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Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

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Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#341

Post by egypturnash »

yardie wrote: post #291
bombcar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever wizard at Apple came up with "the number of monitors" as a distinguishing difference between price levels should get a pretty big raise. It's perfect segmentation, most people don't care, and those that do will pay.

The Touchbar in the 13" MBP counts as a display. So the Pro already runs 2 displays and can add a third. The same GPU+CPU is in the MBA which only runs 1 + 1 external display. It't not a limitation of GPU or whatever they want you to believe. This is pure market segmentation.

Does it? The touch bar is something like 2170x60px. That's a tiny fraction of the processing power and data bandwidth compared to an actual screen. In terms of raw pixel count, it's only about 2x as many pixels as my old Commodore 64 would push every frame. Each of those pixels is a lot deeper but it's still probably pretty much a rounding error compared to how much is being dealt with for the internal screen, never mind an external one.

(Hell, is the central GPU even running the touchbar, or is there a specialized display circuit just for it?)

That said, my reaction to this whole thread is pretty much "I guess multiple external monitors is a reason to upsell you to a Pro machine" so we agree on that point :)

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#342

Post by FollowingTheDao »

haswell wrote: post #286
dylan604 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to show our commitment to our users, we're only responsible for 25% of future cancer where our competitors are responsible for 29%. I just don't see that line being effective.

What do you propose, then? Should they just not say anything at all? Or is your contention that the product should not even exist?

Yes, they should say nothing at all. Instead of saying things like "This means that every Mac Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral."

Carbon Neutrality is branding and does nothing to reverse CO2 or climate change. It is all green washing.

https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article256-the-carbon-ne...

Better for the environment is never buying another computer.

Yes, I am saying that the MacBook Air M1 I am writing on right now should not exist. That what short term gains I am getting from it now will end up causing all your kids to suffer. I am saying you are all sacrificing your children future for novelty and convince. I ams also saying there is no way out of this because we have built this Tower of Babel and what will happen now is out of our hands.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#343

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #14

This looks like what the Macbook (2015) wanted to be. Keyboard and single port aside, it was a fantastic form factor, albeit crushingly slow. Mine no longer holds a charge, and am eagerly awaiting replacing it with one of these. Over time I've also noticed I no longer care about having the fastest possible laptop, since my job provides me with an MBP and that's where serious work gets done. I have a feeling this is g…

I own a 12" Retina MacBook and I am sad that none of the new laptops can really replace it. They're all significantly larger and heavier. The new MacBook Air is a replacement for the old MacBook Air, not the MacBook. It's a shame Apple have given up on the ultra-ultra-lightweight MacBook concept, considering that the M1 would be perfect for it.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#344

Post by coldtea »

grumpyprole wrote: post #111

Almost 10 years ago we purchased a MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for approx 2K UK pounds. It's really surprising and disappointing that a decade later these same specs essentially cost the same!

Yeah, only

- the processor has several times more transistors and cores,

- plus several special purposes devices for encoding video, AI tasks, and so on

- the video performance is several times faster

- the battery lasts 4 times as much,

- the RAM is several times faster,

- the SSD is 4-5x faster,

- the display has twice the resolution and extremelly improved brightness and color rendition...

and so on

So dissapointing /s

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#345

Post by postalrat »

cassianoleal wrote: post #295
grumpyprole wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to be rude but this is an inaccurate and poor understanding of computers Not to be rude, but a poor understanding of computers would be to think that speed is all that matters. Software has only been getting more and more complex and bloated over the last 10 years. What good is 16GB of super fast RAM if the machine is swapping out to disk regularly?

> a poor understanding of computers would be to think that speed is all that matters. > What good is 16GB of super fast RAM if the machine is swapping out to disk regularly? If the swapping is fast enough not to be noticeable, then speed is all that matters. In fact, if SSDs were about as fast as RAM, we wouldn't need RAM at all! The whole reason why we have all these layers of memory (disk, RAM, L3, L2 and L1 cache,…

Disk can have high transfer speeds but access time isn't at all comparable to ram.

I was interested until I saw it tops out at 8gb. My environment typically needs just over 16gb.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#347

Post by grishka »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #320

I don't understand why the new M2 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar exists. Looks like it adds active cooling but keeps an old design? Is it for generalists who don't want the 14"? Who is it for?

For those 3 people who genuinely think that the touch bar is useful. And isn't it cheaper and lower-end than the M1 Pro/Max 14"? (gosh is their naming confusing)

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#348

Post by cassianoleal »

postalrat wrote: post #345
cassianoleal wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a poor understanding of computers would be to think that speed is all that matters. > What good is 16GB of super fast RAM if the machine is swapping out to disk regularly? If the swapping is fast enough not to be noticeable, then speed is all that matters. In fact, if SSDs were about as fast as RAM, we wouldn't need RAM at all! The whole reason why we have all these layers of memory (disk, RAM, L3, L2 and L1 cache,…

Disk can have high transfer speeds but access time isn't at all comparable to ram. I was interested until I saw it tops out at 8gb. My environment typically needs just over 16gb.

> Disk can have high transfer speeds but access time isn't at all comparable to ram.

I never said it was. I said _if_ it was, we wouldn't need RAM.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#349

Post by lh7777 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #133

Love it, but the lack of ports still seems like a bit of an issue. It looks like the MBA and 13in MBP only have 2 USBC ports, with one used for charging (they don’t have magsafe from what i can see). The 14/16in MBPs have 3 USBC, HDMI, SD card + a separate magsafe charging port.

One of my favorite things about my 2020 13" MBP (Intel) is that it has USB-C ports on both sides, so it's a bit disappointing that Apple decided not to carry that feature on to the smaller M1 Macbooks. The 14" M1 seems like a big hit to portability just to get a few extra ports.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#350

Post by knownastron »

frankjr wrote: post #321

I'm pretty sure the Air would be enough for me performance-wise but the number of ports is a problem - I have 3 USB-C ports occupied right now. Any tips for a docking station?

This docking station is highly recommended on HN: https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/
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