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MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

jdhodges.com

131–140 of 433 posts

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#131
Macbook Neo is amazing, so impressed what Apple can deliver for so little.

That said, my sister this morning asked if she should buy a Macbook Neo. I pointed her to a refurb M2 Macbook Air with 16GB of RAM for the same price. I feel like that's the right call? Slower single-core performance but better multi-core and I think for 90% of normal people use cases the RAM is the limit before the CPU.

Are others making the same calculation?

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#132
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the nicest things to do if you love computers, and great for your health compared with staying indoors. > Could one actually work like this, typing and everything? After my “heart-rate discovery” I decided I had to try it. I thought I’d have to build something myself, but actually one can just buy “walking desks”, and so I did. And after minor modifications, I discovered that I could walk and type perfect…

How do you deal with screen glare?

I'm not OP but I work outside and use light mode. Macs are generally fairly bright as long as you aren't in direct sunlight. Solarized light mode for the win though.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#133
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard behavior is that: Command Q quits the currently active application. Command W closes the current window without quitting the active application.

>Command Q quits the currently active application. Open Finder. cmd+Q. Does it quit anything? Nope nothing happens. >Command W closes the current window Open apple TV. cmd+w -> minimizes window. Open Safari. same keys - cmd+w. Closes current window? Nope. Closes tab. Open Apps. Cmd+w. Does it close window? Close Tab? Nope...third option...does fucking nothing. That's 3 different apps made by apple and preinstalled by…

> Open Finder. cmd+Q. Does it quit anything? Nope nothing happens.

You can’t quit finder - it’s a fundamental part of the hi that always has to run.

> Safari

Multiple tabs in a window are intended to be treated the same as multiple windows. This has been the case since macOS made tabbed interface components a standard part of the OS.

> Open Apps

What do you mean? Which apps?

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#134
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What app doesn’t support cmd-w?

Some apps close window. Some apps close tabs. Some apps can close tab or window. Some apps require double press (chrome)

That’s chrome being a dick - it chrome has an option to undo that (and it’s cmd-q they dickified, not cmd-w).

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#136

I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school. It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 year…

Same. Recently bought myself a M2 Air as a birthday gift for myself. 8GB, chucked OpenBSD on it and couldn't be happier. It does what I need, battery lasts long and easy to chuck around.

It has no graphics acceleration, right? Doesn’t windowing feel sluggish?

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#137
post #131

Macbook Neo is amazing, so impressed what Apple can deliver for so little. That said, my sister this morning asked if she should buy a Macbook Neo. I pointed her to a refurb M2 Macbook Air with 16GB of RAM for the same price. I feel like that's the right call? Slower single-core performance but better multi-core and I think for 90% of normal people use cases the RAM is the limit before the CPU. Are others making the…

If the used ones are out there the more RAM is probably the way to go - but colors!

The reality is nobody is noticing differences between the M1 and anything afterwards, really - those that do will know enough to pick their laptop.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#138
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both 10Gb/s and 8GB RAM limit come from iPhone 16 Pro chip limitations used in Neo. Next year's should have 12GB of RAM.

If they can maintain the same price tag for A19 based Macbook Neo with 12GB of RAM, I genuinely do not know how other companies can compete.

I’m waiting for the first A chip designed after the Neo decision - it’ll be interesting to see what they do knowing it’ll end up in a laptop. The obvious thing is “fixing” the USB problem.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#139

My wife bought a Neo and has been very happy with it. I was wary of the 8gb memory limit but she is running claude code doing web development with a reasonable number of tabs open and no noticeable lag, so I'd say its definitely getting a lot of mileage out of it. It honestly seems good enough that it might cannibalize Macbook Air sales.

I am running Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex and Docker Desktop on a last generation Intel Air, that admittedly has 12 GB RAM. One has to be a bit careful with more apps. But I look forward to an upgrade. Maybe a Neo, but more likely a second hand M.

Whatever you do, do not try one out before you’re ready to buy.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#140
post #34
post #7

for vibe coding stuff, especially when you're outside touching grass, I believe MacBook Neo is perfect. it fills the gap between the phone remote control (which is too painful for chatting with ai cli) and, well, not having any dev device.

I'm pretty disappointed in the Neo's battery life though, it limits a lot how much you can do on the go.

How fast can it recharge is probably the main limiting factor. I’m used to finding power wherever I can from the bad old days, but the M1 laptops have spoiled me.
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