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MacBook Air with M5

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Re: MacBook Air with M5

#261

Post by std_move »

mholm wrote: post #247
2III7 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- thermal throttling under sustained heavy load, though apparently there is the possibility to add thermal pads to get rid of throttling, probably at the expense of comfort - no Linux support Otherwise I agree, it is a wonderful machine. I'd replace my crappy thinkpad if I could. My 2014 Air is still going strong for light web browsing and terminal use.

> thermal throttling under sustained heavy load This gets mentioned a lot, but I do quite a bit of dev work on my M4 MBA and have never even felt it get warm. Sustained heavy loads are extremely rare with how quick this thing is.

And the fact that there is no annoying fan noise ever is just priceless.

With the way most consumer laptops have their fan curves set, you open a new web page and get an annoying ramp up. It is not just a hardware thing, but mostly a self inflicted wound of having a fan curve that is way too aggressive.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#262

Post by w10-1 »

honeycrispy wrote: post #19

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

No support needed. Run Linux in a VM. Devices are limited, and you can't save/restore your state, but there's no real performance hit: my code runs faster on macOS(VM(Linux)) than macOS.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...

Buy the mac, try Linux in an hour, take it back if you don't like it.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#263

Post by wisplike »

std_move wrote: post #216

This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k. - it has no annoying fans, it is completely silent - a high res display with no PWM flickering and reasonable response times, no burn-in issues, enough brightness for outdoor use - best-in-class hardware, very very efficient, amazing single thread performance, good multi thread, very good GPU - no Microsoft Windows annoyances, ads, bloatware, broken stuff a…

> I wish it was different

Amen to that, my keyboard on my m1 air recently failed. I was horrified to find out it is literally riveted to the frame. I got this close to buying a new one. Something annoyed me about this perfectly good laptop being rendered compltely useless and I ended up buying a replacement keyboard, ripping out the old one and shimming this one with paper. Its not perfect but here I am typing from it.

But you are 100% right, there is just nothing better on the market. The gap is so big.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#264

Post by allthetime »

0xffff2 wrote: post #219
allthetime wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I have my old M1 Air and I am very curious but don't want to go through the trouble of fiddling about with linux for a few days just to leave it rotting after. I would be inclined to maintain a dual boot situation as well and SSD space is at a premium.

As far as I can tell, Asahi actually requires dual boot. There doesn't seem to be an option to install it standalone. (But I have an M4 Air, so I'm not able to install it yet)

Just looked into it - MacOS is required for installation - and they firmly recommend leaving a minimal installation on the drive for things like firmware updates and disaster recovery.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#265

Post by madeofpalk »

PaulHoule wrote: post #246
eknkc wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had forgotten that mac has a beachball cursor. Something’s wrong on your macbook. (M4 max here)

What am I supposed to do, drive 300 miles to the nearest Genius Bar?

What would you do if your non-Apple computer was having performance issues?

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#266

Post by zelda420 »

netsec_burn wrote: post #231
std_move wrote: post #216

This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k. - it has no annoying fans, it is completely silent - a high res display with no PWM flickering and reasonable response times, no burn-in issues, enough brightness for outdoor use - best-in-class hardware, very very efficient, amazing single thread performance, good multi thread, very good GPU - no Microsoft Windows annoyances, ads, bloatware, broken stuff a…

I prefer the Dell Rugged line or Thinkpads, since a single water droplet on the keyboard is enough to kill this laptop.

I hate thinkpads. I was a traveling consultant for nearly a decade. I had three thinkpads and two completely broke within 2 years. The third was ok but when replaced with a MacBook pro I became an apple convert.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#267

Post by madeofpalk »

MantisShrimp90 wrote: post #249

I refuse to buy macbooks/apple products and advise my people to do the same. I make it clear it's not about specs, it's not about UI, its about the fact that apple makes the world actively worse so they can sell you a better alternative. You cant have iMessage anywhere else because they don't want you to, you are locked into apple stores because they refuse competition, you cant repair your own device because they ge…

> you are locked into apple stores because they refuse competition

I don't follow this one. You can buy Apple hardware from other retailers. You can download software, out of the box, from places other than the Mac App Store.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#268

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

PaulHoule wrote: post #229
std_move wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am not a huge fan either. I would much prefer Linux or a very customized Windows. For instance, the inability to write to NTFS filesystems without addons is annoying. But I believe that for most users, the default MacOS experience is now much better than what Windows is with default settings.

On my Mac is is beachball… beachball… beachball… reboot… beachball… beachball… beachball.. you’d have thought somebody gets paid to make me watch the beachball for how much it happens. And this is a top of the line M4 mini with maxed out RAM and everything.

How many Electron apps are you running?

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#269

Post by madeofpalk »

mg wrote: 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.

Is Linux normally heavier?

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#270

Post by timothyduong »

PaulHoule wrote: post #229
std_move wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am not a huge fan either. I would much prefer Linux or a very customized Windows. For instance, the inability to write to NTFS filesystems without addons is annoying. But I believe that for most users, the default MacOS experience is now much better than what Windows is with default settings.

On my Mac is is beachball… beachball… beachball… reboot… beachball… beachball… beachball.. you’d have thought somebody gets paid to make me watch the beachball for how much it happens. And this is a top of the line M4 mini with maxed out RAM and everything.

Base m4 Mac mini. Only beach balling is when I saturate 16GB with compiles and builds. That thing of yours is a lemon.
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