More RAM would be nice.
Maybe, but the RAM and disk performance is so good [1] that it might not be needed so badly. Unless you want to run a whole bunch of VMs
https://mobile.twitter.com/Sirupsen/status/13442670199449477...
The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
141–150 of 348 posts
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
people don't remember good also people have been absolutely IGNORING the massive speed gains and battery life of say an ARM chromebook or surface pro X apparently only apple does good when they modify the ISA for x64 memory instructions to not have to be emulated so they can pretend rosetta is miles ahead of other virtualization when its hw based...
apparently only apple does good when they modify the ISA for x64 memory instructions to not have to be emulated so they can pretend rosetta is miles ahead of other virtualization when its hw based... Those sneaky bastards – making their products perform better by introducing new features*! Whatever next?
"new features" ah yes I love hw tweaks for benchmark juicers mmmmmmmm shows me so much about what matters in the real world
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#143In my experience, the latest computer I buy is always "the best computer I've ever owned". They get better every year, why is this still surprising?
You must be new to Macs. I'm still on the MBP 2015 and it's "the best computer I've ever owned". Everything since then has technically upgraded parts, but the regressions (touchbar, butterfly keyboard mishaps, etc.) are not worth the upgrade. That's why this is surprising.
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Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#144Yeah, 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…
I'd rather have more closely integrated hardware for a laptop. It's more efficient and leads to a smaller, more powerful device. I have a powerful desktop that I pay for incremental upgrades and it works great. I'm not in the Apple ecosystem, but have been before, and either way my goal is to have high quality ultrabook that serves as thin client to desktop/the cloud. Everyone has a different workflow that works for…
Spot on. With desktops "loose fitting" software isn't as much of an issue, because there one has an appreciable margin in computing muscle and no concern for things like power efficiency, but with laptops lack of integration degrades the resulting product quite a lot. Software alone can be what makes a laptop good or bad.
For someone seeking "the best of both worlds" in terms of integration, power efficiency, and upgradability/overall flexibility, that can sometimes be found in 2-3 generation old (where all of the hardware is solidly supported) high-end business laptops running some flavor of Linux, but knowing which models of laptop are the "good ones" as well as setting up Linux to run optimally on them takes a level of involvement and energy that not everybody is up for.
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#145Prediction: 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
Correction: bad devs make the web slower
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#146Regardless of what computer that is, having what you think it is the best computer you ever had is such a great sensation, at least for me that I spend at lease 9 hours a day in front of it.
In my case it's a Dell XPS, but it doesn't matter.
Treasure this sensation, it won't last forever :)
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#147Is parallels running the ARM windows preview emulating 64 bit X86 fast enough for anything practical? Can I play ten year old games?
Yes it is fast enough. People are playing GTA V and many other games at completely acceptable performance.
Here's a bunch of reports people made for games: https://applesilicongames.com/
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#148In my experience, the latest computer I buy is always "the best computer I've ever owned". They get better every year, why is this still surprising?
Not always. I'm somewhat disappointed with my 2020 16" MBP that I bought after owning a 2015 MBP for 5 years. This one is faster for sure, but also noisier, gets hot often for no good reason (even with the lid closed for the whole day!), takes 7-8 seconds to wake my Eizo monitor, while the previous one would take only a second to do the same. To be honest and quite unexpectedly the 16" MBP is not the best Mac I ever…
Strange, I did exactly the same switch recently and consider the 16" MBP a significant upgrade from my old machine. It even stays completely silent most of the day while the old one would constantly spin the fans.
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
The latest computer is usually not "the best you've ever owned" when you "downgrade" from last-year top-shelf to entry-level.
This isn't going to be as common. Either way it's not surprising.
Why is it not surprising when it has never been true before now?
Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned
#150tldr; I got a Macbook Pro M1 for $975 in mint-condition at a Best Buy and already put the return label on it. While Geekbench showed great results, actual usage of the machine and headaches ensued were contrasting. To put it bluntly - M1 machines are currently unstable. There are numerous Bluetooth issues [1], formatting issues [2], Wifi 6 issues [3], VPN issues [4], firewall issues [5], and shocking security issues…
I have a MacBook Air 2020 (Intel).
After upgrading to Big Sur, I have experiences a general degradation of performance, graphical glitches and serious Bluetooth problems (failing to connect to Apple mouse and keyboard).
The fundamental problem seems to be that with proprietary consumer hardware/software- only the initial version is reviewed and after that the vendor can push software full of bugs with no consequences.