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

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

#381

Post by glial »

karmakaze wrote: post #18

Looking at this list comparing the M3 with M1 doesn't motivate me to want the M3. It seems most gains are GPU related. The M2 was underwhelming, and it seems the M3 isn't much better than the M2 so comparing against M1. > M3 takes MacBook Air performance even further: > Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip. > Enhancing an image with AI using Photomato…

If you're running LLMs locally using something like LM Studio or Jan.ai, a GPU bump will speed up text production.

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

#382

Post by dzhiurgis »

jandrese wrote: post #329
deergomoo wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? I’ve caught Safari using 22GB of memory another day.

Open 1000tabs and it will kill any machine.

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

#383

Post by MSFT_Edging »

opan wrote: post #299
The5thElephant wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what you can do in Pop_OS that makes MacOS software "meh" in comparison? I have a few friends who are Linux devotees yet watching them do stuff seems so tedious and slow in comparison to my workflows. Like I get that you can setup all sorts of keyboard shortcuts and stuff to do whatever you want, but that's also possible in MacOS, so what is it exactly that you can do better/faster in Pop_OS? For most of…

I've got a M2 Max MBP I'm not using yet because there's no way to get sshfs/fuse working with free as in freedom software on macOS, and Asahi doesn't support external displays yet, so it can't take over for my ThinkPad T440p with either OS. Package management and package availability is much worse in the macOS world. Nix is weirdly broken, at least the ARM macOS packages. Homebrew is okay but not very good, similar t…

> It's like a community of everyone scamming and mistreating each other instead of working together to improve things.

I was saying this exact thing to a friend of mine who is big into apple products and suggested that you could technically do the things I wanted to do on apple devices.

The general ecosystem between windows/linux/mac is very different. Windows freeware is all packaged and provided on sites last updated in 2002 and look like you'll get a virus despite the site being the defacto source.

Linux software feels a lot more unified(despite n+1 packaging schemes) and feels a lot more like a collective effort where anything is possible.

Mac software wants you to break out your wallet and contribute to the APPL bottom line in order to get some basic custom functionality for some app written by a single developer that will be quietly given up on in a couple years.

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

#384

Post by anneessens »

brigadier132 wrote: post #40
retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

> I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro I don't know why you bought a new one. You can have two ways to look at this, one way is your ultra pessimistic view, my view is I don't need to upgrade my laptop ever 2 years anymore. Before the M1 Max I was upgrading so often because intel macbooks sucked so much. Now I can comfortably say I'm keeping my M1 Max for a deca…

'Just don't be exploited' by people who are literally paid to figure out how to exploit your psychological weaknesses?

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

#385

Post by izacus »

numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

Oh come on, you're overexaggerating a bit. If you follow your pattern with Apple, you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing.

(And with more and more Electron apps, might struggle even with that once you hop onto a video call.)

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

#386

Post by yumraj »

jm4 wrote: post #301
skadamat wrote: post #160

I'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

I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.

No, what’s worse is Apple, or is it random self-styled influencers, spreading the false narrative that Apple Silicon magically requires less RAM and people actually believing that.

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

#387

Post by [deleted] »

jcynix wrote: post #302
bahmboo wrote: post #273

Earlier 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 ...

[deleted]

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

#388

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

skadamat wrote: post #160

I'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

Apple will do anything it can to "gate".

If it can identify something people will pay more for, while not quite putting off most people, it'll do it, no matter how mad.

So if most people think 8GB is fine for a laptop, they'll buy it, and everyone else pays through the nose for more.

Most people only want one extra screen? That's what you get on the base machine and you must pay (alot) for more. If one day most people need two, then you'll get two.

Apple seem to spend a lot of design time on how to extract the most money out of those willing to pay, no matter how annoying it is.

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

#389

Post by izacus »

Solvency wrote: post #293
xutopia wrote: post #151

Earlier 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.

Because you're not looking hard enough.

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

#390

Post by brocket »

miles wrote: post #377
brocket wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I accidentally discovered a huge hack for this by upgrading to a 49" DQHD monitor. It's the exact same resolution as two 27" 1440p monitors so it's like any Apple silicon chip has always supported dual external displays. And it was a much better overall value compared to buying 2 displays + over-specced macbook.

Do you mind sharing the monitor model? Found the Samsung LC49G97TSSNXDC for $999[1], but also a reddit thread about some issues with it and a 2019 MacBook Pro[2] (which is admittedly Intel rather than Apple silicon-based). [1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-odyssey-49-1000r-curved... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/mb9vnv...

Samsung CRG9 (previous sale at Costco for $749, currently $849) connected through HP USB-C Dock G5 (models are confusing, exact one I bought was https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RGC9QSL/). I'm using original base M1 Macbook (currently $749 at Costco) and have had zero issues with the monitor. Without the dock you might need a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter like mentioned in reddit comments you linked to, but I already had the dock from a previous workstation and everything just worked when I plugged it in.

Considering minor Macbook upgrades can get you into >$1500 price territory pretty easily I think this a fantastic value. If you wanted to buy my full setup right now it would be $849 + $749 + $145 = $1745 but you're getting “dual” monitors and dock that can be reused with any modern machine, making it easy to switch between work and play. I can even plug my Steam Deck into it. :) (No affiliation with any of these products!)

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