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A look at power on the new M1 Max

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Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#51
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another data point. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories/zg... #1, #2, and #5 are MacBook Airs. The only Windows PC in the top 50 is #39, and has 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD. Although I really don't think that power users would always be better served with a 16GB RAM Walmart marketplace specials. RAM and storage space are important data points, but the types of machines made specifically for ba…

And a Chromebook at #25 priced at $179. And that is at current MacBook Air price. There is no reason why a Macbook Air cant be $799, the same price as iPad Pro from a BOM cost prospective with same margin other than market positioning and segmentation. And most consumer dont actually care about spec. They want a computer that works. ( Actually most dont want one, they just have to buy one for different sort of reason…

There isn't a strong justification for pricing it so aggressively when this would drastically decrease their margin. They would be selling their profit to increase market share which is exactly the opposite of their usual strategy especially when demand is high and fab capacity at a premium. They might well be just trading in a higher profit for a lessor if they couldn't make more units than people would already buy at the higher price.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#52
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see Qualcomm to be a better competitor to Apple. They already have experience building custom cores and NUVIA acquisition should help with performance. x86(Even Ryzen) is hardly as power efficient as ARM.

Is the efficiency really that depend on the architecture (x86 vs arm64)? I always thought Apples lead comes from things like the little big approach and the lower transistor size. Can someone elaborate?

Yes it does, ARM provides great performance even at very low power consumption but x86 can't. That's the reason x86 failed for mobile devices.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#53
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realistically I don't want to spend 2k on a laptop, it can ultimately be stolen , destroyed, might not last too long , etc. Aren't most of those things the reason why insurance exists?

Most laptop insurance policies don't cover theft. Likewise with car insurance. You might have better luck with your renters or home owners policy although if you are getting actual cash value with is pretty common you will be getting a value that may be substantially less than you paid for it. Buyer beware. Most loss via theft is the result of user error. Setting something down or leaving it unattended where its liab…

My laptop is just covered through my home owners policy. I think the age deduction is 25% per year of ownership, so if I put down 2000€ in a laptop and it gets stolen after two years, I should be getting 1125€ minus 150€ deductible for it. It is definitely less than what I paid for it, but a) the laptop was no longer worth 2000€ b) it definitely helps when getting a replacement c) since it's part of my home owners insurance, it doesn't cost me any extra per month.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#54
post #11

Honestly I find the potential for fanless “good enough” almost more exciting than the top end. For most of my use cases computers these days are already “good enough” and apple pushing the bounds suggest to me that soon we’ll have chrome book class (and price) devices that don’t suck

To be honest I’d buy a hypothetical fanless “MacBook Air Plus” with a modest M2 if only it supported 64 GB RAM. M1 is already significantly better than my 2019 16” MBP, and I’d much prefer the MBA’s thermals.

>To be honest I’d buy a hypothetical fanless “MacBook Air Plus” with a modest M2 if only it supported 64 GB RAM.

Went this route with my home server. Pn50 in akasa A50 case...8 core zen2, 64gb, passive cooling, 3TB storage fits under couch.

Can't quite compete with the guys running full rack home servers but in terms of self hosting it can do pretty much everything I need (big gotcha is not RAID friendly)

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#55
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realistically I don't want to spend 2k on a laptop, it can ultimately be stolen , destroyed, might not last too long , etc. Aren't most of those things the reason why insurance exists?

Most laptop insurance policies don't cover theft. Likewise with car insurance. You might have better luck with your renters or home owners policy although if you are getting actual cash value with is pretty common you will be getting a value that may be substantially less than you paid for it. Buyer beware. Most loss via theft is the result of user error. Setting something down or leaving it unattended where its liab…

Sounds like someone needs to make a faraday bag for laptops just like they have for cell phones. I'm sure china has pumped it out by the time you are done reading this comment.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#56
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure. Not MacBook Pro, but MacBook Air. The MacBook Air starts at $999. And if anyone has been paying a little more attention one may discover MBA discount is unusually high compared to previous Intel MBA. Education MBA M1 are going at $899 and in some cases $799. The lowest retail discount on MBA goes down to…

