with “apple silicon”
It's fascinating they used Excel in the product photos instead of Numbers. I wonder who actually uses Numbers these days? Or any of the Apple "productivity" apps for that matter.
They are much better integrated with the system, their UI is great and they are plain and simple. It's not just Keynote that is good. I used Pages for a lot of private stuff like letters, and Numbers suffices for a lot of simple tables too.
I avoid the MS Office suite wherever I can. Recently went through some lengths to deactive Microsofts intrusive updating background service (nearly as bad in slowing down my system as Adobes).
I would be interested to find out how many individuals and families pay for Microsoft’s software, when apple and google provide free alternatives. (Maybe constrained to families that use mac / iphone, Microsoft might be more popular for Windows families?)
ie: For most people, if you’re not getting free access through work or school, is it actually worth paying for?
I do. They are there and work just fine for my regular bleb use cases. I also edit Word files in Pages and export to Word just fine. Same with Numbers.
> All data was lost because the storage is not removable.
I have removable disks in my workstation but that has never saved me from data loss. The most common cause of data loss is an errant "rm -rf" or "git checkout" or whatever. The second most common cause is the storage media failing (bad sectors, flash wear, etc.). On portable devices, I imagine one of the most common causes of data loss is losing the device itself.
The only way to prevent these classes of data loss is with backups. "One is none."
Is M3 the same single core speed on all platforms (e.g. air vs pro vs mini, etc)? In other words, would m3 mbpro single core benchmarks be basically the same as this new air?
Yes, basically. If you’re running long-term heavy load, the lack of fans in the Air will of course throttle it. But for short bursts they will perform the same.
The thermal situation is sort of interesting. The lowest spec macbook pro has 1 fan. The middle spec and the max have the same 2 fan setup though. This would imply the coolest running one is probably the 11 core. You could probably pin those p cores all day.
The hardware is so great but mac os is so far from my liking. It's such a shame that the OS options are so limited on these machines. (I'm aware of asahi)
This Laptop has two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. So how do I connect two external monitors + e.g. a USB Hub to this laptop WITHOUT buying an expensive Thunderbolt Dock??? Are there adapters available?
Frankly, Apple is an amazing organization and I am extremely thankful that they've empowered product designers to bring us these amazing creations.
Apple is one reason that I love existing in this era. Sure, there are others. But having Apple... enables me to bring a laptop + a backup battery (anker 737) practically anywhere and work all day without needing a direct electricity connection.
Laptop + Phone + external battery packs = work all day
The light weight, stay-cool-ness ... makes it so easy to work from.
I love you Apple. So glad to not have to use Windows. Sure, Linux desktops distros are decent (despite bugs), but Apple "just works".
how about we make them thicker, so there's enough room to keep the screen from eventually touching the keys when closed and permanently marring it after a few years. I guess, its only been happening since 2007, probably not enough time to come up with a solution.
I remain a little disappointed they didn't hold onto the wedge form-factor. The MacBook Air in the most recently form-factor is very thin, very light, but not to me what the definitive aspect of the MBA is, and why it's not a MacBook Pro. Being mildly thinner and supporting only one monitor feels like an intentional design handicap because... well we have to.
it's so clear that they limit it to 24GB to prevent cannibalization of the macbook pro. I personally could go for a M3 base chip with 64GB or 128GB of memory.
And, of course, it starts at 8GB of RAM to nudge you up from $1100 to $1300/$1500.
At which point you might as well spring for the Pro.
I can't fault the business logic but as someone who'd only use a Mac for occasional iOS development, this nudging upward dissuades me from pursuing that idea altogether.
I still want a MacBook Air with 32GB RAM or more. The Air is lighter and more compact than the Pro. (I currently use a MacBook Pro because of the memory limit on the Air.)
If you only use it for occasional ios dev, rather get a mac mini. As a bonus, when your done with it, put asahi linux on it and itd be a great home server.
I've considered that and might end up taking that route but the nice thing about a MacBook is I can take it with me on trips and learn iOS when I get bored.
There's a big server rack at home with multiple servers, so the Linux server part isn't a draw in my case.
Kind of disappointing that they seem to have discontinued the 11” model. I bought one 5 or 6 years ago and it’s still working fine. Compared to the 13” and 15” models, it feels so much more portable and lightweight.
If you want a really compact device all apple offers today is the ipad, and then you have to deal with ipad os. I feel like as long as the ipad exists they will not make a new 11 inch unfortunately.
"MacBook Air can also run optimized AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally with great performance."
Worthless PR. Further down, another selling point is "MacBook Air supports cloud-based solutions, enabling users to run powerful productivity and creative apps that tap into the power of AI, such as Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly."
Wow. Until they support CUDA or more ML/AI implementations on their chips, this is just marketing speak.
I run Mixtral 8x-7B on my M1 max mpb with llamafile, and Stable Diffusion - the backend for both is running via Metal implementations for Pytorch et al...
But "supports cloud-based solutions" is a pretty lame way to sell it.
That's actually funny. My ThinkPad with Arch Linux also supports Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly! Since when are we advertising a list of "supported websites"?
I purchased an M1 Mac Mini and I regret it, I should have gotten a laptop because I often find myself wanting to use my computer outside of my office. I am not doing anything crazy with this thing, just photo editing and light coding.
Is there any reason why I should choose a Pro over an Air at this point?
I think the rule only applies to device of a specific size (but that size might be laptop). Either way, Apple offers USB C as an option. You can have proprietary features (like MagSafe for all other Apple devices), but you must offer USB C to sell in the EU.
Is anyone else annoyed that Apple are extra shifty with performance comparisons these days, comparing to M1 and not to M2 MB Airs?
I opted for a M2 Air in October seeing small differences in M2 pro vs M3 pro, so I guess I was right - the difference must be so small that Apple can't stomach the difference.
I'd rant about how they try to market new models with more and more stupid marketing when they don't have anything to show, but I guess this only means I don't need to upgrade for a while since they are all out of proper innovation...
Imagine being a fanboy for Apple this days. Nothing to look for. They are so blatant in extracting value and not bringing anything new to the table, probably best compared to Nokia in it's heyday.
What are you doing on a MBA that utilizes all 24GB? I’m legit curious because I feel like applications that need a ton of ram probably also want better perf than the MBA can provide anyways or come in a better form factor than a laptop.
I have a 64G '21 M1M and it feels pretty silly. I wouldn't trade the memory back for money, but I would trade half of it for weight or for battery life.
I have 64GB in my Studio. I've never noticed the difference between it and my 24GB MBA. I'm not saying there's not a difference. Just saying, even with running a bunch of stuff in Docker plus BBEdit plus a gazillion browser and terminal tabs, I've personally never noticed the MBA being slower than the Studio.
VAT us a big part of it, another is currency exchange rate. Apple tends to use "1$ = 1EUR" for price conversion (to eliminate financial risk for themselves from fluctuating exchange rates), and then adds VAT on top of it.
If you didn't know anything about laptops and wanted to buy your first one, it would be a nightmare to figure out what all those seemingly random numbers mean on most non-Apple laptops.
Apple continues to simplify the laptop naming scheme, we're at a point where it's simply:
Air OR Pro
Small screen OR big screen
All other details can be configured in the buying flow but there's not much to think about if you just want a simple laptop.