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MacBook Air with M5

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Re: MacBook Air with M5

#331

Post by philistine »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #187
elxr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus t…

Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?

Let me wax poetics here. Apple has been chasing the dream of the portable computer for so long, and has been at the forefront of the ultimate form factor of the personal computer, the laptop, since the early 90s. It's not surprising to me that the company that made an OS for everything, and a project to make an OS for everything, cannot figure out a reliable way to bring us a bicycle for the mind where you just close the lid.

Only Apple has been laser-focused to give us this experience.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#332

Post by anakaine »

overfeed wrote: post #328
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…

Why the restriction to laptops? I don't get why prosumers would marry themselves 24/7 to a single portable device, when their conflicting requirements vary by task and circumstances: portability, high performance, low energy usage, and low noise aren't permanent requirements. Sure, there's no single device that has Apple's blend of attributes, but who need that in this age of VMs and broadband Internet? My 32-core HE…

> My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded

Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks.

The market segment that exists for Macbook Pro is one where competitors battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial. Its one where they have acceptable performance vs a dedicated desktop but remain portable and a good expected lifespan, as a portable.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#333

Post by JoshTriplett »

odiroot wrote: post #230
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…

If this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department. Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux. X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.

> X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.

I think the X1 Carbon line is the best direct competitor.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#334

Post by JoshTriplett »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #252
odiroot wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department. Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux. X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.

How’s ACPI and real suspend (not that “fake” soft suspend) these days? I’m still burned after running Linux on a laptop since 2002 and not having proper power management for suspend :( … if it’s not the power layer, it’s the network, video, Bluetooth that won’t power up anymore after a nap

> How’s ACPI and real suspend

On a current ThinkPad? Essentially perfect. Zero problems suspending and resuming, no matter what's going on, including weird cases like suspending while docked and resuming while undocked or vice versa.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#335

Post by raffraffraff »

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…

Even though I'm done with apple, every time I use a non-apple laptop I think "this is a shit trackpad".

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#336

Post by varispeed »

std_move wrote: post #261
mholm wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If it's not aggressive then quickly laptop will be too hot to touch. For instance, I did tune the fan on my friend's laptop so that it wouldn't be waking up everyone for light browsing, but then it was getting uncomfortably hot. None of such issues on Macs.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#337

Post by overfeed »

anakaine wrote: post #332
overfeed wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the restriction to laptops? I don't get why prosumers would marry themselves 24/7 to a single portable device, when their conflicting requirements vary by task and circumstances: portability, high performance, low energy usage, and low noise aren't permanent requirements. Sure, there's no single device that has Apple's blend of attributes, but who need that in this age of VMs and broadband Internet? My 32-core HE…

> My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks. The market segment that exists for Macbook Pro is one where competitors battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial. Its one where they have acceptable performance vs a dedica…

> Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks.

Here's the kicker: it cost about the same as the highest end Macbook pro before the RAM madness.

> The market segment that exists one where battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and some high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial.

I agree the market exists, but think it's much smaller than it appears: most people do not work under these constraints most of the time; a cheap laptop + beefy desktop could do a better job in aggregate, wirh greater flexibility, especially for people who spend most of their time at the desk with their computer plugged in - which is most people.

I suspect the portability requirement is sometimes aspirational, similar to the people who buy trucks overestimating the number of times they'll need to cary stuff on the truck bed.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#338

Post by nekooooo »

noman-land wrote: post #297
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…

"it has no annoying fans" I beg to differ ;)

what is this, slashdot? 

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#339

Post by darkwater »

bobbane wrote: post #299
timothyduong wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lemons do happen with Apple Silicon. I had a Mac Studio that would kernel panic on a semi-weekly basis. Apple Care put me through the reinstall OS / remove all external devices tap-dance for weeks, insisting that hardware was the last thing to suspect - before Apple Silicon, kernel panics were almost always hardware, particularly RAM. Ultimately I bought another Studio and swapped it in - kernel panics went away. Wit…

Needing to shell out... what? 2000 bucks to prove Apple Support they were wrong seems a very, very bad sign for that Support. Even if you got them back.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#340

Post by junga »

odiroot wrote: post #230
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…

If this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department. Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux. X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.

There's not much difference between the keyboard of the X13 Gen 6 and the keyboard of the MacBook Pro M1. I own both devices. The keyboard of my T14s Gen 1 on the other hand is noticeably better.
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