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

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

#481

Post by AnthonyMouse »

exe34 wrote: post #472
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

> Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway. The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could…

> The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand.

It's simple: People without much money have basic needs and want a ~$600 laptop but Apple doesn't sell one.

It doesn't matter if the $1000 Macbook has better battery life than a $1000 Dell because they don't have a $1000 budget.

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

#482

Post by nacs »

qwertox wrote: post #475
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

> And for some reason, so many companies are still shipping laptops with 1080p screens in 2024. I am in the group of people who go for Full HD. It's enough for me, my eyesight is relatively bad. Then again, I use 3 monitors.

You'll like the way Apple does their screens even more then. They're 3-5k screens but they essentially scale up their UI 3X so it still looks like a 1080p except 3x sharper.

They are what Apple calls "Retina" displays.

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

#483

Post by makeitdouble »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

There's a volume zones of people who want "a laptop and nothing more", will pay for better materials and Apple has perfected that segment with a few caveats [0].

To your point, then comes the lower end ("just give me something cheap"), the corporate middle ("the same laptop as at work"), and the super high end (gaming, CAD, anything needing special software or a discrete GPU), with the outliers (linux etc)

IMHO windows laptop nowadays are for people who either don't really care, or have already a very specific target or limitation.

For instance Lenovo or Asus definitely care about pushing laptops' limits and design. A lot. IMHO more than Apple.

[0] resistance to abuse isn't there. A macbook's screen will be dead pretty quick if not handled with appropriate care. A Lenovo Flex for instance will take it a lot longer.

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

#484

Post by lavela »

FredPret wrote: post #428
lavela wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage but aside from that do you really want to argue that Apple doesn't care about the total spending of, say, India just because they make up a smaller percentage of the world's GDP?

> Funny how you say total spending and then argue with a percentage ... so? Total spending is the key factor; Apple gets exposure to 25% of the total human economy by catering to one polity which is also the easiest one to do business in. That's a no-brainer if I've ever heard one. By contrast, India's economy is only 3% of the world total. [0] It's interesting to note that this understates US dominance in luxury pro…

How is this an either-or situation if you could just provide an additional internationalization for 'preferred language english' + 'IP outside of US'?

'less than an inch (11.5mm)' would still be a better specification if you want to have a version where you rather err towards US customers.

I'm not offended by seeing inches, just irritated that you wouldn't cater to the rest of the world.

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

#485

Post by CharlesW »

lynguist wrote: post #477
CharlesW wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the Pro M3 tops out at 24GB of RAM. On the bright side, you can get a Pro M3 MAX with 36GB of RAM for not much more than a loaded Air.

But it’s chunky! I love the Air for its lack of chunk and lack of fans! For me it’s a precision machine that’s pure joy to use; I just want more RAM.

I get it! My MacBook Air M1 is honestly perfect. I'm considering a Studio upgrade only because I find myself working on ridiculously large (24K x 30K) 16 bits-per-channel image files lately.

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

#486

Post by jabradoodle »

chongli wrote: post #404
jm4 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.

I disagree, and I always upgrade the RAM even though I don’t like paying more. Why? Because it puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control. Think of an alternate universe where Apple does the opposite: every new model they push the envelope and double the baseline RAM compared to the previous year. In that world you’d have all the software growing in memory use without bound. Consumers would be forced…

What do you mean by mainline consumer machine? MacBook market share is less than 20%

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

#487

Post by Macha »

Solvency wrote: post #284
briffle wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Asus zenbook 14 is around that price, has a 1TB disk, and 16GB of ram. I'm sure the processor on the M3 is faster, and probably a fair amount more battery out of it, but now I'm comparing a $1000 zenbook to a $1700 13' macbook once I add disk and memory, without the upgraded cpu.

And it feels like a cheap piece of flexible creaky plastic.

But will probably outlive your MBP keyboard.

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

#488

Post by 015a »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #476
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

Okay, without googling tell me: what is an Apple model number Z15T_5108? > All other details can be configured in the buying flow but there's not much to think about if you just want a simple laptop. You would think so, but unfortunately not. Apple is quite good at upselling and their price gating for screens, ram etc. is very opaque. In other words: whether you want the air with non-sabotaged specs or the pro or the…

> the air with non-sabotaged specs

Anyone who says this has never used an 8/256 Air post-M1, and is complaining about them hypothetically. They're fine. They're fantastic computers.

You can upgrade to 16/512, which puts the machine at $1500. This is $200 cheaper than a Dell XPS 14 16/512. "But the Dell has dedicated graphics" no it doesn't. "But, well, the Dell has a higher resolution display" no, its actually 1080p, the Air is higher resolution. "But, but, the dell, its, uh, no wait never mind don't buy Dell, buy a (insert some other brand)" the thing a lot of people really don't want to accept about Macs, right now, is that they're actually so extremely obviously the best computer money can buy that its irresponsible to buy anything else at $1000 and above (unless you're gaming or doing AI, but get a desktop at that point).

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

#489

Post by sva_ »

Longhanks wrote: post #424
makeitdouble wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple continues to simplify the laptop naming scheme, we're at a point where it's simply: > Air OR Pro > Small screen OR big screen The weird part of that argument to me: to arrive to that point you've already made a ton of choices that need to be educated. You decided on the form factor: you don't want a convertible (neither a Surface like tablet + keyboard, nor something like a Yoga). You decided to forgo touch.…

In my experience, most people looking for "just a notebook" don't care about any of those things. They want a low maintenance, high performant (for day-to-day tasks, not gaming) portable computer with a great battery that runs Chrome, Office and Spotify, and comes with great customer service - nothing comes close to being able to bring your Mac to the next Apple Store.

> nothing comes close to being able to bring your Mac to the next Apple Store.

Ah really? Ever heard of worldwide on-site next day repair warranty?

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

#490

Post by jshier »

threeseed wrote: post #433
izacus wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, you're overexaggerating a bit. If you follow your pattern with Apple, you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing. (And with more and more Electron apps, might struggle even with that once you hop onto a video call.)

Video transcoding is done on the GPU and has nothing to do with memory/storage. And there isn't a trend towards more Electron apps. Increasingly developers are using Tauri which is Rust based and extremely lightweight.

Is there a single popular Tauri app? What are the most popular?
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