Looking at this entire Apple product launch day, I'm struck by how Apple's silicon strategy keeps extending in both directions.
MacBook Air M4
201–210 of 972 posts
Re: MacBook Air M4
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair. A better comparison would be System 76. Comparing the 15" to System 76, I get a bigger screen (16"), TWO 2TB M.2 drives, and 64 GB RAM for $150 cheaper than a 15" with one 1TB drive and 32GB RAM. And the System 76 comes with a bunch of ports, too. For the same specs, it is $550 cheaper.
I've yet to find a non-apple laptop that's as ergonomically comfortable _as a laptop_ as the recent Airs. That's a premium unto itself, I don't know if it's $500 worth, but that's a less tangible part of the equation over raw horsepower.
I don't even necessarily object to paying a premium. If it was $200 to go to 1TB or 32GB RAM I'd probably be annoyed but still pay it. There is a difference between paying a premium and wholly unjustifiable prices.
Re: MacBook Air M4
#203They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices. Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just playing catch-up with a market that tries to slap AI onto everything it can think of. The hardware upgrades are always nice but there's nothing 'out there' like a touch bar or even a 'dynamic island'. Just more safe iterations.
For me as a professional, that's just fine; I never used the touch bar, but the fingerprint sensor was a great addition. Not worth upgrading for on its own, but a neat upgrade. I think a macbook with a much better front facing camera would be good, teleconferencing is a multiple times a day use case for us. They did an in-between with the system that allows you to use your iphone camera(s) which do support more wide…
The touchbar was a downgrade for me. Turns out my fingers go slightly above the key when typing certain symbols that are [shift]+[number key]. It took me a while to figure out why my laptop kept opening a music player seemingly at random a couple times per day, but it was because the touchbar was so sensitive that slightly brushing it was triggering the "play" button.
I ended up having to disable almost the whole bar to keep it from happening, just fill it with "blank" zones.
I also can't reliably drag-n-drop with force-sensitivity turned on for the touchpad, so there's another "innovation" I have to turn off. I don't even have, like, dexterity issues or a disability or something, but it makes it so damn fiddly that my drag-n-drops drop too early about half the time.
Re: MacBook Air M4
#20416GB base!
Re: MacBook Air M4
#205Nice to see they're finally supporting dual external displays even out of clamshell mode on the Air!
Re: MacBook Air M4
#206I have a MacBook Pro from 2017 2.3 GHZ, and I am considering an upgrade. Is it worth it?
night and day @ noise and battery life
Re: MacBook Air M4
#207After getting the initial M1 Air, I am still struggling to find a reason to replace it. Still going strong with no hiccups!
Everyone I know that got an M1 cheaped out on the 8gb model and are now struggling to use a browser with heavy sites and multitasking(zoom) at the same time. But also apples upcharge on RAM is disgusting, so it's hard to blame them for picking the lowest spec model.
Cries in 4Gb Macbook Air 2013 /s
I am fine(ish) with the above setup, I don't know what you are talking about. 8Gb is plenty for website browsing.
Re: MacBook Air M4
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
After getting my 2015 macbook air 11' I am still struggling to find a reason to replace it. Still going strong with no hiccups!
Do you use it as a laptop, or is it hooked up as a desktop for the most part? If the former, I'd try one of the M series in the same role and see if you notice a difference in ergonomics.
At this time (and historically), I mostly use it as a laptop, but I have also used it as a desktop for long periods with an external monitor. As a laptop, I love that it's so tiny. It’s working very well so far... but I’m afraid that at some point, I’ll have to switch to Linux or OpenCore Legacy Patcher. I’m still on macOS 11 (Big Sur).
MS Office has already stopped updating, along with some other software (though not much, most still updates without issues). As long as Firefox keeps receiving updates for my system, most things will be fine.
Re: MacBook Air M4
#209I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro (ProMotion/120hz and XDR/HDR, at least). The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro despite its chunkier weight, since the local compute/memory of the Air is already plenty for me (and most users). The iPad Pro proves that weight and battery life is no excuse here for the lack of state-…
I know Apple wants to differentiate ProMotion as a Pro feature, but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is. Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and sl…
> I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now
Literally the only people I know with non-iPhones are:
* People who can't afford one
* People who want a folding screen
* People who are conceptually anti-Apple
Apple have over 50% market share in the US, talking about "struggling to obtain new market share" seems bizarre.
Re: MacBook Air M4
#210This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]" [4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air
People don't upgrade every year. I still have an Intel MacBook Pro (2020 I think?) that I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon because it still works great.