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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#61

Post by IshKebab »

criddell wrote: post #50
dr_pardee wrote: post #42

> I still don’t like macOS and would prefer to run Linux on this laptop. But Asahi Linux still needs some work before it’s usable for me (I need external display output, and M4 support). This doesn’t bother me too much, though, as I don’t use this computer for serious work. “I don’t use this computer for serious work.” Dropped $3K on MBP to play around with. Definitely should have gotten MBA

If you are going to start making a list of expensive hobbies, $3K for a computer isn't going to be anywhere near the top of the list.

I think it actually would be quite near the top, in terms of ranking. Most hobbies are a lot cheaper.

Of course, not near the top in terms of money because there are a few hobbies that cost vastly more.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#62

Post by dmitrygr »

seemaze wrote: post #58
LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

Do you prefer glossy paper work? glossy book pages? glossy construction documents? The preference for a non-reflective surface for the relaying of dense information has been established for decades. You know what's glossy? Movie posters and postcards.

non-reflective surfaces you cite have pigments on TOP. screens have depth causing parallax and light spreading. Your point would be valid if screens were paper-thin and image pixels came out the very surface

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#63

Post by dbbk »

lapcat wrote: post #55
rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later. If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it. To be clear, I've been…

The "matte" options also are totally different approaches, different quality levels. They're not the same product.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#64

Post by elliottkember »

seemaze wrote: post #58
LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

Do you prefer glossy paper work? glossy book pages? glossy construction documents? The preference for a non-reflective surface for the relaying of dense information has been established for decades. You know what's glossy? Movie posters and postcards.

Paper, books, and construction documents all use reflected and not refracted light.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#65

Post by mdasen »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

Apple was actually late to the glossy display party. HP and Dell moved to them a few years before Apple. I don't think Apple was "insisting" on them, but rather following an industry trend that they were late to.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#66

Post by zdragnar »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #28
rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

> High-quality glass glossy displays are often easy to use even in full daylight,

I guess Apple cheaped out on their glossy displays, because I definitely didn't care for mine in full daylight

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#67

Post by teaearlgraycold »

amelius wrote: post #20
__mharrison__ wrote: post #7

Incredible hardware. Love that I can also run local llms on mine. https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/issues/4526

But are these llms worth their salt?

With 128GB of memory they can have real world use cases. But they won’t be as good as SoTA hosted models.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#68

Post by kergonath »

lapcat wrote: post #55
rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later. If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it. To be clear, I've been…

> They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later.

Wasn’t the matte option that disappeared just then removing the glass in front of the screen? I seem to remember that (my MBP from that time was glossy).

The nano textured coating they are using now is quite complex and I am not quite sure it was applicable at such scales cheaply enough back in 2015.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#69

Post by dunham »

gorgoiler wrote: post #37

20 years ago I bought a G3 iBook because the hardware was lovely and the system was supported perfectly by stock Debian woody. (Hands up if you remember having to bless your laptop with “holy penguin pee”, part of the output of the yaboot bootloader used in PowerPC systems!) Times changed and the best hardware for me right now is a Dell XPS from the model lines a few years back that looked like an aluminum sandwich w…

I bought one of those iBooks for Debian linux, but I found the resolution was a bit small for X. At the time, I had a thing for non-intel architectures. Prior to that, I had done a lot of work packaging up Debian for Sparc machines. I had access to a wide variety of Sun workstations at my job as a sysadmin at a university.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#70

Post by BoorishBears »

zdragnar wrote: post #66
LeoPanthera wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

> High-quality glass glossy displays are often easy to use even in full daylight, I guess Apple cheaped out on their glossy displays, because I definitely didn't care for mine in full daylight

Glossy vs matte has started to matter less as the peak brightness goes up.

When your screen can do 1,600 nits, daylight isn't as much of a problem

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