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New MacBook Air with M2

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Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of it as a “pronoun.” It makes it into a “person,” or some kind of major deal, like we call localities (usually) by their single pronouns. Sometimes, “The” becomes part of the pronoun, like “ The Netherlands,” or “ The Bronx.” Usually, though, we assign pronouns (I’m not an English major, though, so the proper term may be different). Like, you can’t have “a brooklyn,” or “an amsterdam.” They want to make it s…

>Like, you can't have "a brooklyn" Every Brooklyn outside of the one in NYC is just "a Brooklyn" and not "THE Brookyln"

Fair point.

Then you also have Brookline, in Bastin.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#532

However the cat (inflation) got the laptop, in Europe it's now 1500€ instead of the 1050€ previous gen with same specs. I think it's unjustifiable for a normal consumer.

The UK pricing is £1,249, up from £999, so 24% extra for the better CPU, webcam & display[0]. A bit disappointed to see them sticking with 256GB SSD as the base, feel like 512GB should really be the standard nowadays. [0] https://www.apple.com/uk/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-...

Better webcam? With every model they claim the webcam is better, but once I start Photo Booth I am thoroughly disappointed. In recent years webcam quality has even gone down -- the webcam in the M1 Macbook Air and the M1 Max Macbook Pro from 2020 and 2021 is worse than the webcam from the 2015 Macbook Pro!

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For M1 owners, just wait for M3. It should be on TSMC 3nm which will be the next true node shrinkage.

Please post more of this. I need an angel on my shoulder whispering. I have a 16" with the Max chip, and yet . . .

I mean to be honest if you have a 16' M1 Max, there is no reason to upgrade for the next 2-3 years..

The performance improvements will be marginal at best and in any case, what good is a machine if you can't keep it more than a year?

I just ordered my 16' Max and am not willing to upgrade for a while.. it's not even worth the wait for the M2 Max pros, since it will be basically the same specs and you'll have to wait more than a moth to get it anyway so why delay further?

If you have cash to burn however, then I guess it doesn't matter..

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#534
post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still stuck on a 2019 MBP from work. What garbage hardware. Up for a refresh in December.

Just to put things into perspective, the 2019 MBP might be worse than M1 Macs, but it's still way better than anything I've seen in the PC world (which is why Macs have been able to coast through bad decisions regarding keyboard, ports, and touchbar for so many years). That said, I'm very excited for these new ARM devices.

> it's still way better than anything I've seen in the PC world

Man, if the 2019 16" Macbook is better than anything in the PC world, I feel like you don't try many laptops. That 16" laptop is one of the most comically terrible laptops I've ever seen. Nevermind the Touch Bar, the performance envelope on these devices is way off (and probably boils down to the terrible chassis design and logic board layout). I have a friend with the i7 model, and it would regularly hit 90c on completely benign workloads like watching YouTube or browsing through her calendar. The battery life is distinctly worse than most laptops I've seen at that size too, which really left me scratching my head over these machines. Even the 2019 13" model wasn't that bad.

With all fairness though, I've never owned one or driven it full-time. I just remember balking at how poorly thought-out the hardware was at the time, and feeling pretty good about my choice to abandon Macbooks altogether.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#535
post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that last part prescient? That's a year after Euromaidan. Ever since then, 2014, critics have always lambasted any US/EU in support of the Ukrainian people. Why? Because geopolitically Ukraine was meant to be another Belarus, a patsy state, for Russia and its allies. That statement is the opposite of prescient, in that we now see the mask off and the devil that patsy Ukrainian governments were actually making…

Ukraine is a patsy regardless of who dominates that region, as allying with US has led to the complete destruction of their country. They picked the wrong horse to follow. If they stuck with Russia, they wouldn't be in this situation (would US have invaded?). It's prescient because it hints as US long term interest in keeping Europe and Russia apart (in recent times seen most clearly with meddling with Nord Stream 2…

> allying with US

and Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Slovakia, Georgia, and everyone else who understands what a bloody nightmare Russia has been the last 100 years. Ask any closest neighbor: Pole, Slovak, or Georgian 10 years ago how much they trust anything Russia says.

> They picked the wrong horse to follow. If they stuck with Russia, they wouldn't be in this situation (would US have invaded?).

Seriously? They picked the wrong ally because the other would invade and murder them? Should France have allied with Germany against UK in WW2 instead too? We already know US won't invade with the script flipped; Belarus exists.

