Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 1001 posts

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#171

Post by rkangel »

DataDive wrote: post #148
sempron64 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

Oh yeah? Please link to a model, just one in the 500-600 range that is comparable to a 1K Apple model. I have owned half a dozen Windows laptops in the past, in all kinds of price ranges, cheaper and far more expensive than a Macbook Air. None were even remotely comparable to the build quality and practicality of a Macbook Air. This was true even in the Intel CPU era. In the M processor era, the gap only increased. Y…

The parent isn't saying that there are $500 laptops that are as good as $1k Air. They're saying that there are $500 laptops that are "good enough" for most people's use.

Personally for home use I buy pre-owned Thinkpads and then put Linux on them. They're fine for normal use - Internet, Email and light to moderate SW Development. The screens are mediocre, but I pay £300-£400 (UK). Oh and I don't care about battery age because replacements are inexpensive and require sliding one catch to make the replacement.

Yes, for work I want something more performant and I'm considering pushing work to get me a Macbook (instead of the high-spec Thinkpad I currently have), but that's a different use case.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#172

Post by skybrian »

pama wrote: post #15
retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

An interesting difference with the new pro models, if you want to pay around $5k, is that you can have 128Gb unified Ram in them and run inference locally with exciting LLMs.

It seems like a pretty speculative use. That much money would go a long way on a $20/month subscription, and the field is changing rapidly. Unless you’re an AI researcher, might as well wait a year or two and see what changes?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#173

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

blehn wrote: post #118

I really wanted to love the 13" Air but two things made me switch to the Pro after trying it for a few weeks. One is that the internal speakers suck in comparison to the Pro. I 'm not looking for audiophile quality from laptop speakers, but the Pro speakers are good enough for casually watching youtube videos, TV shows, podcasts, etc, whereas the Air speakers are harsh and tinny. The second is that the default resolu…

Do a lot of folks actively watch media content on laptops these days?

I have never really watched more than short content on that form factor. I like a bigger screen and a remote, watching anything like a movie on a laptop feels klunky.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#174

Post by jhickok »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #135
retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

The worst part about M3 is that they now have an 8GB Macbook Pro lineup. These "pro" machines have always been known for work and productivity, and 8GB just sounds like a piss poor product decision

8gb in a pro machine honestly wild. I guess it makes some sense if you consume content and you want a better screen and audio, but it still offends.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#175

Post by silisili »

samatman wrote: post #85
sempron64 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook. Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... lite…

Are we talking weight class as in weight or performance?

I find the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 'in the weight class' with about the same weight, but with a less performant CPU and not as high res screen. It's also 8/256, has good battery life, and is fine for a lot of workloads. It can be had for $400ish factory recertified, or 100-200 more new brand new depending on sales.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that the two go toe to toe here, I'm just listing a lightweight alternative.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#176

Post by Teever »

sys_64738 wrote: post #76
Keyframe wrote: post #63

Outside of pricing, why would one buy Air vs Pro these days? I've had OG Air back in the day and tapered form factor was great. I recently was in an Apple store and looked at pro and airs.. they felt same, and also air seemed heavy (compared to ye olde tapered one). Now with Pro at 14" and Air pushing to 15".. why?

Air has no fan which means no moving parts and no noise.

IIRC they have a fan it just moved air internally and is for all intents and purpose completely silent from the end user's perspective.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#177

Post by lotsofpulp »

NBJack wrote: post #110
dbbk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guarantee you that most people buying the $999 laptop have 5 Chrome tabs open and don't store files on their computer. 8GB/256GB is fine.

That's a bold statement. Videos, music, photos, all of these add up fast. I have encountered plenty of family and friends needing help when their storage is exhausted. Then there is the ever increasong bloat of software, web apps, etc. that chew through RAM. If this isn't a daily driver, sure. It is fine. But for those where this is their only computer, this is a lot of money for an 'entry level' model that can't do…

I am still using a 2015 MacBook Air with 8GB / 256GB, and I use Excel/Safari/Chrome Remote Desktop/VLC/Photos/Handbrake/etc just fine.

And I bet I use my computer more strenuously than 90% of the population.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#178

Post by kjkjadksj »

bearjaws wrote: post #2

I am most interested to see if the M4 chip will dramatically improve performance of local LLMs. I like M1 Pro so far with models up to 30-70b parameters, but the memory bandwidth is my current limit. With a large jump in unified memory and bandwidth we could see 120b parameter models running on a laptop. As a side note, why does Apple continue to reference the Intel MacBook Air... It's over 6 years old now, no shit t…

What is the appeal of running this sort of stuff locally though? Its still slower and less memory than a cluster or just a strong server. Just ssh into some horsepower and keep your lap cold.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#179

Post by vundercind »

dboreham wrote: post #123
dbbk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guarantee you that most people buying the $999 laptop have 5 Chrome tabs open and don't store files on their computer. 8GB/256GB is fine.

Then they could use a $200 Chromebook.

Worse battery life, such weak hardware (you're bringing up $200 models) that they're laggy and shitty even with a few Chrome tabs, bad trackpads, terrible accessibility options compared to Macs (I was very surprised to discover this latter issue when configuring my elderly father's Chromebook, given the market for Chromebooks is basically kids and old people)

$200 Chromebooks are the kind my various teacher friends complain about because they're so shit that they even drive elementary school kids crazy.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#180

Post by rkangel »

r00fus wrote: post #109
snizovtsev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$999 is for soldered 8GB/256GB crap. Add $400 for 16GB/512GB models.

I found it's completely acceptable for hobby usages that don't involve running offline LLMs. If you're doing work, get a Pro.

I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck. Actually I had to have my last work laptop replaced because 8GB wasn't enough for Chrome and a Teams video call! If I tried to screen share a browser tab of Jira everything would start paging.

I have zero recent experience with MacOS or the M1,2,3 ARM hardware but I doubt even the very fast RAM is going to make that much difference to the above.

Post reply on HN