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MacBook Air with M5

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181–190 of 531 posts

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#181
post #97
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This laptop should be good enough for 90%+ of all users out there for 5-10 years

[flagged]

Snarky but I agree. I dislike how much MacOS changes with each version. My kids have a Linux box (NUC). I wish we could have Linux on a late model Mac Mini

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#182

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

I have a 16GB/512GB Air M1 (2020) because I knew I would need the extra space but this really makes me happy. A new Air, higher headroom, M5, is awesome. It’s not a MBP but it’s good enough for 95% of the daily stuff. If you aren’t running local agents this would be amazing.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#183
post #14

The one thing that interests me most when it comes to laptops these days is weight. So I jumped right into the tech specs section and looked it up. Since this is the "Air" laptop of the company that is popular for thin and lightweight devices, my hopes were high. But ... The 13 inch version is heavier than a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Which has a 14 inch screen and can run Linux.

> The 13 inch version is heavier than a ThinkPad X1 Carbon

And costs ~800 more for 16Gb/512 with a slower CPU and worse battery life.

As someone who spends his life on the road with a laptop, I strongly feel that anything that works for you under 3lbs is the sweet spot. The difference between 2.2 and 2.7lbs is miniscule in the grand scheme of my backpack.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#185
post #88

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

I'm excited about this. The previous generation base model 15" Air was good enough for our company to make it the default computer for everyone. Previously we were giving out base model MBP's. And they're $1000 cheaper. Today, the MBP is just way too powerful for anything other than specific use cases that need it.

Because you can buy it with 32GB of unified RAM, the MBP is now actually the cheapest device for something... useful local AI models!

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#186
post #88

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

I'm excited about this. The previous generation base model 15" Air was good enough for our company to make it the default computer for everyone. Previously we were giving out base model MBP's. And they're $1000 cheaper. Today, the MBP is just way too powerful for anything other than specific use cases that need it.

Out of curiosity, what are some good use cases for a MBP now with the MBAs being so powerful?

I can think of things like 4K video editing or 3D rendering but as a software engineer is there anything we really need to spend the extra money on an MBP for?

I'm currently on a M1 Max but am seriously considering switching to an MBA in the next year or two.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#187
post #91

I wish they would provide Linux support. I can't stand OSX.

Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus t…

Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#188
post #107
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus t…

For something like my daily personal laptop the warranty is a big factor. I’d rather not deal with shipping it off to Asus for a couple months when it doesn’t boot or whatever.

Would warranty cover a Macbook with Linux on it?

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed something similar. With the computer science undergrads and grad students I work with, Air is much more common than with the premeds and med students, many of whom have MBPs (who I am presuming do not need that much power).

I think its because compsci people know what they need to a greater degree than other majors. It's easier to upsell a computer to someone who doesn't really know about computers. It could also be possible that compsci kids have a powerful desktop at home, or are more savvy with university cloud computing, for any edge cases or computationally expensive tasks.

I use vscode's tunnel from my MacBook Air to my Archlinux desktop a lot.

The MacBook Air has ~16 GiB RAM. The Desktop has 128 GiB, and a lot more processing power and disk space.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#190
post #91

I wish they would provide Linux support. I can't stand OSX.

Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus t…

> M5 also features faster unified memory with 153GB/s of bandwidth

I was about to write a post mourning how much I wish Panther Lake really could compete, but lacked the memory bandwidth to offer a real challenge. But supposedly it can go up to 9600MT/s which would bring Panther Lake to ~150GB/s.

I am curious what the NPU on M5 has. The 50 TOp/s on Panther Lake is... fine. Apple is really seeing huge success with MLX, with an adoptable software stack that the PC world is super struggling to deliver.

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