> seen most clearly with meddling with Nord Stream 2 pipeline agreement

Are you living under a rock? Every civilized country now unanimously realizes how stupid trying to Nord Stream 2 with Russia was, including Germany.

I am so sick and tired of the goalposts being moved for Russian apologetics. Invasion of Georgia, Donbas, and now full scale invasion of Ukraine. I thought, surely, surely if Russia invades all of Ukraine, there's no possible way some fool can try to make these arguments anymore.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM--under very light use it was great, but under anything a little more taxing (a good number of tabs, having Discord open, a relatively "light" creative app like Logic or Fusion 360) it would very rapidly not just get bad, but get stop-the-world awful. (edit: and as a sibling poster notes, plugging it into an external monitor made things a lot worse!) I don't know if MacOS's low-RAM…

Fusion is anything but light, and still not optimized for M1 (still a Rosetta app). Even on a beefy Workstation, it’s no fun. Logic is better but not exactly light if you have multiple track, AU plug-in… So that’s not surprising - heck, with 16gb or ram it’s not a walk in the park. I’ve discussed with owner a Mac studio, and they were not happy for Fusion either, that’s with 64gb of ram so…

In my experience, Fusion and Logic both quite well on M1s with 16GB of RAM, no other changes. One variable makes a ton of difference.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#537
post #436

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How so?

There's a lot that goes into this and it's not Apples (heh) to Oranges. a normal Intel machine has some kind of southbridge, this means a traditional CPU that has 16 PCIe lanes total (this is actually the standard for intel) can have more than just 16x lanes, usually a PCH can add another 20 with an internal PCI switch. Great in theory, but it does mean you can be constrained in bandwidth since that switch is limited…

Displays do not connect over PCIe; GPUs do.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#538
post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is a patsy regardless of who dominates that region, as allying with US has led to the complete destruction of their country. They picked the wrong horse to follow. If they stuck with Russia, they wouldn't be in this situation (would US have invaded?). It's prescient because it hints as US long term interest in keeping Europe and Russia apart (in recent times seen most clearly with meddling with Nord Stream 2…

> allying with US and Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, France, UK, Spain, Slovakia, Georgia, and everyone else who understands what a bloody nightmare Russia has been the last 100 years. Ask any closest neighbor: Pole, Slovak, or Georgian 10 years ago how much they trust anything Russia says. > They picked the wrong horse to follow. If they stuck with Russia, they wouldn't be in this situation (would US h…

>how stupid trying to Nord Stream 2

No. In fact, soon they will see how stupid cancelling it was and reopen it willingly.

Look around at all the industrial heads telling you their production will collapse soon without oil and gas imports. This was self inflicted from sanctions and confiscating Russian reserves.

>because the other would invade and murder them

Russia is incapable of invading the rest of Europe. They don't have enough troops or power to do this. And they don't have any national interest in pursuing this. Invading half of Ukraine is difficult enough. Encroachment of NATO forces and weapons along a strategic position on Russia's border (they said for years Ukraine was existential and could never align with NATO) was a terrible decision that Europe went along with while it was only in US's interest to cause chaos and threaten Russia's security interest that way.

Now all of Europe pays the price.

This is real politik. No I do not think it was in Germany's interest to destroy their own domestic economy by backing US's NATO schemes.

It is in Germany and rest of Europe's interest to have good relations with Russia and stop NATO expansion on their border. To have a cheap plentiful energy supply right nearby not import expensive gas from far away.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s basically the exact same pricing as the US. $1 ≈ €1 today and $1200 * 1.25 for VAT equals $1500.

The previous M1 base model was (still is) 899€ I believe?

I think you can get it a lot cheaper at a lot of retailers now

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#540
post #501

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> These are not ram sticks, these are difference in the M2 chip itself. TSMC fabs don't make DRAM. Apple buys DRAM chips from the same handful of manufacturers that everyone else sources DRAM from.

I don't know much about this topic, but I have read that the RAM in M1/M2 machines is part of the Mx chip itself. Unless I misunderstand, I don't believe it's any kind of separate component - stick or otherwise.

This is incorrect, just looking at the M2 promotional materials the DRAM is quite clearly a separate component[1]. The DRAM modules are combined with the M2 in a single package though, maybe that's what you're thinking of?

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-unveils-m2-with...

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