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Ode to the M1

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Re: Ode to the M1

#221

Post by tomaskafka »

zer0zzz wrote: post #92

I recently bought a M1 Air for $750 (25% less than regular retail) from amazon as a vacation laptop. I was expecting it to have quite a bit of performance limitation but the machine is actually fantastic. I think it may be one of the best values in a computer I have experienced in quite a while. This thing is so accessible in its affordability and performance that I think I am kinda over obsessing over if an applicat…

It has a price/power ratio off the charts, mainly because Apple wanted to show off what Apple Silicon can do while having to stay at $999 for Air. I love mine.

Re: Ode to the M1

#222

Post by anonyfox »

matsemann wrote: post #45
anonyfox wrote: post #38

Still running a M1 Air 13“, now into my third job since, and refusing to bother with company provided computers. Still feeling as great as 3 years ago… will only upgrade if the next gen is substantially better (read: not just %faster somewhere). Can comfortably develop on my lap for a full day if needed, only MS Teams draws power like crazy, but apart from that 8 hours+. Best computer I ever had I think.

I'm a bit confused by the "still". How often would you expect to upgrade hardware? Keeping a computer for three years is completely normal for most people.

Lower-end consumer laptops (think: Acer, Asus, ...) tend to fall apart after a year, this is what I was starting out with in university being rather poor.

Now its more like: the current device has zero issues, but the newer available models look increasingly tempting for my inner child to play with.

Also I owe my career, salary and life situation basically to open source (so I donate regularly) and ... apple computers that work flawlessly in many situations other laptops would be dead already or require me to tinker with stuff instead of doing billable things.

Re: Ode to the M1

#223

Post by anonyfox »

rejectfinite wrote: post #114
anonyfox wrote: post #38

Still running a M1 Air 13“, now into my third job since, and refusing to bother with company provided computers. Still feeling as great as 3 years ago… will only upgrade if the next gen is substantially better (read: not just %faster somewhere). Can comfortably develop on my lap for a full day if needed, only MS Teams draws power like crazy, but apart from that 8 hours+. Best computer I ever had I think.

>and refusing to bother with company provided computers To you and people that do this: Do you enroll your personal PC in the companies MDM like intune or Jamf? Do you install their endpoint protection/antivirus/EDR/MDR? or you just leave it unmanaged?

Working at companies without strict audits, and previously at bigger corps that had audits we established parallel networks for developers. Either way, BYOD was possible after all.

Also I insist on not having security based on VPN/VPC only, but treat every service as if (and often has) direct internet connections, so devs are _forced_ to think about security from day 1.

Re: Ode to the M1

#224

Post by anonyfox »

memefrog wrote: post #156
Dalewyn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that people in their 30s and older today either grew up or lived their working years during a time when upgrading computers every year or two was the norm.

That hasn't been necessary for 15 years.

I still remember the joy of buying additional/bigger RAM sticks for my PC and then being able to do more demanding stuff much better :-)

Re: Ode to the M1

#225

Post by anonyfox »

ThrowAway1922A wrote: post #49
anonyfox wrote: post #38

Still running a M1 Air 13“, now into my third job since, and refusing to bother with company provided computers. Still feeling as great as 3 years ago… will only upgrade if the next gen is substantially better (read: not just %faster somewhere). Can comfortably develop on my lap for a full day if needed, only MS Teams draws power like crazy, but apart from that 8 hours+. Best computer I ever had I think.

What do you mean still? They’re only a few years old at this point. It shouldn’t be impressive that a basically new computer still does everything that one would want to do.

More like: if I would lose it today, I would be the same thing again, maybe next gen M2/3, but everything basically identical to this one. There is no single other device out there I'd prefer to buy instead. Nothing shiny to chase thats better somehow...

Re: Ode to the M1

#226

Post by ThrowAway1922A »

Dalewyn wrote: post #72
ThrowAway1922A wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean still? They’re only a few years old at this point. It shouldn’t be impressive that a basically new computer still does everything that one would want to do.

Keep in mind that people in their 30s and older today either grew up or lived their working years during a time when upgrading computers every year or two was the norm.

