New MacBook Air with M2 • Hacker News Board

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#111

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

sgarland wrote: post #97

ysleepy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 16G, them having a 8G offering is customer hostile. They pay like $40 for the difference, while making it a $200 upgrade, same with the SSD. - Especially since the SSD is apparently really slow with the 256G model.

Eh. I bought a base model M1 Air on a whim because they were in stock, and I can count on one hand the times I wished for more RAM. I have a Kubernetes cluster at home I can run things in, which also hosts a Jupyter instance. My next one I'll get 16G simply because those few times (namely, creating Kubernetes labs intended to be ran on Apple Silicon) were annoying to deal with. But for I would wager 90+% of their cus…

[deleted]

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#112

Post by pineconewarrior » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

lycos wrote: post #17

It's very tempting, but my MacBook Air M1 has been great and performance wise any improvement is probably barely noticeable in the day to day that I'd end up feeling like I just bought a new chassis. Which could still be nice.. although most of the time it's in clamshell attached to my monitor. I'll have to sleep on this!

That's a good thing! The fact that the original version is still going strong is a (huge) selling point for Apple.

I am glad to see a class of device meant to last upwards of 5 years.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#113

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

lycos wrote: post #17

It's very tempting, but my MacBook Air M1 has been great and performance wise any improvement is probably barely noticeable in the day to day that I'd end up feeling like I just bought a new chassis. Which could still be nice.. although most of the time it's in clamshell attached to my monitor. I'll have to sleep on this!

One thing that bothers me about my M1 Air is that they still haven't fixed the "stuttering cursor" bug...

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#114

Post by ricardobayes » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

sylens wrote: post #92

Would be the perfect laptop if it could hook up to 2 external monitors instead of just one. For that reason, I have to go for the M2 Pro.

Not meant as a sarcastic question but why not get a mac mini/studio instead?

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#115

Post by pineconewarrior » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

Silica6149 wrote: post #61

lycos wrote: post #17

It's very tempting, but my MacBook Air M1 has been great and performance wise any improvement is probably barely noticeable in the day to day that I'd end up feeling like I just bought a new chassis. Which could still be nice.. although most of the time it's in clamshell attached to my monitor. I'll have to sleep on this!

I'm in the same position with an M1 Pro. Although the new screens do look nice for dark mode...

maybe I will convince my boss to get me the new one, and I will give the m1 pro to my teammates :)

Other than that I agree (though, as I have stated elsewhere, this is good. less landfill). The m1 pro is just insane - I sold all of my other machines.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#116

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #34

iamyatin wrote: post #7

And now the old ones will start getting slower with new Mac updates coming in. This somehow happens. Strange.

Comments like this are so reliable around Apple product releases that we could use them to replace NTP. Over time, machines get slower. New code favors new instructions. But it's not like the machine gets 10% slower the day the new ones start shipping.

[deleted]

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#117

Post by frosted-flakes » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

nojito wrote: post #47

NoraCodes wrote: post #28

Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.

It's to prevent people from pluralizing the product name.

Just like LEGO, which demands that you always capitalize the brand name and never pluralise it, likely so that their trademark doesn't become generic. "I have lots of LEGO bricks", not " I have lots of Legos".

Of course, that's corporate BS and everyone can feel free to use it however they want.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#118

Post by chongli » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

spideymans wrote: post #104

chongli wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference (besides storage and peripherals) is active cooling. MBA's are passive cooled now (since the original M1) whereas MBP's have always had fans. The M1 & M2 chips are so cool that they generally don't need any active cooling most of the time. Where it does make a difference is under heavy sustained compute workloads. The passively-cooled MBA's will start to throttle under these workloads wher…

> I think the main difference (besides storage and peripherals) is active cooling Haha, I read your comment, and my first thought was a dismissive, “who cares about active cooling”. Which really says something about how insanely power efficient these chips are. I’ve had the M1 Air since launch and I’ve yet to observe any thermal throttling under my workloads (I’ve yet to feel the machine even get hot)

Same here. I have never seen any throttling on mine, even when playing games (although admittedly I don't play demanding games). I think the target market for the Pro's active cooling is rendering (3D and video). For programmers I see little reason to get a Pro, unless you're running large C++ or Rust builds.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#119

Post by pineconewarrior » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

ricardobayes wrote: post #114

sylens wrote: post #92

Would be the perfect laptop if it could hook up to 2 external monitors instead of just one. For that reason, I have to go for the M2 Pro.

Not meant as a sarcastic question but why not get a mac mini/studio instead?

Not OP, but I work from home and the office, and also take my machine into meetings occasionally. The portability is nice.

I assume the same for just about anyone in my position.

(I'd have two Studios and an Air if it were a utopia scenario, but... that's expensive!)

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#120

Post by adhesive_wombat » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:34 PM UTC

NoraCodes wrote: post #28

Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.

Ooo yes, it's so stilted and unnatural and transparently done on purpose.

It's nearly as bad as people referring to a baby as just "baby" rather than "the baby" or "your baby".