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Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

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Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#151

Love it, but the lack of ports still seems like a bit of an issue. It looks like the MBA and 13in MBP only have 2 USBC ports, with one used for charging (they don’t have magsafe from what i can see). The 14/16in MBPs have 3 USBC, HDMI, SD card + a separate magsafe charging port.

There is magsafe now, so you don't have to loose one for charging. Honestly it's easiest to just dump it into a USB C dock because they don't support more then one external monitor anyway.

From what i see on the store pages, only the 14in+ MBPs have the magsafe ports. The MBA and 13in MBP don’t. Point taken about the dock though, thanks.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#152
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given two options, both of which are bad for the environment, but one is less bad, is one not better than the other? Can you point to a product that highlights its strengths by framing them in a negative light instead of painting them positively?

Creating products that you can't easily repair or upgrade? Creating a vicious upgrade cycle? Hmmm...

I'm still using a 2017 MacBook Pro, though I have an M1 Mac Mini. I had 2 second-hand 27" iMacs too, from 2011 and 2013.

I gave the 2011 one away, because I couldn't upgrade it anymore, but it is still used for audio/video editing.

The 2013 one has some issues with its hard-drive and I'm planning to upgrade it to an SSD. It's still a pretty capable machine, though I would probably put Linux on it, since the macOS upgrades for that are discontinued too.

The display panels are "just" 2K in them, but still super sharp, though a bit dusty inside... They are better than most cheaper external monitors I saw ppl using for everyday work...

I think a decade of runtime for Macs is not that uncommon. 2 decades would be even better, but I wouldn't call it a "vicious upgrade cycle"...

I mean, I'm still on an iPhone Xs Max and before that I had an iPhone 7 Pro and I have no intention of upgrading, despite the back-glass being cracked on it. and not because I can't afford it, but because I won't really utilize the extra power of the latest versions.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#154

Almost 10 years ago we purchased a MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for approx 2K UK pounds. It's really surprising and disappointing that a decade later these same specs essentially cost the same!

It's a lot faster and of higher quality now. Those numbers do not reflect the speed of the ram, the speed of the memory, the quality of the screen, or the performance of the CPU

Yes it's made with iPhone/iPad parts instead of PC parts :)

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#155

The biggest question I have is whether it has WiFi 6E or just WiFi 6 (2x2 80 MHz like the original M1 MacBook Air). That's the one thing that's kind of gimped it for me—if I could get more WiFi bandwidth, especially with the ProRes decoding built into the M2, I might be able to edit 4K video over my network wirelessly for the first time. Would be amazing. To be clear, I still think the M1 Air was the best portable la…

>edit 4K video over my network wirelessly for the first time.

Good lord, to think of not that many years ago still needing to be firmly attached to an array of spinning rust to get performance for that. Now, we want to (nearly can) do it wirelessly. Just another set of gear adding to the pile of boat anchors I've been collecting

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#156
post #31

The 24GB unified memory is a really nice upgrade (the M1 MBA has 8GB upgradeable to 16GB). The CPU/GPU upgrades are predictable and wlecome but the memory is huge. A lot of development isn't CPU bound but is memory bound or at least can really benefit from more memory. This upgrade makes the MBA an entirely viable dev machine for many workloads. I have a MBP (Intel) but it's expensive. Getting a viable machine for $1…

The macbook air with 24gb memory and 512gb ssd is $1800, not $1200. Another $100 if you want the extra GPU cores.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#157
post #31

The 24GB unified memory is a really nice upgrade (the M1 MBA has 8GB upgradeable to 16GB). The CPU/GPU upgrades are predictable and wlecome but the memory is huge. A lot of development isn't CPU bound but is memory bound or at least can really benefit from more memory. This upgrade makes the MBA an entirely viable dev machine for many workloads. I have a MBP (Intel) but it's expensive. Getting a viable machine for $1…

[deleted]

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at 1 billion colors and: > One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-m2/specs/

Thanks for that link. For my next work laptop, I've been waiting to see if (sometime soon) there would be a MBP that supported external refresh rates > 60 Hz. Given that the M2 MBA still has that limitation, I suspect not.

Main reason I went from the 16" Intel to the M1 Pro, dual displays is a must for me when I'm docked at home.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#159
post #48

Wonder how good it is compared to the latest NVIDIA GPUs in laptops for gaming and ML Tasks

Ml (Using Pytorch or Tensorflow) still much much better on cuda from what I have heard.

Oh it's no contest. You may as well be comparing chihuahua to a mastiff. Still, it's better than nothing and useful to have around for development and small-scale experimentation.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Air too: https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-m2/specs/ > Configurable to: 16GB or 24GB Store is updated too, 16GB upgrade is 200$ and 24GB is 400$.

400 USD for a 16GB upgrade is daylight street robbery. The power of brands.

For slow-ass DIMM memory, sure. But we're talking on-die integrated memory that's leagues ahead of any PC memory in performance.
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