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New MacBook Air

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Re: New MacBook Air

#281

Post by dimitar »

So I got a 2019 Air just before the COVID-19 emergency in my area. I was looking for a small and light machine to carry around, with a little bit of coding and browsing mostly. I would have probably picked the most basic retina model with the dual-core processor (not like my 15m load average is ever bigger than 2.5) - I don't know about the keyboard and the graphics though, they seem ok so far.

Did I screw up? I don't live in a country with a Apple store it usually takes months for these to reach our market. I'm consoling myself that I got a good deal and I got a new machine that I needed before a long stint working from home.

Re: New MacBook Air

#282

Post by Humdeee »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #212

Anybody know what's the cheapest setup you could get away with for iOS/xcode development? Would it be a (used) Macbook Air, or can you not really run xcode effectively on them?

I've used a 2014 Macbook Air very heavily on a daily basis for years now and it still does fine on small-medium app development. Simulator's are the biggest pain point.

I recently started dabbling in video editing a bit and that's what definitely gets the fans going.

Re: New MacBook Air

#284

Post by 72deluxe »

inertiatic wrote: post #235
tomp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi-joking, but the problem is real for me. I've a 2013 13' MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM, and my system can't cope with my workflow ... tens of tabs in Safari, webapps in Chrome (YouTube, Google Docs, ...), Eclipse with Scala / Java, ... it's a huge struggle.

I was handed a 2017 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM at my current job while waiting for my actual laptop to be delivered, and it was a nightmare. I keep a lot of tabs open to look things up, but nothing excessive on that machine. I also run VSCode or Pycharm and would also bring up 5-10 containers at times. It seriously hurt not only my productivity but also my mood afterwards just by having to put up with it for weeks.…

It is odd because these memory issues are very real, but if you ever say "wow, devs are getting lazy and these 'desktop' apps that rebundle Chrome are really killing my machine (eg. Slack, Skype) with inordinate quantities of logic in javascript" you get shouted down.

It's bizarre. If everyone used the native toolkits we'd have far less memory usage and everyone (even the memory-constrained) would have a good experience.

Also, with these memory hogs they will do a lot of allocation and deallocation. This is also a problem with interpreted languages. And allocation is the enemy of speed, and energy usage. It'll destroy your daily battery expectancy as everything gets interpreted.

Sad.

Re: New MacBook Air

#285

Post by brippalcharrid »

kbsletten wrote: post #161
oblio wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What in that says "invented" "new" or even "wonderful?" Uh... "refined"?

I read that as "elegant" not "made better". It's possible that people could read it either way.

Yes, that's by design; it's a purposefully ambiguous choice of words that be read either way depending on what the reader's subconscious wants to hear. Either way, they don't have to admit that they were wrong, customers that hated the old now now feel relieved and vindicated, and people are probably more likely to buy the new one. That particular choice of words is probably the result of millions of dollars of marketing psychology, focus groups and A/B testing.

Re: New MacBook Air

#286

Post by hombre_fatal »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #250
climb_stealth wrote: post #182

After using the latest Macbook Pro 13" for over a year I have recently had my 2015 Macbook Pro 13" repaired. Both are max specs. It was a $600 bill, but it has been so worth it. The keyboard just works, it doesn't run hot and the fan doesn't blast under the slightest load, the performance is much better, the battery lasts longer and the external screen + keyboard and mouse are detected every single time without havin…

For that price i buy a descent laptop.

Anything past 1995 can play Descent.

Re: New MacBook Air

#287

Post by 72deluxe »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #212

Anybody know what's the cheapest setup you could get away with for iOS/xcode development? Would it be a (used) Macbook Air, or can you not really run xcode effectively on them?

I am surviving with a 2012 MacBook Pro that I have upgraded the RAM (16GB) and put a SATA3 SSD in. Just as fast as my late 2016 MacBook Pro, with better battery life despite being on the original battery (that I can replace) and a real escape key, proper function keys and a better lit keyboard than the new models.

The only "issue" it has is the low res (I drive an external monitor for higher resolutions) and the plastic under the back of the screen being cracked in one place. Other than that, just like new.

An old MacBook Pro will work fine, as long as it has an SSD and some sensible quantity of RAM.

No need to buy new.

Re: New MacBook Air

#289

Post by dimitar »

pyrophane wrote: post #266

Keep in mind that probably the most important spec when considering a new laptop is one that is often not directly stated: the processor series. I'm not talking about i3/i5/i7, but rather U/Y/H. This letter determines the TDP (thermal design power/point) them machine is designed to run at. The TDP will govern the setting for the base clock speed, and, just as importantly, the throttling behabior under load. Processor…

If you are running something computationally intensive isn't a desktop more suitable?

45W will get your laptop pretty warm and noisy and will drain your battery.

Re: New MacBook Air

#290

Post by Kamshak »

gerardnll wrote: post #272
pyrophane wrote: post #266

Keep in mind that probably the most important spec when considering a new laptop is one that is often not directly stated: the processor series. I'm not talking about i3/i5/i7, but rather U/Y/H. This letter determines the TDP (thermal design power/point) them machine is designed to run at. The TDP will govern the setting for the base clock speed, and, just as importantly, the throttling behabior under load. Processor…

Well I'm on a 2016 macbook air, 8gb RAM and doing web programming everyday. 3 phpstorm windows, sometimes Photoshop open, more than 20 tabs in Chrome, iterm, figma, paw... Honestly it runs pretty well and I was waiting for this update.

Assuming PHP you just described "a text editor and remote servers"
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