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Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#311

Post by lawnchair_larry »

sreque wrote: post #273
starbugs wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought my first 15" MBP in 2006 after Apple switched to Intel. I was a student back then and I got it for about 1800 EUR. It was a beautiful machine, I could replace the battery myself without unscrewing anything, and if I wanted to upgrade the memory or HDD I could do that easily. Now here we are 12 years and a couple of Macs later. The current MBP is a bit more beautiful than the first one I got, it's noticeably…

I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude Apple's software is vastly superior. Apple has always been and continues to be a hardware-first company; their software always lags behind. In the past two days I've had to reboot my mac twice because the headhone jack stopped working. At my previous job, the terminal program segfaulted at least once a week. Bluetooth is notoriously flaky and requires frequent reboots…

Nah, Mac users hate Windows. Personally, I don’t know how any power user can be productive on Windows, and I don’t know how people put up with the bugginess, forced reboots, and invasive telemetry. I use both heavily and hate Windows more with each passing day. It wasn’t so bad around Windows 7, but still not a productive environment for someone who relies on basic unix tools and a working terminal (I know about WSL...).

But these are just my preferences, and clearly many disagree.

Your reboot problem on the Mac was hardware, not software, by the way. Macs have had hardware reliability problems, and they usually mean the whole thing is junk, minus the case or screen. I wish Apple software on third party hardware was a viable option, personally.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#312

Post by mediocrejoker »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #95

The Air of my wife was the worst computer we've owned, yellow display with dark areas, Wifi basically doesn't work anywhere and trackpad broken in a short amount of time.

Do you and your wife live underground, in an active coal mine? If not you must admit that your experience is atypical for that computer.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#313

Post by chx »

geoelectric wrote: post #222
chx wrote: post #138

> 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, with 4MB L3 cache... Intel UHD Graphics 617 https://twitter.com/tum_apisak/status/1034639298174148608 it's a custom chip made for Apple. Look at the other Amber Lake Y chips: https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/186968/Amber-Lake-Y they have lower base but higher Turbo and UHD 615 not UHD 617.

Any idea how these compare to the 2.9Ghz dual core i7 in the 2015 MacBook Pro 13"? I'm expecting these to be slower, but have no concept of what an apples to apples comparison looks like there since clock speed can be so misleading between generations. Ditto the UHD 617 vs. Iris 6100, for that matter.

> since clock speed can be so misleading between generations

I am sorry but no. They haven't been misleading for a long, long time. IPC grew from Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake only by 20% https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/01/13/kaby_lake_7700k_v... and since then nothing because Intel is barely doing more than tweaking the Turbo profiles because 10nm is not happening. All these years the progress was more in power consumption than anything else. Note how ThinkPads (and the world) moved from 35W dual core to 15W dual core chips. So if you compare them clock to clock you won't be far. But you don't know what clock of the chip actually will be because the problem with Y CPUs the problem always was: how good is the cooling, how long are they are able to maintain their top Turbo before throttling. Noone can say as there are no Amber Lake laptops yet and much less an Apple. What we can say with surety is even if it has exceptional great cooling it can only keep up with the 5557U in single core, in multi core performance it'll be half at best.

The UHD 617 is not officially launched but https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-HD-615-Mobile-Ka... the Iris Pro is a different class to the HD 615. I do not expect anything groundbreaking between the HD 615 and the 617. Check the difference between 610 and 615: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel--HD-610-Desktop-...

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#314

Post by jakobegger »

tqi wrote: post #283

Been a long time since I bought a new computer. How should I think about / compare the processor options of the new MBA[1] and the non-touchbar MBP[2]? I've seen the passmark results, but have no idea how to interpret. [1]: 8th Gen 1.6-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 [2]: 7th Gen 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5

According to Anandtech the new MBA has a 5W TDP Y series chip. The non-touchbar MBP has a 15W TDP U series chip. So I'd assume that the MBP is going to be a lot faster in practice, even though it's one generation older.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13531/apple-2018-macbook-air-...

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#315

Post by nkkollaw »

em500 wrote: post #196
nkkollaw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "stable" mean? Keys don't stop working because of dust anymore..?

> What does "stable" mean? They mean the entire keys descends evenly even if you press the key near the edge, see: https://youtu.be/afNHG3jyPU4?t=265

That's what I thought.

The keyboard on my old 2016 MBP stopped functioning after 3 months: repeated characters, missing characters.

Who cares about stability!? Those keyboards don't work as keyboards!

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#316

Post by nkkollaw »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #109
nkkollaw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "stable" mean? Keys don't stop working because of dust anymore..?

Having recently been switched from a 2013 MBP to 2018 MBP -- the older keycaps could wiggle a little bit if you rested your fingers on them. The new keys don't exhibit this behavior, but don't feel as nice to type on.

I think it's a non-problem.

The new keyboards cease functioning with dust particles.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#317

Post by dogma1138 »

SyneRyder wrote: post #282
pinewurst wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are different chips in the sense of being different generations. It's interesting that the Air is a "Y" part which is the same low-power/lower performance family as the Macbook. No updates for the Macbook yet otherwise they probably would be the same. Macbook 12" 2017 = i7-7Y75 (top spec, cheaper ones are lower clocked i3/i5 Y) Macbook Air 2018 = i7-8510Y (617 graphics supposedly faster)

I'm not sure it's an i7-8510Y - note that the MacBook Air specs [1] say it's an i5 chip. (And you can't upgrade it to an i7 either.) I'm not sure we know what chip it actually is yet. [1] https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/silver-1.6...

i5 and i7 are the same chip with HT enabled on the latter but disabled on the former.

It’s still the same Amber Lake dies which are the same as KBLY.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#318

Post by nkkollaw »

gootdude wrote: post #114
nkkollaw wrote: post #65

Sure, but it has the horrible butterfly keyboard--with those crammed up arrows I hate so much--and all ports are gone. Also, how do we kniw they'll stay without releasing another one for another 5 years? As a MacBook Air user for years, I'm glad I jumped ship a year ago.

What did you replace it with? Would love to upgrade with something as reliable as this 2013 Air I've been abusing everyday for years. I'd give anything for a windows laptop with the trackpad and reliable sleep/hibernate you get from osx/apple laptops.

I you can afford it, a Surface Book. Otherwise, a Dell XPS.

I personally use Linux Xfce, but Windows is just great.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#319

Post by dogma1138 »

pinewurst wrote: post #302
SyneRyder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's an i7-8510Y - note that the MacBook Air specs [1] say it's an i5 chip. (And you can't upgrade it to an i7 either.) I'm not sure we know what chip it actually is yet. [1] https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/silver-1.6...

The i7-8510Y is the only one with the specified 617 graphics, but thanks for pointing out that difference. Maybe they have a slightly lower-spec custom i5 SKU from Intel? I'd be surprised though if it wasn't a Y-device nevertheless.

The only thing custom in it is the naming, the GT2 is a single slice iGPU there is nothing to enable in it over the 615 which is already a full slice my bet is that if there is any difference is that the 617 has a boost clock of 1100 instead of 1050mhz or something silly like this.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#320

Post by exabrial »

publicfig wrote: post #266
exabrial wrote: post #235

"Finally"? I don't think anyone is clamoring for the touch bar. The TouchID is fairly useful, but the only time I ever use the Touchbar is accidental.

It doesn't come with the Touch Bar, just Touch ID as an independent key

OH, nice! I guess I didn't pay good enough attention to the pics! This is actually pretty close to what I want!
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