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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#401

Post by tasuki »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #315
gavinray wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen question: why do people care how bulky a laptop is? I buy gaming laptops because they're the only powerful laptops and their size has never bothered me when traveling

If you don't travel from your house with it I understand your confusion, the weight is a factor when traveling. I never have back pain, but when I do, its because I'm carrying a heavy laptop around on my back.

> I never have back pain, but when I do, its because I'm carrying a heavy laptop around on my back.

Just how heavy is your laptop?

You need a better backpack I think? I regularly carry 10kg of groceries in my backpack over two kilometers. It never gave me any back pain.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#402

Post by olyjohn »

electrograv wrote: post #191
ragazzina wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro >The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro Well why should they, you already bought the more expensive one.

I’ve considered trying an ultralight PC laptop with a superior screen. But the sad state of reality is that: (1) Windows these days feels like a constant battle against forcibly installed adware / malware. (2) Linux would be great, but getting basic laptop essentials like reliable sleep/wake and power management to work even remotely well in Linux continues to be a painful losing battle. (3) Apple’s M series chips’ p…

You don't buy a PC and try to run MacOS on it do you? Then why do people keep buying random laptops and then complaining when Linux doesn't run on it? You buy a laptop from a vendor who designs them to run Linux out of the box.

Also, Apple's power management isn't flawless either. It used to be fantastic, but I've never, ever seen a laptop that has to charge for 15 minutes before you can even boot it from a flat battery. This seems to happen if I leave my laptop powered off for more than a few days. Like, turned completely off, not sleeping with the lid shut.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#403

Post by walterbell »

klaas- wrote: post #353
m01 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you upgrade the storage of your XPS laptop? Maybe check out the Framework laptops? For example the Framework 13's new screen is 2.8k @ 256PPI apparently [1], which has slightly more pixels than the Macbook Air M4[2] (obviously pixels isn't everything), but you can get up to 8TB NVMe storage + an extra storage expansion cards if you're happy to sacrifice ports and up to 96GB RAM. [3] [1] https://community.frame.wo…

I'd say the primary problem of framework is security updates for bios etc

Were they delayed?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#404

Post by tasuki »

maleldil wrote: post #344
gavinray wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen question: why do people care how bulky a laptop is? I buy gaming laptops because they're the only powerful laptops and their size has never bothered me when traveling

Try walking a few kilometres with a 3kg gaming laptop on your back or standing up inside public transport.

Yes, I'd rather carry a lighter laptop, but that's mostly because of all the other stuff I want to carry in my backpack (eg groceries). If walking "a few kilometres with a 3kg gaming laptop on your back" is a problem for you, you're rather out of shape.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#405

Post by ndiddy »

jghn wrote: post #218
petesergeant wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now Literally the only people I know with non-iPhones are: * People who can't afford one * People who want a folding screen * People who are conceptually anti-Apple Apple have over 50% market share in the US, talking about "struggling to obtain new market share" seems bizarre.

* People who have been left behind by Apple's push towards phablets

Where do they go? Apart from random Chinese vendors like Unihertz who sell low-spec devices and you're lucky if you get one version update, the smallest Android phones I've seen are Samsung Galaxy phones, which are about the same size as an iPhone 16. Asus and Sony used to make small phones, but they've stopped in the last couple of years in favor of making phablets.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#406

Post by auto »

whstl wrote: post #138
kotaKat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly. If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.

> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target Definitely. I have ZERO rational reasons to upgrade from my lowest-spec first-gen Air M1. I use it everyday and speed and battery life are still way more than I need.