94% of people aren't current college enrollees and aren't paying educational prices they are paying the prices listed at store.apple.com. Looking at store.apple.com the 999 model is a dog nobody should buy because its forever locked in at 8GB of non replacable RAM and it comes with an anemic 256GB of storage. The minimum configuration anyone ought to buy in 2021 comes in at $1400 for 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage…

I have two M1 Airs. The 8GB/256GB is not a dog - far from it. It’s used for ‘family’ stuff. It’s never given the slightest indication of struggling with anything it’s been asked to do.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#57
post #2

No matter whether you're a fan of ARM, amd64, or something else, this helps everyone. The leaps that Intel, AMD and NVIDIA will have to take to even just stay in the same range as Apple will help everyone. Competition is good!

I wonder, is it actually competition? Apple will never sell any of their Chips to OEM partners so they will have to make do with whatever AMD, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, etc. sell. Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure.

That kind of technology will leak through the whole industry.

Either by hiring those very sought out CPU engineers, sharing processes and components, etc.

Even if you cannot order OEM Apple Silicon chips it doesn't mean it won't directly change the whole industry. There is a significant percentage of people who are in the market for good laptops and that's enough market for companies like Intel to imitate Apple and strive to achieve their impressive benchmarks.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another data point. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories/zg... #1, #2, and #5 are MacBook Airs. The only Windows PC in the top 50 is #39, and has 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD. Although I really don't think that power users would always be better served with a 16GB RAM Walmart marketplace specials. RAM and storage space are important data points, but the types of machines made specifically for ba…

This is a good data point for a short term sales trends regarding a new device that is a big upgrade for apple's existing market share. It does not in any fashion show that short term sales suggest that people who who used to buy 200-600 average PCs are now spending 1000 on macbooks. Macs biggest opportunity rests in flipping people who buy machines in the same price range from PC to Mac. It puts substantial pressure…

The Air is a year old model. But yes, it only competes with premium PCs.

But, premium PCs aren’t useless if they only have 8GB RAM and 256GB SSDs, though. There are people who enjoy premium computers who have basic resource needs. Not all of them are developers or video editors.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#59
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder, is it actually competition? Apple will never sell any of their Chips to OEM partners so they will have to make do with whatever AMD, Intel, nVidia, Qualcomm, etc. sell. Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure.

>Will it actually lead to more people choosing a MacBook than any other Laptop? With these prices I‘m not so sure. Not MacBook Pro, but MacBook Air. The MacBook Air starts at $999. And if anyone has been paying a little more attention one may discover MBA discount is unusually high compared to previous Intel MBA. Education MBA M1 are going at $899 and in some cases $799. The lowest retail discount on MBA goes down to…

That’s simply not true.

MacBook air goes +$200 when you go 16GB from 8GB. And more when you move to 512GB disk from 256GB. These two are bare minimums for a laptop bought today I would say.

So just because Apple shows $1000 for MacBook Air start price that’s underpowered even for today doesn’t make it a good purchase.

And make no mistake - the 16GB (assuming you upgraded, of course right when you purchased) soon will start being less before long. Apple won’t let you do anything about it, except of course allowing you to buy the next MacBook Air.

Re: A look at power on the new M1 Max

#60
post #13

I'm loving my M1 Mac mini. I use it mostly for recording and it's very nice for that. I still have my big desktop, but if I was to start again I'd go Windows Laptop+ Mac Mini. Realistically I don't want to spend 2k on a laptop, it can ultimately be stolen , destroyed, might not last too long , etc. But with a Mac Mini you buy into the Apple ecosystem at a fairly low price.

My office is paying for a monitor upto $400. If only I could make a Mac Mini work with an iPad (they’re also paying for a tablet; but not for a PC) without any hacks and extra hardware I would get Mac Mini and iPad so that when I go for my next 3-4 week workation I can just pack MacMini along with the iPad which I would have taken anyway. MacBook Pro and Air are too costly right now imo.
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