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

MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

jdhodges.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 433 posts

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#381

Post by Rohansi »

alsetmusic wrote: post #341
Jaepa wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be an arguments that you can install a lighter OS on these machines. That's not as easy with MacOS.

No. Nothing about MacOS prevents users from installing alternative OSes. Even with Apple's custom chips, that remains true. It's only that it's a smaller target that limits options as fewer people are writing software for that hardware than for x86. See Asahi to verify[0]. I've been a donor since the week they opened a Patreon account. 0. https://asahilinux.org/fedora/

> Nothing about MacOS prevents users from installing alternative OSes. Even with Apple's custom chips, that remains true.

Reminder that the possibility of installing a third-party operating system on Apple hardware is not a given. The same silicon is used in iPhones and iPads where you absolutely cannot install another operating system.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#382

Post by njovin »

giantrobot wrote: post #375
njovin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, and as a big fan of Apple laptops, I've had so much trouble with their USB and SDCard hardware when it comes to data transfer that I wonder if I'm cursed or if I'm crazy. Transferring a about a dozen GB of data over USB3 is a crapshoot depending on the drive you have. Even amongst name-brands with similar advertised speeds, some thumb drives are basically useless with my 2024 MBP and I've had similar iss…

I've had similar issues with microSD in a variety of adapters. I think the core issue is most microSD cards just aren't built, in terms of thermals, for sustained writes. In most devices they're either read-heavy loads or burst-y writes. When you stick them in a warm laptop and do a lot of writes they overheat and start throwing errors. For many cards their drive controller might advertise and support higher UHS spee…

I've read the same, but for me, a newly-formatted microSD will overheat as soon as it's plugged into the MBP. The OS may be reading/writing something to cause that, but it's automated as part of the mounting process from what I've seen.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#383

Post by kefirlife »

darkteflon wrote: post #38

I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school. It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 year…

I agree from a hardware perspective. Once Apple drops software support for the device it makes it less useful online. With Intel based Mac I can install Linux and a 13 year old machine is still fine for a lot of tasks. With Apple silicon, I wonder about what options will exist when you reach this point of no longer having software support from Apple. Asahi project is a nice effort to support this journey, though I do not know if I can expect that to exist long term or with support for future m cpu variants.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#385

Post by baybal2 »

storus wrote: post #78
wlesieutre wrote: post #37

> The I/O is also a genuine limitation: one USB 2.0 port is functionally useless for data transfer, no Thunderbolt means no fast external storage, and charging occupies your only USB 3 port. You're supposed to use the USB-2 port for charging and save the USB-3 port for external accessories, not the other way around It only supports 10Gb/s compared to 40 that USB-4 is theoretically capable of, but that's more than eno…

Both 10Gb/s and 8GB RAM limit come from iPhone 16 Pro chip limitations used in Neo. Next year's should have 12GB of RAM.

[dead]

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#386

Post by baq »

sgt wrote: post #327
baq wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hardware? yes. software? macos is a disaster after disaster, worse each year. currently deferring upgrade to tahoe for as long as corporate IT lets me.

Complete hogwash, of course. Tahoe is running just fine for me and for nearly hundred of my co-workers. People complain about the strangest things too, like the corners of windows. I am resizing a hundred times a day and it works fine.

please. I was an early adopter of sequoia and the firewall/crowdstrike corrupting packets was something else. scarred for life.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#387

Post by [deleted] »

kefirlife wrote: post #383
darkteflon wrote: post #38

I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school. It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 year…

I agree from a hardware perspective. Once Apple drops software support for the device it makes it less useful online. With Intel based Mac I can install Linux and a 13 year old machine is still fine for a lot of tasks. With Apple silicon, I wonder about what options will exist when you reach this point of no longer having software support from Apple. Asahi project is a nice effort to support this journey, though I do…

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#388

Post by jmm5 »

kefirlife wrote: post #383
darkteflon wrote: post #38

I bought an 8gb M1 Air in 2020 (for what now feels like an absurdly small sum of money) as an experiment in how-cheap-is-too-cheap / chuckable travel laptop. I ended up using it as my main laptop for 2 years without regret, then handed it to my son for school. It remains in perfect condition and as delightful to use as the day I bought it (Apple software snafus notwithstanding). I fully expect to get at least 10 year…

I agree from a hardware perspective. Once Apple drops software support for the device it makes it less useful online. With Intel based Mac I can install Linux and a 13 year old machine is still fine for a lot of tasks. With Apple silicon, I wonder about what options will exist when you reach this point of no longer having software support from Apple. Asahi project is a nice effort to support this journey, though I do…

By the time Apple drops support for the M1 I imagine that Asahi will be fairly mature.

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#389

Post by iknowstuff »

Jaepa wrote: post #322
whynotminot wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This model might trigger planned obsolescence legislation in some jurisdictions. As opposed to years of garbage Windows laptops at the $600 price point, which you seem to expect will remain viable longer than the Neo ... ? If any legislation comes out of this, it will simply be because of Apple's high profile. They were content to let e-rot fill the shelves for years before the Neo.

There could be an arguments that you can install a lighter OS on these machines. That's not as easy with MacOS.

Asahi is easier to install on Macs than distros for Windows PCs.

You just run a CLI command and follow simple prompts.

On Windows PCs, you have to go buy a flash stick, download a tool for flashing it for your BIOS/UEFI (and maybe learn MBR vs GPT), wait while that happens, maybe learn about partitions and repartition your disk ahead of time, mess with your BIOS to change boot order, hope you don't wipe your data by selecting the wrong partition etc

(the fact that this is still the status quo is crazy. The nerds need to pay more attention to the funnel)

Re: MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble

#390

Post by weezing »

wiseowise wrote: post #80
weezing wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really do that when out in the wild?

LLM addicts do. The AI overlord said to touch grass, because it is beneficial, but they've glanced over the main part of "disconnect from everything".

That's kinda sad to be honest. It's better to just disconnect and enjoy the surroundings. You can get shit done and then rest outside without LLM bullshit.
Post reply on HN