I remember those days, but that hasn't been the case since intel released the Core 2 line.

Re: Ode to the M1

#227

Post by anonyfox »

bombcar wrote: post #197
tim333 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also am M1 user. I remember back in my Windows days the things would slow dramatically over a couple of years mainly due to software bloat.

That seems to have gotten better but I don’t know if it’s because I’m smarter on what I install, or if windows is better. The problem I have is Microsoft keeps shoving windows 11 down my throat; that damn start menu needs to remain where it was in 1995!

windows 2000 was peak windows for me. only got worse afterwards one way or another... but hot take: windows 8 "metro" was kinda awesome refreshing though most people hated it :-)

Re: Ode to the M1

#228

Post by zamadatix »

dmz73 wrote: post #99
anonyfox wrote: post #38

Still running a M1 Air 13“, now into my third job since, and refusing to bother with company provided computers. Still feeling as great as 3 years ago… will only upgrade if the next gen is substantially better (read: not just %faster somewhere). Can comfortably develop on my lap for a full day if needed, only MS Teams draws power like crazy, but apart from that 8 hours+. Best computer I ever had I think.

The main problem with devices like Apple's Mx series laptops is that everything works fine...until it doesn't. This device is non-repairable and non-upgradeable as far as CPU, RAM and disk are concerned. Now people may claim that Apple hardware is superior to other manufacturers and that it will last longer. So far I have found that to be false, I have more old non-Apple hardware that is still working fine and few Ap…

I had a laptop with a replaceable CPU. By the time it was worth upgrading it made more sense to buy a new laptop rather than upgrading the CPU. For repairability it's also not really that different unless you're running something like a framework laptop and, even then, replacement mainboards cost about as much as a whole new laptop anyways.

I do wish the M* laptops had something like a CFexpress slot or similar though. The built in storage is blazing fast and power efficient but soldered. Thunderbolt or USB drives are plenty fast enough these days but the external nature of the ports is a bit of a pain. Large amounts of storage are also where the price inflation really is (since you can't just add cheap storage it has to be the blazing high end storage + markup) so this would help the most.

RAM I'd rather have soldered in these days on a laptop. Performance is higher, power usage is lower, and you can order it with enough that you don't need to wait for new modules to be invented to upgrade and have enough RAM 5 years from now. It does mean you can't take any old M1 from ebay and upgrade it, which is definitely a downside, but for a laptop I think the benefits outweigh the cons. One thing I've noticed is there are always people that order them maxed out and move on when the next generation comes so high RAM options are still available used. One thing that is lost is, again, you can't choose to cheap out and get bottom bin speed memory. You have to pay for 8 channel 6400 MHz RAM in your laptop. Not necessarily a problem with the manufacturing method, it's possible to solder cheap RAM, rather just an Appleism. On the other hand... you do always know what you're getting if you buy one, which could be a plus.

Anyways, all of this is to say if you want a budget laptop which minmaxes it's price/performance ratio at a lower cost then the Apple laptops are definitely not the right pick. The reason for this is not as much how they are manufactured rather wher Apple targets the platform. The best price/performance optimization is probably a Chromebook with a monoboard and soldered RAM.

Re: Ode to the M1

#230

Post by jauntywundrkind »

wiseowise wrote: post #162
satvikpendem wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No end consumers I know or even acquaintances of other people I know even know nor care about Electron. You might say that I'm in a bubble but at that point it's just the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Literally all of my acquaintances in previous company complained about Teams being slow and buggy. I also see it constantly being mentioned online.

You can make slow & buggy software anywhere, with any stack. Teams themselves shipped a whole release focused around sucking significantly less & were getting much faster.

Discord has gotten pretty solid, vscode is spit fast. The hate against Electron feels so selective & antagonistic, picks it's targets, never acknowledged any value, never recognizes any points for the other side. It is just incredibly lopsidedly biased. Over what doesn't feel real to so many.

I was hoping Tauri would be the one, by using a shared library model. That would drop memory consumption down significantly. But they use webkit on Linux and I'm sorry but I want a much better base that supports more modern capabilities.

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