101–110 of 127 posts
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Meh, the older 12” MacBook (not pro, not air) was also fanless. I miss that 2 lbs design quite a bit.
And it had abysmal performance, unusable for any development task.
I think most of it is the clue in the name .... laptop. If we move for a minute beyond the direct "hard" technical constraints which have already been expressed here (i.e. small chassis, lots of chips etc.). You have a second aspect, the old PBCAK (Problem Between Chair And Keyboard) one. Users will use their laptops in less than optimal (from a thermal perspective) ways. They will use it on their laps. They will use…
the necessity of forced cooling is still there The MacBook Air M1 is passively cooled. I used an M1 Air for a while (switched to M1 Pro) and it would only throttle slightly during very long builds. There have also been many tests where the MacBook Pro M1 (which does have a fan), the fan only spins up after minutes of loading all cores. The MacBook Air M1 shows that it is possible to have a fast [1], passively cooled…
I remember my first question on Quora was whether there was a way to sidestep the (then) 30MB size limit for installing apps on the iPad while on cellular. A guy with several 'signal engineer' tags explained that that would completely overwhelm the mobile network. I responded that the SIM card I was using was actually marketed to be used as your main internet for your home and came with a Wifi router for that purpose (which I also used sometimes, transferring the SIM). His only response was that I obviously lacked the mental capacity to apprehend how physically impossible this was (something I was using regularly mind you, for much larger downloads and data-intensive apps), and he reported my profile.
Yeah, I am disappointed that fanless devices have been on the retreat these past several years. My wife's previous laptop was a Lenovo Yoga 710, with a fanless Intel Core m3-6Y30 (Skylake, 2 cores with HT). Performance was more than adequate for her work as a scientist. My current laptop is a Xiaomi Mi Air 12.5, with the same CPU installed. It's powerful enough for everything I do on the go. If I were to replace it,…
Data sheet TDPs seem to have less connection to reality with each generation.
But with all of the boost clocks and what not, the more heat you can disipate, the faster the chip will go, and the power usage/temperatures can ramp really quickly too. Fans are so effective in most situations, that it's hard to leave them off and accept the performance difference. Personally, I'm ok with most fans, although I had to replace the PSU fan in my most recent build cause the included one had a noise profile I couldn't stand. For things like NUCs and Desktops, running longer cables and hiding the noise source is probably a good option too.
I think most of it is the clue in the name .... laptop. If we move for a minute beyond the direct "hard" technical constraints which have already been expressed here (i.e. small chassis, lots of chips etc.). You have a second aspect, the old PBCAK (Problem Between Chair And Keyboard) one. Users will use their laptops in less than optimal (from a thermal perspective) ways. They will use it on their laps. They will use…
Meh, the older 12” MacBook (not pro, not air) was also fanless. I miss that 2 lbs design quite a bit.
I would not be surprised if Apple eventually brings out a new laptop that addresses the ultra-portable market. With new screens it might be a 13” screen in a tight & light case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
but same as with the M1 in the air and in the pro: fan=more power and heat available The MacBook Air M1 does not have a fan, it's passively cooled. The fan in the MacBook Pro M1 (non-Pro/Max) and Mac Mini M1 spins up very rarely. Add the fact that in many devices you have to try really, really hard to be even able to hear Then you have a lot of ambient noise. Everything from Intel MacBook Airs, Intel MacBook Pro 16"…
> The MacBook Air M1 does not have a fan, it's passively cooled. The MacBook Pro [does have one] Yeah, that is what I said. Not sure why you are repeating that. > Once you are used to a quiet machine (like an M1 Mac), One with a fan or without? > it can be very annoying Yup, but you can simply turn that off by adjusting the fan and power. Allowing less fan usage on the M1 Pro just pushes performance down to the M1 ai…
That statement can be interpreted to say that the Air and Pro do have fans. It’s ambiguous.
Intel used to have a CPU line called the "Core m" which allowed fanless use. I had Lenovo laptop with one and i loved it. But they were hard to find then already, and i think they discontinued the line. My theory is that reviewers and benchmarkers don't care enough about "fanless" and gave them bad reviews ("slow for the price") while not highlighting the major advantage that being fanless is.
Now Apple’s M-series chips combine power with low power usage and they are able to build fast and fanless devices like the M1 MacBook Air.
Intel and AMD have been focused on building for power and have been, mostly, ignoring efficiency for too long. Hopefully, Apple’s newfound success in this area has waken them to the need to address power consumption.
I like fans. If you have decent fans things are cool and quiet. I wish my phone had active cooling.
On the other end, it generally takes a couple of iterations to get a fan-less design right, because you can't simply slap an oversized heatsink into a mobile device.
Fanless implies low power. The problem with low power is that it doesn't market itself well, because it implies a weak CPU. The biggest marketing claim that laptops tend to have is how fast their CPU is, and that's what most people look at when buying. Making it fanless means that you have to get rid of the heat by making the case heat-conductive, which means making it out of metal instead of plastic, which is more e…
[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-17-3-chromebook-intel-cele...
I was in need of this a while ago. the best I found was the Surface Pro 7 with the i5. it's fanless. runs super well, I installed Linux on it. other than that, everything else I find has weak Celerons in it.
I've run the Surface Pro 7 i5 since 2019, which replaced a SP4 i5 (though that had a fan, which I'd tuned to almost never come on). For most things it's more than enough and always silent. I sometimes point a fan at it if I'm doing something heavier or driving external displays. For, I think, $799 with pen and keyboard its a great mobile machine and remote terminal. If I could go back in time I'd maybe spring for the…