Id pay an extra $150 for the haptic trackpad tbh
How about $299?
let's make it $1099 and we'll throw a monitor stand for free
MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
301–310 of 433 posts
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used a Mac mini M1 with 8GB of RAM for a while. It was fine; much better than Intel Macs or any other setup with low RAM.
Two accounts, both lowercase four random letter names respond to me within two minutes time apart, what do I make of it? :P Either way, I find it hard to believe memory management would vary so much between those two CPU architectures on a single-codebase OS.
One is a four letter set of characters without a vowel, the other spells a word with 5 letters. And so what?
I’ll add on that the change to Apple silicon was an amazing improvement, even in the same OS version. Maybe these anecdotes mean your experience in this regard is dated. (I say this as someone who came reluctantly to Mac, and looks forward to returning to Linux)
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Source…? I see this claim thrown around so much without any backing and my experience with mac os (and other darwin variants) is just terrible. My previous portable was a 2015 mac book pro with 16 (!) gigs of ram (mind-blowing for 2026 standards, I know) and the os just became terribly and unbearably sluggish with all the useless updates (that nb mostly removed features, e.g. ClearType was wiped off the face of the E…
> Source…? Real life? My macbook neo with 8gb memory is faster and snappier than my shit-tier thinkpad X13G1 even when the X13 is not swapping at all. I have 8c/16t Ryzen 7 along with 32GB ram over there, running GNU/Linux. And somehow my macbook neo running a phone chip is much more usable (and battery lasts longer, and suspend actually works).
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Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used a Mac mini M1 with 8GB of RAM for a while. It was fine; much better than Intel Macs or any other setup with low RAM.
Two accounts, both lowercase four random letter names respond to me within two minutes time apart, what do I make of it? :P Either way, I find it hard to believe memory management would vary so much between those two CPU architectures on a single-codebase OS.
> Two accounts, both lowercase four random letter names respond to me within two minutes time apart, what do I make of it? :P
That a lot of accounts have obfuscated or meaningless names? That some people value anonymity?
Either way, I agree with them, FWIW.
> I find it hard to believe memory management would vary so much between those two CPU architectures on a single-codebase OS.
Linux is a shitshow when it gets OOM, it takes at least half an hour to get out of it, if it ever does. Windows is not much better.
In contrast, the other day the Force Quit window showed up on my Mac Studio because the OS was running low on memory thanks to a misbehaving app that was taking 70 GB out of 64 GB physical RAM. Overall, almost 120 GB were used, most of it was compressed and a lot of it was swapped. It had absolutely zero effect on how useable the computer was, there was no unusual lag. Either Windows or Linux would have shat the bed long before that point.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately Linux is pretty damn bad under memory pressure, I think you'd get an objectively better experience on macOS. I say this as someone running Asahi right now.
But then, you don't usually run into memory pressure with 8 GB and Linux unless you do a few specific things (for me with 32-128 GB depending on machine it's C++ builds using all cores and of course local LLMs). I guess a bunch of Electron apps would also do it for 8 GB.
> you don't usually run into memory pressure with 8 GB and Linux unless you do a few specific things
Like using Chrome…
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate a light whoosh from a laptop.
No fan = leaving performance on the table due to lacking thermal headroom.
So what? The right amount of performance is what allows you to do what you have to do quickly enough. Anything beyond that is useless. It’s not like you have to use 100% of the theoretical performance of a computer all the time.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#307The most interesting part of this is the 8GB RAM decision. Soldered 8GB in 2026 is the sort of compromise that looks fine on day one and painful in year three
It's not "soldered". It's literally part of SOC package as it's comes out of TSMC lines. Using exactly the same iPhone chip is kind a the only reason they can target this price target. Hate to defend Apple here, but there are so many more garbage laptops out there for the same price tag that can as well just go directly into landfill. Apple at least have the volume to make sure Mac software actually works on said 8GB…
Yes they will reduce but for a start you have to buy yet another low end laptop. This time will be different.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#308>"~1.5-2GB of available application memory (after macOS overhead)." Having an OS eat up >75% of your memory on a fresh boot is not ideal. You're gambling on macOS experiencing zero bloat for the lifetime of this product. If the OS memory footprint grows even just a few percent, users of this model will lose a significant portion of available memory for applications. This model might trigger planned obsolescence legis…
> This model might trigger planned obsolescence legislation in some jurisdictions.
As opposed to years of garbage Windows laptops at the $600 price point, which you seem to expect will remain viable longer than the Neo ... ?
If any legislation comes out of this, it will simply be because of Apple's high profile. They were content to let e-rot fill the shelves for years before the Neo.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you forgot the best part: it is completely silent.
Still baffles the mind that Apple solved this issue some 20+ years ago, and others _still_ haven't. I remember being basically surrounded by jet engines running Word in school. A few years ago in an old job I got a monster-specced Dell laptop, and it would still roar if I opened anything. I had to pull all the nerf tricks through the BIOS to at least keep it somewhat tolerable in low-load scenarios (i.e. most of the…
I have a number of passively-cooled silent machines, from metal-chassis rugged subnotebooks popular with the military and field-service techs, to plastic cheapies intended for the student market.
They're all fairly low-spec in absolute terms, but even 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC is adequate to run Win10 and office apps, at least, it was before all the Copilot bloat. And you can buy them as an individual, if you search them out explicitly.
But that's not what the mass market buys when they go shopping. Partly because that's not what Best Buy puts on the shelf, and partly because Microsoft sternly warns that such machines aren't recommended for the AI-encumbered future. Gotta push 40 TOPS and have at least 16GB to get Microsoft's blessing, which I think is the single largest driving force behind the hardware upgrade cycle.
Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble
#310It’s 8GB because they want to sell you a 16GB model for the same price when the dram crisis is over. That way the marketing can be: double the memory for the same price. Apple has done this again and again, the more time people are spending talking about one single deficiency in your product, the less time they are spending on any other product. Then you solve that single issue in the next cycle.
> when the dram crisis is over. When it's over, Neo will be long obsolete.
I give it six months to a year.
All the current fabs are trying to balance current production with building next gen scaled up facilities. Can’t have both.