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MacBook Air M4

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131–140 of 972 posts

Re: MacBook Air M4

#131

Post by electrograv »

I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro (ProMotion/120hz and XDR/HDR, at least). The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro despite its chunkier weight, since the local compute/memory of the Air is already plenty for me (and most users).

The iPad Pro proves that weight and battery life is no excuse here for the lack of state-of-the-art display tech in the MacBook Air. And as for cost — the base 14” MacBook Pro M4 (at $1600) isn’t significantly more expensive than the 15” MacBook Air M4 configured with same CPU/RAM/SSD (at $1400).

It’s really quite a shame that the iPad Pro hardware is in many way a better MacBook Air than the MacBook Air, crippled primarily by iOS rather than hardware.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#132

Post by karlshea »

stringsandchars wrote: post #85
throw0101d wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps! > 3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! > 4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?! 2 and 4 kind of contradict each other. I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers.

> I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers. My personal laptop is a 2014 MacBook Pro. I'll be buying one of these new M4 Airs, and comparing to an 11-year-old computer .

As someone that had a 2011 MacBook Pro for I think 9 years and loved it, be glad you’ve skipped over the whole butterfly keyboard/Touch Bar era.

I now have an M2 Air and have zero complaints, it’s the best computing device I’ve ever owned. You’re going to really enjoy the M4.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#133

Post by cosmic_cheese »

mcgrath_sh wrote: post #116
kccqzy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Apple wants you to purchase their iCloud offerings and put your documents on iCloud Drive. I just buy lots of storage on my desktop and access it remotely. Tailscale makes it easy to do so.

True, I guess they do want to push iCloud. I just can't justify the pricing. Comparing the 15" to System 76, I get a bigger screen, TWO 2TB M.2 drives, and 64 GB RAM for $150 cheaper than a 15" with one 1TB drive and 32GB RAM. And the System 76 comes with a bunch of ports, too.

As someone who’s been laptop shopping recently, the problem with most non-Apple options is that in exchange for RAM and storage been cheap and/or upgradable, they make significant sacrifices in various areas compared to MacBooks. This is insanely frustrating to me, I don’t know why generic PC manufacturers can’t seem to manage to build a small laptop that is as good of an all-rounder as the Air is and not also come with aspects that suck for no good reason.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#135

Post by onei »

trymas wrote: post #5

Anyone can comment on how Apple Silicon (M) MacBook Airs deal with heat? It’s fan-less design, so how does it compare with MacBook Pros with same M chips? Does it throttle often? Can you have it comfortably on your lap in summer? Or unless you’re running 1-hour long 4K rendering or machine learning training sessions - you’d never notice? UPDATE: what I am getting at - if you are developer and don’t care about screen…

I can't speak to the Airs, but I went from an Intel Pro to a M3 Pro in a previous job and the battery life improved massively. I used to be able to heat my study by running a linter, but after the switch I remained chilly. I'm now on a M2 and have broadly observed the same.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#136

Post by totaldude87 »

permanent wrote: post #3

This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]" [4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air

Also to note, a typical macbooks' life span is more than ~5years - so are the target audience

Re: MacBook Air M4

#137

Post by CountHackulus »

ljm wrote: post #41

They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices. Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just playing catch-up with a market that tries to slap AI onto everything it can think of. The hardware upgrades are always nice but there's nothing 'out there' like a touch bar or even a 'dynamic island'. Just more safe iterations.

The last time they "innovated" on macbooks we got a touch bar (ignoring M chips). I'm good with incremental improvements if we can avoid those gigantic blunders.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#138

Post by whstl »

kotaKat wrote: post #19
permanent wrote: post #3

This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]" [4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air

As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly. If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.

> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target

Definitely. I have ZERO rational reasons to upgrade from my lowest-spec first-gen Air M1. I use it everyday and speed and battery life are still way more than I need.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#139

Post by sleepybrett »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #103
lifefeed wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a while since they made a bold choice. When I bought an iPhone a couple years ago, even the apple store employee kinda shrugged his shoulders when I asked if the new 14 phone was better, besides the camera, than the cheaper 13.

The iPhone 14 added emergency satellite connectivity. That seems like a pretty big deal to me?

.. if you are someone that even ventures into areas that lack proper cell coverage. I don't think most people do.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#140

Post by lastgeniusua »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #107
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #42

I have considered going back to Mac after about 5-7 years on Windows/WSL, but the storage premium is just too much to swallow. If the $999 was a base 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, I'd consider it. I just added another 32GB of RAM to my 2020 built desktop for $50. You can get a 1TB crucial M.2 drive for $70. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges, but the storage cost is too much, and 256GB is much too little. Edit: to…

You're comparing desktop prices to laptop prices. Yes they're ridiculous but you're not the target market.

most non-Mac laptops have a spare slot for an SSD (and the original one is likely replaceable), with RAM being replaceable too. Why wouldn't the desktop prices apply here too?
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