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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#651

Post by jauntywundrkind »

halapro wrote: post #411
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #408

It's remarkable to me that this shows what an iPhone chip has been capable of, and a reminder about how strongly Apple works to keep phone, tablet, and laptop in separate segments. Even though they share the same chips. Going to be signficiantly harder for Qualcomm X2 Elite to make a splash, given the price here. I have high hopes for the X2 Elite Extreme (even if it is going to be cursed with incredible difficulty t…

People keep calling this "a phone chip" when M1 was literally "a phone chip" to begin with, based on A14. It's entirely reasonable that in 4 generations of "phone chips", the A18 reaches the speed that M1 did during its "one-generation" rework.

The M1 was beefed up in quite a number of ways. More cores, much bigger GPU, double the memory bandwidth, more clocks, more power, a massive io subsystem that just didn't exist period with thunderbolt, pcie, etc.

You are correct that the architecture was indeed the same, but it was quite a different chip. "Literally a phone chip to begin with, based on", to me, misleads from how different the m1 was. But yes, they appear to share the same architecture.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#652

Post by sys_64738 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #247
varispeed wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion PC industry is also cooked because of fans. I simply cannot use any recent PC laptop, because the moment you do something it engages fans in the most obnoxious way. Every time someone turns on their PC laptop next to me, my ears feel assaulted. My Mac does engage fans from time to time, but I never notice the noise.

How little attention cooling gets in the laptop industry outside of expensive gaming laptops is crazy. I have a ThinkPad that gets huffy when I plug it into a 2560x1440 external display while otherwise idle (yes, under Linux too) which shouldn’t even be possible.

Even the Intel MBP laptops had fans firing up the afterburners to keep the Intel CPU cool when monitors were plugged in. Intel CPUs of the past were just massive heating elements.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#653

Post by sys_64738 »

whalesalad wrote: post #205
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…

It gets worse when you look at Intel/AMD's CPU naming schemes. Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. Clown show all around.

It's the marketing depts that go mental with these schemes.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#654

Post by Tyr42 »

p1necone wrote: post #573
grumpyprole wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it will also have 5 mins of battery life when unplugged and have a power adapter the size of a shoe box. I tried a similar machine from Lenovo at work and quickly returned it.

My laptop is always either plugged into a dock at work, or plugged into a dock or just a power supply at home. I feel like there's an untapped market for 'same laptop, but slightly cheaper because there's no battery in it at all'. Like you say most windows laptops have such garbage battery life already that it's not practical to use them unplugged.

Ah but then you'd need to hard shut down to carry it home. The battery should keep the ram active to commute while sleeping

Re: The MacBook Neo

#655

Post by LtWorf »

drcongo wrote: post #160
FeloniousHam wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it everyday, I love it. Native unix, great apps and ecosystem.

It's amazing how often people who post on here about hating macOS have only just got a Mac for the first time and simply can't be bothered to learn, or hate that the keyboard shortcuts are different, or desperately want their OS level adverts back or something. It's lazy.

On KDE I open system settings and I change every shortcut I don't like. On OSX that's not possible because they know better, apparently.

I agree, they are lazy.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#656

Post by eitally »

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…

This is how I ended up with my first MacBook in >10 years. I'd been a Thinkpad (T series) guy in the early days, the tried a MacBook in 2015... couldn't get used to it and used a Chromebook for the next 8 years. Needed to buy a new laptop in 2023 and ... the entire Windows laptop industry turned me off. Yes, something like System76 is an option, and so is installing Linux on a Windows OEM machine, but then you still have to deal with the hardware. Apple isn't perfect, but MacBooks are consistent and reliable, with minimal telemetry and no advertising or upselling. That's enough for me.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#657

Post by slopinthebag »

ezst wrote: post #273
unethical_ban wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad the other month, in need of a computer with webcam and ideally portable, bought some $400-500 HP 17" laptop. He was so proud of it, proud of buying a piece of hardware without asking me, and rather than tell him the truth, I nodded and said "yeah this is neat". The monitor is awful . Like, the horrible way it changes color and brightness depending on exact viewing angle is sickening; I am shocked California ha…

I broke that circle by having a sibling ultimately follow my recommendation of getting a ThinkPad T at a discount (prev-gen during a sale) and then letting them advertise it to the rest of the family. If you ask me, for a comparable price range, the ThinkPad still is a much better pick than the MacBook Neo: that thing has no IO and not even enough RAM for nowadays light web browsing.

> that thing has no IO and not even enough RAM for nowadays light web browsing.

You can literally open up every app (50+) on it and simultaneously edit 4k video without issues. It handles all of the pro apps really well. So it objectively can handle light web browsing just fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-VOt9559Gk

Re: The MacBook Neo

#658

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

To what extent is there still a “consumer PC industry?” You mention Dell; for like a decade I think I’ve only ever seen Dells that were company-issued.

My sense is that consumers spend most of their tech money on phones, tablets, headphones, watches, services. People who really want a laptop get a Mac or Chromebook. Gamers buy / build PCs, for gaming. Linux geeks buy Linux machines for Linuxing.

I’m not saying no one buys PC laptops at consumer retail. I guess I’m just wondering how big that market is anymore after consumer discretionary spending on tech has been hollowed out by the above list.

(I’m sure most people reading this have purchased a laptop. I think the HN audience is a tech outlier compared to most consumers.)

Re: The MacBook Neo

#659

Post by jwrallie »

I'm curious but could not find any information if virtualization is possible on the Neo. Not that 8GB is that promising to start with, but running a slimmed down VM has its uses.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#660

Post by brokencode »

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…

Linux compatibility would be sweet, but Apple has no incentive.

Hopefully this product gives other companies the kick in the pants they need to improve their hardware.

Though they still haven’t been able to complete that well against the Air and Pro, so seems unlikely they will adapt well to this either.

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