This mimics my experience. I bought the absolute bottom barrel M1 when they launched to replace my 2014 MBP, 8gb RAM and 128gb of space. The HD space is annoying, but otherwise this machine is untouchable. I do game dev work bouncing between the MBA and my gaming rig, which is Ryzen 7 2700, 64gb RAM and a 3070, and with certain benchmarks, the MBA still wins, silently, on battery for hours. Still blows my mind.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#407

Post by achandlerwhite »

reustle wrote: post #239
mschuster91 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery consumption and antenna efficiency are two major pain points. iPhones suck battery like a horse drinks water when in hotspot mode, and the large surface area of even a small MacBook Air would allow for some pretty interesting antenna design. And it isn't really ironed out to behave in Germany where on a train you have frequent losses of phone connectivity. Every time it loses signal, the hotspot drops out and…

But that’s an ok tradeoff. They offer a cellular iPad, why not MacBook.

They might once they are off Qualcomm modems (the new 16e is now an Apple modem). Qualcomm charges them a royalty fee per device sold.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#408

Post by mikailk »

nicky0 wrote: post #151
trymas wrote: post #5

Anyone can comment on how Apple Silicon (M) MacBook Airs deal with heat? It’s fan-less design, so how does it compare with MacBook Pros with same M chips? Does it throttle often? Can you have it comfortably on your lap in summer? Or unless you’re running 1-hour long 4K rendering or machine learning training sessions - you’d never notice? UPDATE: what I am getting at - if you are developer and don’t care about screen…

As a developer, I say Air all the way. Never noticed any thermal issues at all. It barely gets warm for me. Make sure to get at least 16GB RAM.

I think all Macs come with 16 GB at minimum now, so that should be easy! [1]

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/30/24270669/apple-macbook-p...

Re: MacBook Air M4

#409

Post by electrograv »

olyjohn wrote: post #402
electrograv wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve considered trying an ultralight PC laptop with a superior screen. But the sad state of reality is that: (1) Windows these days feels like a constant battle against forcibly installed adware / malware. (2) Linux would be great, but getting basic laptop essentials like reliable sleep/wake and power management to work even remotely well in Linux continues to be a painful losing battle. (3) Apple’s M series chips’ p…

You don't buy a PC and try to run MacOS on it do you? Then why do people keep buying random laptops and then complaining when Linux doesn't run on it? You buy a laptop from a vendor who designs them to run Linux out of the box. Also, Apple's power management isn't flawless either. It used to be fantastic, but I've never, ever seen a laptop that has to charge for 15 minutes before you can even boot it from a flat batt…

> Then why do people keep buying random laptops and then complaining when Linux doesn't run on it? You buy a laptop from a vendor who designs them to run Linux out of the box.

Because:

(1) Laptop models designed to run Linux out of the box are very scarce, with very few options to choose from.

(2) Of the few that do exist, I’ve never seen any even remotely close to being competitive with Apple’s laptops (in terms of hardware quality, and good performance with excellent power efficiency / fanless / thermals / battery life).

Part of that is due to Apple’s monopoly on the superiority of their M series chips. But the rest I assume comes from less R&D investment generally in the Linux laptop space due to it being such a small niche, unfortunately.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#410

Post by usefulcat »

Keyframe wrote: post #182
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #42

I have considered going back to Mac after about 5-7 years on Windows/WSL, but the storage premium is just too much to swallow. If the $999 was a base 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, I'd consider it. I just added another 32GB of RAM to my 2020 built desktop for $50. You can get a 1TB crucial M.2 drive for $70. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges, but the storage cost is too much, and 256GB is much too little. Edit: to…

I'm in another, bizarre camp. I'd pay double whatever they're charging for if I could run linux on it utilizing all of the hardware. Also, if notch went away, but that's another story. Unless someone knows of laptop hardware that comes close to both performance, comfort, and battery which can run linux.

The notch has gone away, at least as of Sonoma on a 15" M3 Air, but at the cost of some real estate at the top of the screen. Basically they just don't draw anything at or above the lower edge of the notch, so it looks like the screen ends there even when it doesn't.

I actually wanted to get the notch back so I could have as much vertical screen real estate as possible and was disappointed to find that there doesn't appear to be any reliable way of doing this.

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