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New MacBook Air with M2

apple.com

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Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#161

Post by pdpi »

franze wrote: post #21

Anybody got their head around why the new 13 Mac Book Pro M2 is more expensive than the Mac Air M2? Is it the (in my opinion negative UX) touchbar?

Especially with the Mac, Apple has this odd tendency to keep moribund parts of their lineup around while simultaneously going for a take-no-prisoners approach to rebuilding other lines. The bottom of their laptop offering seems to be the part that suffers the most from this — the Air has always sort of see-sawed between being the premium thin-and-light offering or the entry-level offering (with the 12" MacBook carrying the thin-and-light torch for a while).

Looks like right now the Air and the "proper" (14"/16") MBPs are the ones being propelled forward, while the 13" MBP is the moribund one.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#162

Post by stetrain »

dr_zoidberg wrote: post #130
carlycue wrote: post #39

This thing is going to sell like hotcakes. The combination of single core CPU and graphics performance, device thinness, battery life in this laptop is unmatched. It’s funny how Apple came back from the worst the Mac has ever been to the best in a span of few years. Johnny I’ve doesn’t dictate things around Apple anymore but the silicone chips team now does.

M2 is not a single core CPU, albeit it does have stellar single threaded performance. As for having the worst Mac, it's quite probable they were nerfing their last x86 models on purpose to make the jump to Apple Silicon even more impressive. Remember the models that had inadequate thermals? Now magsafe is making a comeback?

Seems like in 2016 Apple was developing thermal designs for Intel’s future promises which ended up being significantly delayed.

And the Apple Silicon Macbook Air has no fan at all.

This is what Apple wanted out of their laptops, and was clearly struggling to achieve it with Intel’s offerings in 2015-2020.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#163

Post by GavinMcG »

tm-guimaraes wrote: post #141
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notched area of the screen isn’t used in full screen mode. The remaining non-notched area of the screen is a standard size and ratio. The notch is a total non-issue during normal use because it only exists in the menu bar area. It basically looks like another item occupying your menu bar. If you go full screen you still have a notch-free experience. They probably show it that way in promotional materials because…

> The notched area of the screen isn’t used in full screen mode. That’s the default setting. You can choose to have the menu bar there as well in full screen.

...but you can't choose to use it for full-screen content. The distinction the comment was drawing was about the notch interfering in that manner.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#164

Post by Tempest1981 »

chongli wrote: post #22
vbezhenar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any loss anyway? I don't see any difference between Macbook Pro M2 and Macbook Air M2.

I think the main difference (besides storage and peripherals) is active cooling. MBA's are passive cooled now (since the original M1) whereas MBP's have always had fans. The M1 & M2 chips are so cool that they generally don't need any active cooling most of the time. Where it does make a difference is under heavy sustained compute workloads. The passively-cooled MBA's will start to throttle under these workloads wher…

> difference is under heavy sustained compute workloads

How long can my compile be, before throttling begins? Say using 4 cores? 2 minutes? 5 minutes?

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#165

Post by Adraghast »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #93
Silica6149 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly sounds weird to english speakers. I imagine they shorten sentences to not lose people's attention.

It's deliberate. I guarantee that it's about building a "brand mindset." They've been playing with text copy for decades. If you say "iPhone," instead of " The iPhone," you've turned "iPhone" into a pronoun. That has a different "connection" to people that hear it. Branding seems to be something that a lot of tecchies (including Yours Truly) have difficulty with. There's a lot of subtle psychological games that aren'…

Do you mean common noun instead of pronoun?

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#166

Post by nonameiguess »

ricardobayes wrote: post #110

However the cat (inflation) got the laptop, in Europe it's now 1500€ instead of the 1050€ previous gen with same specs. I think it's unjustifiable for a normal consumer.

I'm pretty sure that's EUR/USD exchange rate, not inflation. I bought the first gen when it came out, base model, for $1199. The price today, for 2nd gen base model, is $1199.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#168

Post by amelius »

carlycue wrote: post #39

This thing is going to sell like hotcakes. The combination of single core CPU and graphics performance, device thinness, battery life in this laptop is unmatched. It’s funny how Apple came back from the worst the Mac has ever been to the best in a span of few years. Johnny I’ve doesn’t dictate things around Apple anymore but the silicone chips team now does.

> Johnny Ive doesn’t dictate things around Apple anymore but the silicone chips team now does.

Then how come we never read about those hardware devs, and get only story after story about Ive?

My guess: those hardware devs are just faceless pawns that get replaced as soon as they start having opinions about product design.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#169

Post by paulcole »

NoraCodes wrote: post #28

Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.

Think Differently would also be grammatically correct in English. But Think Different was what Apple went with. When you write, you make the decisions.

Another way to think about this is that when introducing a friend you wouldn't say, "Hi, this is the Kelly." You'd say, "Hi, this is Kelly."

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#170

Post by hardlianotion »

pavlov wrote: post #148
bluedino wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the worst the Mac has ever been Which one was that?

The 2016 MacBook Pro was a turd. The butterfly keyboard would inevitably break. I went through several of these laptops. To add insult to the injury, this model's unique innovations were "Touch Bar" and "no ports"... I've been buying Macs since 2000, and the 2016 MBP is definitely the worst Mac I ever had. It was enough to drive me to purchase a Surface Book as an alternative.

The 16" Macbook pro I bought in 2019 has been a source of constant irritation to me - unexpected fan thrashing, overheating, the usual stuff - and the performance and low cost of the new M1-based MacBooks has done nothing to improve my mood.
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