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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

apple.com

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#241

Post by kjkjadksj »

drooopy wrote: post #197

So, the cheapest configuration with 16 GB of RAM (and still with a measly 256GB of SSD) begins at €1479 (previously incorrectly stated as €1700) in the EU with VAT and that's with the older M2 chip. As for the external display thing, you basically have to "sacrifice" the laptop's screen and built in keyboard and trackpad in order to use a 2nd display. Jesus wept. CORRECTION: The price for 16/256 is at €1479.

You can get open box macs from some retailers a few months after the sku releases for huge savings sometimes almost 20%. I got a mbp for like over $400 off iirc from best buy with three cycles on the battery. At that price it didn’t even make sense to go with apple refurbished.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#242

Post by huuhee3 »

dbbk wrote: post #84
snizovtsev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$999 is for soldered 8GB/256GB crap. Add $400 for 16GB/512GB models.

I can guarantee you that most people buying the $999 laptop have 5 Chrome tabs open and don't store files on their computer. 8GB/256GB is fine.

Most of those people could save 600 dollars and buy an used Thinkpad that works just as well for their uses

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#243

Post by macNchz »

rkangel wrote: post #180
r00fus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it's completely acceptable for hobby usages that don't involve running offline LLMs. If you're doing work, get a Pro.

I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck. Actually I had to have my last work laptop replaced because 8GB wasn't enough for Chrome and a Teams video call! If I tried to screen share a browser tab of Jira everything would start paging.…

I have been a minimum-16GB-of-RAM guy since 2012 or so, but I got a great deal last year on a base model M1 Air that I mostly just use for web/email while traveling, and as a thin client back to my Linux desktop with 64GB of RAM. I've found it surprisingly adequate, even as someone who is not so good about closing browser tabs.

I can certainly get it to start swapping easily enough, so I don't necessarily agree with all of the people I've seen claiming that these machines are revolutionary and 8GB is the new 16GB, but it does seem to manage better than I would have expected.

Apple's pricing on memory and disk upgrades really aggravates me, though, and was a significant factor in deciding to switch to Linux for my primary computer.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#244

Post by [deleted] »

skadamat wrote: post #228
znpy wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's (quite literally) the price you pay in order to stay in the apple ecosystem. More-than-one-display is pretty much the standard on regular (non-apple) computers: you can drive as much as your system can sustain.

Right but in this case the AIR is the consumer model and it supports 2 displays while the base PRO supports 1. So it seems counter!

[deleted]

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#246

Post by Teever »

93po wrote: post #208
Teever wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC they have a fan it just moved air internally and is for all intents and purpose completely silent from the end user's perspective.

I have owned probably 7 laptops over the past 20 years and every single one with a fan turned into a rattling jet engine mess. Do modern laptops not do this anymore? It was at least half the reason I got the Macbook Air

AIUI, because the macbook air's fan is contained inside the machine that has no external ventilation ports that means the fan is mostly moving clean air with no particulate in it that will eventually build up on the fan whihc make it perform poorly.

I imaagine that the lubricant in the fan will still age, but that is also going to be less of an issue because of less dust contamination.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#247

Post by technofiend »

ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

You can, but you're getting a glorified iPad with a keyboard. Bottom-spec systems have 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. What is this, 2012? As usual, making it a machine that's useful for light development or other more demanding tasks rapidly run you into Apple's usurious expansion pricing; what should (IMNSHO) be their bottom-end device with 16GB memory and 1TB of storage is $1,699.

That will be a great little machine to use until it starts throttling. You'll need an MBP to keep consistent peformance.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#248

Post by johnnyanmac »

samatman wrote: post #85
sempron64 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook. Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... lite…

>That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.

Hard to be when other oems need to profit from hardware and pay windows/Intel/Nvidia/etc. For using their parts. But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.

Apple just metaphorically throws out a MacBook at the slightest inconvenience, they don't even bother trying to fix their own devices.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#249

Post by indymike »

ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

> The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me.

It's nuts that the entire rest of the industry basically has own-goaled Apple into a dominant position. Apple's playbook:

1. Model-year build stability over faster go-to-market on new components. 2. Better build quality. 3. Better battery life. 4. Better display, especially in value models.

I'm leaving OS and UI out of the discussion.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#250

Post by indymike »

sempron64 wrote: post #69
ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

At $700, you'll out-spec the mac on RAM and GPU but get a potato grade 1080p display.
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