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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#181

Post by Teever »

drnick1 wrote: post #174

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality. I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled ga…

How do you reconcile the fact that that Apple will sell millions of these devices without a compatible Linux distribution shipping for years if ever with your claim about it being DOA?

Like sure it’s DOA to you, but in what world does that really matter when it’s going to sell so well?

Re: The MacBook Neo

#182

Post by Kostic »

pragmatic wrote: post #104

But you’re stuck with MacOS. I can’t stand it and every update makes it worse. Been running popos abs everything I can and it’s petty nice. Installed it on a new LG Gram and everything works including fingerprint reader. Is my favorite laptop and my old Mac sits gathering dust,

For now. These will be pretty cool Linux machines if Asahi starts supporting them at some point.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#183

Post by pa7ch »

drnick1 wrote: post #174

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality. I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled ga…

Its a shame there isn't more goodwill for some companies to bankroll a project like asahi linux. Keeping up with reverse engineering apple silicon seems like a very large task.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#184

Post by kccqzy »

efficax wrote: post #164

Calling this a "content consumption" device seems wrong to me. Sure, it's not a professional laptop. You're going to have a bad time trying to run more than one Adobe creative suite app at once, or running the iOS emulator, but the chip in it is very powerful, and you can do real work on this laptop. I was even thinking of snagging one to use as a kind of thin client for dev accessing my big linux box via tailscale.…

> It might be worthwhile to ensure that a web app you're developing will work on a less powerful machine

If that’s your goal this machine is still too powerful. Web apps generally care about single thread performance. The machine has a single thread performance that exceeds any and all Intel/AMD processors, according to Geekbench (A18 Pro: 3445; Ryzen 9 9950X: 3385). My own test for ensuring my web app performs well involves a machine less than half as fast, and my web app runs with all assertions turned on.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#185

Post by whycome »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

I had a Microsoft surface book 2. The provided charger could not provide enough power to the device when it was under heavy load and there was no higher charger option either. That shit should be illegal. And if the battery for the base/GPU died? You can't use the computer w the gpu even with a charger attached. The device itself could have been a dream and something i could have seen Apple doing : a touchscreen monitor that was also a computer and could be detached from the keyboard/gpu.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#186

Post by giobox »

timpera wrote: post #142

Does anyone know if it runs Windows 11 well? It seems like the Parallels app has not been tested by reviewers so far. This could make a great Windows machine.

Given you only have 8gb of RAM to share between MacOS and the Windows VM, running a Windows 11 VM in Parallels is not a great usecase for this machine.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#187

Post by imglorp »

Someone wrote: post #157
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

> IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - I see your point, but as a counterexample, look at the TV industry, at PC monitors, at washing machines, etc. There manufacturers have, for decades, created SKUs left and right, sometimes only so that a large dealer can offer to match lowest prices because no other dealer has access to…

The epitome of "sku engineering" is mattresses, to keep consumers from comparison shopping. Retail HATES competition and informed shoppers.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#188

Post by kreco »

jsheard wrote: post #145
pjmlp wrote: post #15

All these PC can't compete reviews are based on US prices, outside it is ridiculous expensive for a 8 GB laptop.

I can't be the only one who remembers the celebration 18 months ago when Apple finally stopped selling Macs with 8GB of memory... only for 8GB to suddenly be excused again when the Neo arrived. Perhaps it's not the same people but the general vibe is giving me whiplash.

8GB is aweful. If you don't do a single task.

But nice for Apple. Millions of replacement on the Neo 16GB release next year I guess.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#189

Post by mikestew »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

Then the OS is full of ads and pre-installed garbage “gaming-optimization-tool” or driver tools taking up 99% of a single core while being riddled with security holes.

But inevitably, some chucklehead comes along "wut? I can get for half that! Have fun paying the apple tax, lol." Someone posted that on Ars yesterday, with a random Amazon link from Naikan, your name for quality computing. Or rather, "Naikan, your name for a quality trackpad, screen, and high-quality ABS case! Be sure to check out the $12,000 of 'bonus' software add-ons, no extra charge!". It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#190

Post by gabrielhidasy »

drcongo wrote: post #146
hutattedonmyarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently helped a friend picking a new laptop. Just going through the options at the websites of manufacturers was a nightmare. Huge amount of choices, shitty filtering, separated into multiple product lines were I often enough had no idea what separated the lines from each other

If they're your friend, why didn't you just tell them to get a Mac?

Why would I inflict that to my friends?
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