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The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

pcworld.com

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Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#11

Post by analog31 »

generalpass wrote: post #4
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

I wonder how much money non-upgradable RAM actually saves.

I wonder if it's mainly an issue of finding empty space for it.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#12

Post by bArray »

generalpass wrote: post #4
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

I wonder how much money non-upgradable RAM actually saves.

Not much. Probably less to do with saving money and more about locking you into a specific amount of RAM. That way you spend the extra schmeckles in the first place rather than upgrading the machine yourself 2 years down the line.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#13

Post by Someone1234 »

generalpass wrote: post #4
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

I wonder how much money non-upgradable RAM actually saves.

It is also space. Non-upgradable ram can be put on when the circuit board is assembled, by robot. Upgradable ram has the socket installed in the same process, but then needs the ram put into the socket by low cost workers.

But as I said, space is likely the biggest reason.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#14

Post by mh- »

analog31 wrote: post #8
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

This is totally an aside, and probably shows how out of touch I am, but there must be developers who need 8+ GB, and others who don't. I was always under the impression that things like editors and compilers didn't need a lot of computing performance. So I'm curious what kinds of development demand more performance. Is it a hard wall that you hit, or more of just a progressive degradation of performance?

The kind that requires you to collaborate on Slack.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#15

Post by mxz3000 »

analog31 wrote: post #8
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

This is totally an aside, and probably shows how out of touch I am, but there must be developers who need 8+ GB, and others who don't. I was always under the impression that things like editors and compilers didn't need a lot of computing performance. So I'm curious what kinds of development demand more performance. Is it a hard wall that you hit, or more of just a progressive degradation of performance?

I routinely go over 10GB of ram with a bunch of chrome tabs, IDE windows, Spotify, chat app, outlook, etc... It's really not hard.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#16

Post by vikramkr »

The macbook pro is not competing with the Acer swift. A lot fo people buy for the OS, which Acer doesn't have, and the brand/build quality, which acer doesnt have. For a lot of people, the benchmarks might be among the last thing they care about. The laptops the acer swift 3 should terrify are other 700 dollar windows laptops without the ryzen and as well as any highly premium windows laptops with customers that pay for benchmarks, where eyes might start to wander if, say, the next XPS can't beat a 650 buck acer on benchmarks.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#17

Post by patd »

djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

I've purchased an Acer Swift 3 (the Intel version) with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3:2 screen (which I prefer) but it was 1000€, not $650.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#18

Post by OJFord »

mh- wrote: post #14
analog31 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally an aside, and probably shows how out of touch I am, but there must be developers who need 8+ GB, and others who don't. I was always under the impression that things like editors and compilers didn't need a lot of computing performance. So I'm curious what kinds of development demand more performance. Is it a hard wall that you hit, or more of just a progressive degradation of performance?

The kind that requires you to collaborate on Slack.

I certainly won't defend Slack's RAM usage, but assuming only people doing certain sorts of work use it - or rather work at a company that uses it - is just ill-informed.

Re: The $1,799 MacBook Pro 13 vs. the $650 Acer Swift 3

#19

Post by nrp »

generalpass wrote: post #4
djsumdog wrote: post #3

The Acer Swift is limited to only 8GB of (non-upgrade) ram, which is a deal breaker for most developers. I also wonder about that Wi-Fi 6 chip and its Linux support. If it wasn't for those factors, I'd probably get one.

I wonder how much money non-upgradable RAM actually saves.

In this instance, both laptops use LPDDR4x, which doesn’t exist in stick form. DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets are a challenge to fit though, so most OEMs take the easy path and go with soldered RAM there anyway.
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