Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#331

Post by gs17 »

jhickok wrote: post #158
samuell wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With what RAM? ... and what weight? For $1700 you can get a sub-1kg Asus ExpertBook B9 with 32GB RAM and a 2TB disk and a decent 12th 12 core Gen Intel CPU. https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ExpertBook-i7-1255U-Military-B94... Not saying it is better in all respects, but definitely in some, meaning there are definitely alternatives.

I think it's good to correct some exaggeration, but personally I would still prefer an 8gb M2 with small storage on a laptop that easily gets all day battery life. If it were going to sit on my desk 24/7 connected to a monitor, then I'd take the Asus ExpertBook. But as someone who travels and works from home but works all over the house or out of coffee shops, I would easily prefer the Mac.

>personally I would still prefer an 8gb M2 with small storage

And it would specifically have to be an M2 since they upped it to 256GB minimum. I have the lowest end M1, and the tiny SSD is a constant pain when combined with the lack of RAM.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#332

Post by xutopia »

regus wrote: post #326

Here 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?

Honestly if you don't see the point with your use case go for the cheaper option.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#333

Post by Garcia98 »

sempron64 wrote: post #69
ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

> The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality control that confuse consumers and leave them unhappy. This is the flip side of choice in prioritizing, say, gaming performance over battery life while optimizing price or vice-versa.

This is 100% it, Lenovo has been killing it lately with their Yoga/Slim series, but for every laptop they have that competes with a MacBook, they also have a myriad of other options that are just e-waste. At the end of the day, the average consumer is not going to do the same kind of research that a tech enthusiast might do, and Apple has a somewhat simple catalog (although incredibly overpriced once you step out of the entry configs).

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#334

Post by bsder »

ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

What's extremely absurd is that most models in the x86 space seem to have gone backwards on screen resolution.

My 5 year old Lenovo Carbon X1 14" is 2560x1440 while I can't buy a current X1 with anything above 1920x1200 for any price. WTF?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#335

Post by gs17 »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #159
dbbk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can guarantee you that most people buying the $999 laptop have 5 Chrome tabs open and don't store files on their computer. 8GB/256GB is fine.

256gb is 3 AAA games. luckily Apple solves this problem by not being able to run any games.

At least on my MBA, 50-60 GB is taken up by the system itself, so 2 games really.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#336

Post by moolcool »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #314
moolcool wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big factor is how these machines age too, though. 4 years ago the 2020 M1 Macbook Air dropped, and it's still a fantastic computer today. On the other hand, I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

Why not? It benchmarks really good: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+5600U&i... Here's the M1: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Apple+M1+8+Core+320...

I'm just thinking more in terms of hardware. Trackpad, keyboard, display, hinges, ports, support, battery life-- all of those (in my experience) tend to either be poor out of the box or decay rapidly for many machines. I've used an "enterprise" HP laptop that's just a couple years old recently-- the battery is totally cooked and it feels like it's made out of takeout containers.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#338

Post by saurik »

xutopia wrote: post #151
sempron64 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. It is probably the best laptop in the $1K price range for laptops that don't have a GPU, but that's basically it. The main problem with the non-Apple laptop market is that there is a mind-boggling number of confusing models, SKUs, processor/gpu variants, etc., and wildly variable physical quality…

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.

I solve these problems by: 1) only ever buying machines without fans; 2) barely ever touching a mouse; and 3) using my phone for speakers and camera... all three of which I was doing even when I used to use a Mac as fans have always sucked, I am a software developer and don't need or want a mouse, and Apple's laptop cameras have always been much worse than the phones in their phones AND meeting software tends to do dumb things if you screen share and try to just be in the meeting at the same time (and do it is often better to have an external camera device off to the side).

I then just have to buy any laptop that: 1) doesn't weigh much; 2) doesn't have a fan (this is so much more difficult than it should be it is insane); and 3) has a good enough monitor... I care a lot about resolution and brightness but it might be I don't care enough about color accuracy as I am a software developer and so honestly barely have much use for more than 16 colors and mostly look at photos, again, on my phone (which is also my camera and my media device in general as it is simply better at that so this makes sense). If you are a graphics designer, though, I get it... but weren't they always Apple's core market?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#339

Post by xcv123 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #91
pama wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting difference with the new pro models, if you want to pay around $5k, is that you can have 128Gb unified Ram in them and run inference locally with exciting LLMs.

5k for a computer with 128gb doesn’t seem like a great deal. You can get that much ddr5 today for like $400 sometimes less than that on sale.

> You can get that much ddr5 today for like $400

Not comparable. M2 Ultra with 128GB RAM has 800 GB/s bandwidth.

Maximum bandwidth for a DDR5 Intel 14900K system is 89.6 GB/s. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236773/...

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#340

Post by nodesocket »

I currently have a 16" M1 Max and thinking about picking up a 15" M3 Air. My understanding is the M3 is faster in single core performance but the M1 Max is faster in multi-core because of obviously more cores. Am I really going to see a performance difference switching from M1 Max to M3 or should I splurge and go for M3 Pro or M3 Max?
Post reply on HN