New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

jwagenet wrote: post #141

gnicholas wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops, especially since the latter generally don't come with any sort of warranty. And when you're buying off ebay (and can't inspect beforehand, like with craigslist/nextdoor), you don't even know for sure if it will work on day 1.

I think for the general public this is a reasonable comparison, since the performance is good enough for most things on a 2 year old eng pc for less than half the msrp. I would expect most corporate refurbs on eBay to be moderately reputable, and eBay is know to be consumer friendly.

I would consider buying a used computer from a person, if I could test it in advance. I don't think I'd ever buy a computer sight-unseen off ebay. They may be customer friendly on balance, but they're unpredictable enough that I wouldn't want to spend that kind of cash and risk being completely screwed.

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

#192

Post by whynotminot » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

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.

> 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.

It's also why you should understand your personal use case and do research. I think this is on you, not Apple. Corpos gonna corpo -- you have to do the research to figure out whether the gains from new chips will actually impact your workflow.

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

#193

Post by skadamat » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #182

skadamat wrote: post #160

I'm still very bummed with Apple's strategy in using # of supported external displays as a feature to gate laptops. I had to return a decently spec-ced M3 Macbook PRO 14" because it only supported 1 display (base M3) and pay more for M3 pro even though I don't need the extra horsepower. And now the base M3 Air's support 2 displays? This is wild

It's on-chip silicon, not a marketing feature. This kind of product design is just really hard. Mask sets get well into the billions of dollars, you can't just assemble a list of features as if they're all free. You need to decide upfront, often years in advance, what feature you think people will want to buy for the market you think you'll find yourself in. There are no easy answers. But just in general, Intel has a…

In principle I agree. But the M3 chips are similar for the M3 Macbook Pro and M3 Macbook Air. The PRO laptop is the one that only supports 1 display while the AIR supports 2 with the lid closed.

The M3 Pro has more space and is more ... pro?

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

#194

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #173

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.

You’d think it feels small but go ahead and sit in front of your tv and pull out your laptop. In terms of effective size from where I have the tv and the laptop, the laptop screen is bigger in my field of view. 40 inch tv too, no slouch.

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

#195

Post by penjelly » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:45 PM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #173

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.

anecdotally i know of people who bring their laptops to bed for tv/movies

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

#196

Post by leetharris » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

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.

But they don't want to. This is what people who are spec chasers miss. They want to use a MacBook because it's a joy to use compared to a shitty $200 Chromebook

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

#197

Post by drooopy » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

So, the cheapest configuration with 16 GB of RAM (and still with a measly 256GB of SSD) begins at €1479 (previously incorrectly stated as €1700) in the EU with VAT and that's with the older M2 chip. As for the external display thing, you basically have to "sacrifice" the laptop's screen and built in keyboard and trackpad in order to use a 2nd display. Jesus wept. CORRECTION: The price for 16/256 is at €1479.

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

#198

Post by lozenge » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

elthran wrote: post #19

zuhsetaqi wrote: post #6

Most interesting change: > Support for up to two external displays: MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed …

Apple Cynic/Windows user here with a genuine question - why is this interesting? I'm currently looking at my wife's old corporate-issued windows laptop, which is running 2 external monitors as well as it's own display - am I missing something here, or is this just a case of Apple being held to different standards to other manufacturers in terms of feature parity?

The limitation started because the M chip combined the CPU and GPU and combined the RAM with the VRAM. That's why its battery life and power efficiency blows Windows laptops out of the water. So they didn't just limit it for no reason.

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

#199

Post by flippy_flops » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #30

For anyone having issues with only one external display at once, DisplayLink adapters work very well, allowing you to connect much more displays if you need them.

Depends very much on what you're doing. DisplayLink adds noticeable lag, compression artifacts, and will prevent HDCP video from playing on all monitors including ones not using DisplayLink.

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

#200

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

princevegeta89 wrote: post #121

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…

The speakers on Pro are definitely audiophile range. To me the screen quality alone was enough to drive me away from Air.

Lets not gulp down the koolaid. The speakers on the pro are nice for a laptop but thats it, they are nice for a laptop. A basic bluetooth speaker laps it. Honestly they are balanced poorly and very “boomy” where I feel like I need to turn the volume up more than I have to just to start to discern spoken words from a sort of mumbly bassy sound.