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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

michael.stapelberg.ch

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Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#231

Post by blub »

dylan604 wrote: post #117
IshKebab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it actually would be quite near the top, in terms of ranking. Most hobbies are a lot cheaper. Of course, not near the top in terms of money because there are a few hobbies that cost vastly more.

Just off the top of my head in hobbies that I've been in/around that this $3k would be a nothing burger: photography, wood working, grease monkey, cycling, gun collecting, antiquing, recreational substances...

Well, there’s hobbies and there’s a buying addiction that comes with a hobby.

In many areas there’s a tendency to overdo it with tools, gadgets and also to compensate for lack of skill with more gadgets. I do woodworking for example and my total spend for industrial vacuum, different types of power and hand tools, work bench, clamps, etc probably comes to around a few thousand EUR. Mine is a really good set-up for a hobby, but I still don’t have any stationary machines or fancy separate work area or room. I bought everything over the years and I only buy brand-name. My point is, this is actually a lot of money especially if spent as lump sum and not at all a “nothing-burger”.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#232

Post by zero_bias »

ericmcer wrote: post #41
__mharrison__ wrote: post #7

Incredible hardware. Love that I can also run local llms on mine. https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/issues/4526

Can't you run small LLMs on like... a Macbook air M1? Some models are under 1B weights, they will be almost useless but I imagine you could run them on anything from the last 10 years. But yeah if you wanna run 600B+ weights models your gonna need an insane setup to run it locally.

I run qwen models on MBA M4 16 Gb and MBP M2 Max 32 Gb, MBA is able to handle models in accordance with its vram memory capacity (with external cooling), e.g. qwen3 embedding 8B (not 1B!) but inference is 4x-6x times slower than on mbp. I suspect weaker SoC

Anyway, Apple SoC in M series is a huge leverage thanks to shared memory: VRAM size == RAM size so if you buy M chip with 128+ Gb memory, you’re pretty much able to run SOTA models locally, and price is significantly lower than AI GPU cards

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#233

Post by LTL_FTC »

danaris wrote: post #170
j_bum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think you’ll have any regrets about the nano texture display? I was torn between nano and regular glass, but opted for the regular glass.

I got the nanotexture on my current work M4 MBP—it doesn't completely eliminate reflected light, but it diffuses it a lot . If I were in a dark room with a light source positioned perfectly to reflect off my screen in my face, I would probably still have trouble with it, but in general I don't need to reposition the screen to avoid glare nearly as much. I would say it's worth the extra, what, $200 or so? on the price…

It’s often much more than $200 as the base models can be had for huge discounts, like $450 off retail, but the second you check the nano texture option, you lose the discount and you tack on the extra $200. So it’s often closer to $700 in some cases.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#234

Post by zero_bias »

dontlaugh wrote: post #103
PlunderBunny wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The thing that mostly irks me about Apple these days is soldered in RAM and non-upgradeable storage. Isn't the 'soldered-in' RAM and storage fundamental to the M-series architecture? It's not like there's a board with individual chips sitting in it for the RAM and storage, that could potentially have been 'popped out' if they weren't soldered in. It's all one giant 'chip' now.

There are separate chips. But just like Strix Halo, they have to be soldered. There’s no way to reach the signal integrity required with connectors.

No, M series is a system on chip (SoC), that’s why it’s able to run local LLM models in a range impossible for other laptop brands: VRAM == RAM, unified shared memory at max speed for both CPU and GPU

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#235

Post by aqula »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #28
rottencupcakes wrote: post #16

It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.

Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels. This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy…

Is there any write up on the tech behind nano texture? What makes them better than traditional matte screens?

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#236

Post by signa11 »

sunaookami wrote: post #86
amelius wrote: post #21

[flagged]

macOS does not have auto update. In fact it doesn't bother you with any updates which lead to me behind patches behind because I was accustomed to Windows nagging me for updates every week.

mine seems to be doing just that pretty religiously.

how do you avoid the nagging ?

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#237

Post by rigrassm »

jofzar wrote: post #214

> I don’t notice going back to 60 Hz displays on computers. However, on phones, where a lot more animations are a key part of the user experience, I think 120 Hz displays are more interesting. I'm always so jealous of these people, 60hz is just so bad for me now and even make me a bit motion sick. I can see it in everything, moving the window, scrolling, the cursor.

I'm right there with you, 60hz feels like a flip book to me now.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#238

Post by Dylan16807 »

zrm wrote: post #228
Dylan16807 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take ntfs-3g over the best implementation of exFAT in a heartbeat. Refusing to write to NTFS for reliability purposes, and thereby pushing people onto exFAT, is shooting yourself in the foot.

At which point you're asking why Apple doesn't have default support for something like ext4, which is a decent point. That would both get you easier compatibility between Mac and Linux and solve the NTFS write issue without any more trouble than it's giving people now because then you'd just install the ext4 driver on the Windows machine instead of the NTFS driver on the Mac.

Is it that easy to use on Windows these days? I should give it a try.

Re: My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

#240

Post by fpoling »

dylan604 wrote: post #116
m463 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they will (re)introduce premium keyboards with sculpted keys that self-center your fingers someday. magsafe coming back was nice, maybe more extra ports?

MagSafe + SD card reader + headphone jack + USB-C/TB4 only ports is fine by me. In 2025, I'm well past needing USB-C to USB-A dongles. We've had since what 2015/16 to start the conversion to C only.

My car from 2023 still came with USB-A port. No-so cheap USB camera that I recently bought came with USB-A port.
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