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

The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

bou.ke

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 348 posts

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#121

Post by DennisAleynikov »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #95
DennisAleynikov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is what people meant prior to the m1 coming out with "macs are a horrible deal" they used to be priced at roughly 3x markup compared to the market. they finally fixed their co-dependency with intel and suddenly wow the price gouging goes out the door because gasp the macbook air could have always been the pro it was just never possible with using old chips. ANYTHING using arm absolutely FLIES open your eyes peop…

yeah and then those are poor devs like me whose work notebook is a U series intel on an enterprise HP/DELL body which probably cost $800.

some older intel chips are good and faithful (apple wasnt the ones passing the savings on to you like HP) they prefered to both give you outdated intel chips but also ask you $3500 for the honor

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#122

Post by stevefan1999 »

artiszt wrote: post #75
stevefan1999 wrote: post #11

...and is probably one of the least libre* computer I've seen in the 21th century, too. Before that, Linux can't run on MacBooks, and after a few years of development it's just barely working, now this thing. This is never going to be Desktop Linux compatible. Even Linus claimed he would like to but the effort is tremendous. >>> I'd absolutely love to have one, if it just ran Linux.. I have fairly fond memories of th…

good to know that one really does own Windows 10 [crippled] machines

I do. I have a Yoga 530. While the motherboard is highly integrated I can at least replace my own RAM, my own NVME drive and my own OS. You can't do all these with a MacBook.

You can argue that the NVME drive is somewhat able to upgrade, but even that there will be some cautions ahead.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#123

Post by reocha »

chubot wrote: post #96

Prediction: The M1 will make the web slower for most people. Web devs will buy the M1 because it executes their slow dev tools faster (npm ecosystem). Then they will test their web pages on the M1 and deploy them when they are "fast enough". Result: web pages will be even slower on mobile phones and non-M1 laptops. Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container - Nathan Myhrvold

Web devs do test against other hardware. They have to, google ranks webpages (partially) based on their performance.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#124

Post by mhh__ »

rhexs wrote: post #91

Is parallels running the ARM windows preview emulating 64 bit X86 fast enough for anything practical? Can I play ten year old games?

> Can I play ten year old games?

Based on peak performance at least I would assume yes.

Honestly I'd be a little bit worried if you couldn't considering just how expensive they are.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#125

Post by webmobdev »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #36
webmobdev wrote: post #28

Yeah, right - if you choose to ignore the following: You can't upgrade the RAM, you can't upgrade the SSD, it doesn't have replaceable battery and you are forced to run a crippled OS on it (macOS Big Sur deliberately cripples VPN and firewall on it so that select Apple softwares can bypass them, allowing Apple better access and control over your data and softwares). (And if you don't care about any of the above, then…

cripples vpn? that is not a small thing.

It cripples some VPN apps. And some VPN softwares that used their own kernel extensions. More here - https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#126

Post by cehrlich »

Jonnax wrote: post #81

There's a lot of love for the M1 Macs. Medium send me emails of recommended articles and always at least one is a blog about how good it is. What are the issues people have been experiencing? No laptop is perfect.

The laptops only support 1 external monitor unless you do some hacky stuff, they only have two ports, and still have mediocre webcams, and you’re forced to use Big Sur which still needs a bit of work. Also while the vast majority of software runs great on the M1, there are a few very niche things that still don’t.

But I wouldn’t call these “issues”, as anyone who reads the spec sheet can know them before purchase.

That’s it, really. These computers are astonishingly good.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#127

Post by eyelidlessness »

mhh__ wrote: post #82
czhiddy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP: "In-N-Out is my favorite fast food restaurant." You: "No, you're wrong."

Even if the intended meaning is that it does (in the title) say "best" not favourite, which is ultimately, if not exactly, a reasonably quantitative question.

I’m pretty sure normally when people express “____ is the best _____ I’ve ever owned”, they’re implicitly saying it’s the best “for my needs and preferences”. Absent brain trauma or serious delusion, I would assume the person speaking is better able to quantify that than any outside observer.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#128

Post by bouk »

z92 wrote: post #103

This post says how unpredictable it is. Come on, you can run a linux distribution on a non-apple hardware and not even worry if any of those software will run on it. Plus any of the 40 other top TIOBE tools.

I've used a Linux laptop before and it was always so painful to get basic things working, like it being able to suspend when you close the lid. Packaging is usually better, if you don't want any nice GUI programs (like iaWriter) or games

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#129

Post by DennisAleynikov »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #105
DennisAleynikov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is what people meant prior to the m1 coming out with "macs are a horrible deal" they used to be priced at roughly 3x markup compared to the market. they finally fixed their co-dependency with intel and suddenly wow the price gouging goes out the door because gasp the macbook air could have always been the pro it was just never possible with using old chips. ANYTHING using arm absolutely FLIES open your eyes peop…

I have tried arm computers such as raspberry pi and they are slow. The linux arm projects seem to target just the cheapest price, m1 seems more like bang for buck. I hope linux hardware develops towards that.

raspberry pi's werent even 64bit until the latest revision and are meant to be dirt cheap the arm chromebooks like the lenovo duet absolutely murder the iPad pro or even the new iPad Air in terms of actually being a useful OS for devs
Post reply on HN