Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New MacBook Air

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 587 posts

Re: New MacBook Air

#311

Post by gnicholas »

pooya13 wrote: post #295

Maybe it works for some but 256GB of storage is just insulting to me. I also don’t appreciate this focus Apple has had over the past decade to make it easier for me to shop or to identify my fingerprints, voice or face while they screw the usability. That said I like the new thunderbolt 3 port.

256 definitely isn’t enough for anyone who backs up their phone to the computer. They’re pushing folks to the cloud. I am pretty insistent on having a local phone backup, but have to use a symbolic link to an external hard drive to accomplish this. Seems like a pretty extreme step to have to take just to back up to an external drive.

Re: New MacBook Air

#312

Post by coherentpony »

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…

> The Pro is still a much better choice for programmers.

I'm not totally sure I agree. I typically do a lot of programming on my MacBook Air. It's simply a box I use to ssh to something else more powerful to do the actual runs.

Yes, if you're running computationally intensive stuff on your MacBook Air you're going to be disappointed, but if what you're mostly doing is typing into a terminal screen then it's probably perfect. And probably even over-powered? :)

Re: New MacBook Air

#313

Post by Scarbutt »

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…

Practically, that means that the new Air will not be capable of running sustained workloads much above its base clock speed, which makes it unsuitable for many programming-related tasks.

Does that still holds when using the power adapter?

Re: New MacBook Air

#314

Post by xenonite »

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.

Lucky you, because yours still has a U processor, not a Y one.

Re: New MacBook Air

#315

Post by bryanmgreen »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #149
gigatexal wrote: post #53

Now give me a 14.1 inch MacBook Pro with this keyboard, 32 or 64GB of ram and 8 real cores. ... I think though this new MacBook Air is going to be my next portable

This announcement should mean that the current 13" Pro will soon be replaced by a 14" Pro with magic keyboard and higher power processor options, otherwise there will be too much overlap between product lines. But Apple has been content in the past to have overlapping product lines, so they might not.

They've seemed to be streamlining their non-iPhone lines lately, which is nice.

Re: New MacBook Air

#316

Post by aarongray »

tarasmatsyk wrote: post #294
aarongray wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think System76, Lenovo, or Tuxedo is a better choice than Dell XPS for Linux from a reliability standpoint. Additionally, if you plan to do full disk encryption, the XPS line has all sorts of issues. https://www.dell.com/community/Linux-Developer-Systems/XPS-1...

I gave up on Lenove when they sold the company, maybe that was a mistake. Dell seems to be one of the best companies considering quality and support. On the other hand, I've never tried System76, and never heard of Tuxedo, thank you for mentioning!

Tuxedos aren't cheap, but the coolest thing about them is they have a way to preinstall Linux and setup full disk encryption with LUKS and you just set the encryption key when you first turn on the machine. Never seen anyone else offer that.

Re: New MacBook Air

#317

Post by dijit »

saila wrote: post #146
tomp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except - 16GB RAM Can you even run Eclipse with just 16GB?!

I can't tell if you're joking, but I have a 2018 Mac Mini with just 8GB of RAM, and I often run Eclipse, IntelliJ, and PyCharm at the same time (along with multiple browsers and other stuff), and performance is fine. I was actually surprised by this--when I first started using this computer, I thought for sure I would need to add more RAM, which for the 2018 model is too complicated to do yourself (at least to me it…

That's actually very surprising to me.

I'm running linux with an anemic window manager, and with nothing but chrome and slack open (20tabs in chrome) I am consuming 6GiB.

If you add teams, pycharm and outlook (electron) it consumes 9GiB... Actually, that's also less than I expected.

Well done pycharm.

Re: New MacBook Air

#318

Post by 72deluxe »

Engineering-MD wrote: post #189
WillPostForFood wrote: post #181

What’s missing from Apple’s lineup now is an a lightweight option. This is almost a pound heavier than the discontinued 12” MacBook.

I think the new iPad Pro with trackpad is filling this gap.

For weight but not functionality.

Re: New MacBook Air

#319

Post by caycep »

tarasmatsyk wrote: post #257
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…

Ha-ha, reading this from the 2015 MPRO 13", exact same experience. I've tried to move to DELL XPS 13 2 years ago on Linux, did not work for me, however with a new line of Dell's I am starting to thinking about repeating this experiment. Apple's 2016-2019 laptops were pretty unusable, hope they revert the touchbar too.. A question, has anybody tried System76 comparing to Dell/Apple?

I had a 2014. It is a great laptop, no doubt but I recall before several patches I had issues w/ USB 2.0 port connectivity. I had the screen replaced once. So it wasn't without its own set of bugs. Working beautifully now.

My only beef is no NVME and it stutters a tad. If I could find a 2015 w/ 16gb/1 tb spec w/ NVME...

I'm hoping the glitches in the 16" can be worked out, eager to see how the 14.1 will look...

and I know Apple kremlinology is never the most accurate way to look at things, but boy were the Mansfield/Forstall years great...

Re: New MacBook Air

#320

Post by EmoSupportEmu »

coherentpony wrote: post #312
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…

> The Pro is still a much better choice for programmers. I'm not totally sure I agree. I typically do a lot of programming on my MacBook Air. It's simply a box I use to ssh to something else more powerful to do the actual runs. Yes, if you're running computationally intensive stuff on your MacBook Air you're going to be disappointed, but if what you're mostly doing is typing into a terminal screen then it's probably…

That's exactly what he said at the end of his comment.
Post reply on HN