How is Apple able to use the MagSafe connector in the EU?
They also charge via any of the USB-C ports.
New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
321–330 of 1001 posts
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#322The 24GB memory limit is pathetic in 2024.
What are you doing on a MBA that utilizes all 24GB? I’m legit curious because I feel like applications that need a ton of ram probably also want better perf than the MBA can provide anyways or come in a better form factor than a laptop.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind 2 displays are only supported with the lid closed. So the only change is that now you can use an external monitor in lieu of the internal display.
Lid closed? Depends on the exact Macbook version ... The lid of my MacBook Pro (M1 pro, 16-inch, 2021) is open and actively displays stuff and additionally two external LG 4K monitors are directly connected to it via USB-C. The third USB-C port is in use for external disks, but maybe I should try sometime to connect a third monitor ...? But nevertheless, Apple's hardware strategy sucks ...
I was referring to the new M3 MacBook Airs. Other models are different as you point out.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind 2 displays are only supported with the lid closed. So the only change is that now you can use an external monitor in lieu of the internal display.
Lid closed? Depends on the exact Macbook version ... The lid of my MacBook Pro (M1 pro, 16-inch, 2021) is open and actively displays stuff and additionally two external LG 4K monitors are directly connected to it via USB-C. The third USB-C port is in use for external disks, but maybe I should try sometime to connect a third monitor ...? But nevertheless, Apple's hardware strategy sucks ...
The 2 display limitation is for the base model Mx. The Mx Pro supports 3 displays and the Max 5. All three numbers are for internal+external displays.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget the touch pad / gesture recognition. You can tell Windows laptops are general computers, the hardware fires off the gesture recognition and gives the command to the OS, so you swipe, it's recognized, then you get the action. On Mac, the gesture is registered as it's happening, you can pull the screen, cancel, flick it, etc. Not to mention the convenience of taking it to any Apple store and the battery li…
Can you explain technically the hardware difference here? Or is there none and Apple's track firmware/software is just better.
Probably some vendor provides the trackpad, and provides a driver for that trackpad, and it recognizes the gesture and then sends Windows a `GestureHappened()` event.
Versus macOS being fully integrated and effectively generating `GestureProgress(0.31)` events.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#326Here is a question for all you Mac experts:
I purchased an M1 Mac Mini and I regret it, I should have gotten a laptop because I often find myself wanting to use my computer outside of my office. I am not doing anything crazy with this thing, just photo editing and light coding.
Is there any reason why I should choose a Pro over an Air at this point?
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with your assessment. Things that matter to me and that all Windows laptops in the same price range or lower as the MBA have shittier speakers, camera, monitor (both brightness and color accuracy). The trackpad feels entirely wrong on those plastic devices and often you have loud fans turning on at random times. Furthermore they're usually heavier despite being made out of plastic rather than metal.
Why has it been so utterly impossible for a single Windows laptop manufacturer to match the build quality? Just matching the body itself would at last be SOMETHING.
I suspect it has to do with the effect of scale. Apple operates with limited number of models and that means they get volume for each mould and assembly lines. If you did 20000 laptops of one model versus 2 million you can definitely can put way more thought into every detail and that translates into higher quality.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#328I'm still very bummed with Apple's strategy in using # of supported external displays as a feature to gate laptops. I had to return a decently spec-ced M3 Macbook PRO 14" because it only supported 1 display (base M3) and pay more for M3 pro even though I don't need the extra horsepower. And now the base M3 Air's support 2 displays? This is wild
It's on-chip silicon, not a marketing feature. This kind of product design is just really hard. Mask sets get well into the billions of dollars, you can't just assemble a list of features as if they're all free. You need to decide upfront, often years in advance, what feature you think people will want to buy for the market you think you'll find yourself in. There are no easy answers. But just in general, Intel has a…
Eh, Apple was happy to squeeze even before then.
I had a 2019 cheesegrater Mac Pro. With Catalina, I was able to drive two 4K screens at 144Hz in HDR10, because Catalina apparently supported DSC 1.4.
Then they introduced the ProDisplay XDR with Big Sur which had people agog at "how were they able to drive this 6K display given the bandwidth limitations?"
Well, the answer is because they absolutely nerfed/bastardized DSC 1.4 from Big Sur (and it's maybe only been updated in Monterey? Unsure, I no longer have the screens - ironically I bought an XDR) to make it happen with some proprietary magic: those same screens could now only be driven at 60Hz in HDR10 or 95Hz in SDR.
Proof in the pudding was that my monitors (LG27GN950-B) actually allowed you to change the advertised/supported DSC version, and when I "downgraded" the monitors to DSC 1.2, performance actually improved, and allowed 120Hz SDR and 95Hz HDR.
This happened with many many users, across many screen types.
Apple studiously ignored it, and may still be. They simply don't care if you're not using an Apple display.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.
I believe we are now in the 9th year of 8GB being the baseline Mac laptop RAM config. It’s incredibly stingy. For a while you could make the argument that a lot of Air purchasers wouldn’t need it, but I don’t think that’s the case any more. My wife has an M1 Air with 8GB and between Office, Chrome, Teams, and Slack she quite regularly gets beachballs and weird performance hitches.
My wife has been complaining to me about how she regularly gets the "choose which application to terminate" dialog on her Air. I knew in my heart that 8GB wouldn't be future proof, but I underestimated how fast it would be a problem. She pretty much just runs Safari and Libreoffice Calc too, nothing that should really tax the machine.
Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip
#330I'm still very bummed with Apple's strategy in using # of supported external displays as a feature to gate laptops. I had to return a decently spec-ced M3 Macbook PRO 14" because it only supported 1 display (base M3) and pay more for M3 pro even though I don't need the extra horsepower. And now the base M3 Air's support 2 displays? This is wild
The m3 mbp is getting macos update to match MBA m3 display support, so you'll get 2 external displays with lid closed too. https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/04/14-inch-m3-macbook-pro-multi-...
I can do 4 monitors with my lid closed with my Dell XPS 13. It is crazy to see an Apple Laptop that costs $2000+ cannot do a laptop that costs $1000. People with money really don't know how to shop.