411–420 of 567 posts
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It depends what is important to you. Firstly I am mostly plugged in, so battery life is secondary. Secondly I am a heavy Excel user, and it just isn't as good on Apple Thirdly I use PowerBI which isn't available for Apple Lastly I have hybrid Active Directory, and can deploy SSO trivially to my remote Windows users, which I can't on Mac. During Covid I could mail someone a PC and get them signed on to AD resources in…
I’m not advocating everyone switch to Mac. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I’m advocating Windows/Linux users should have the choice of a machine roughly as good. Doesn’t have to 1:1, but clearly there is a lot of space for “better” past what everyone is selling today. And I don’t see that improving much after 2 years and I find it kind of sad. Why should you have to switch OSes and everything to have a fast com…
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I did. I moved over to linux mint for at-the-desk programming (though I still use a macbook while traveling). My linux desktop idles at 0% CPU, which is something macos hasn't been able to deliver for 5+ years at this point. Current generation Intel / AMD desktop CPUs have similar performance to apple's M1/M2 chips. They just consume a lot more power. (Though apparently applying a slight underclock makes a huge diffe…
> They just consume a lot more power This is the thing I’m stuck on. Computers are all roughly the same speed, for the point of this discussion. But there is no contest in power. If you’re in the Windows world you have no good choices. Fast and hot to very slow and cool. Where is the “pretty fast and nicely cool” choice? Someone proved it can exist. But it’s not there and people don’t seem to be very upset about that…
Could Windows have better battery life? Probably only by dropping backward compatibility and moving to a Linux kernel or something radical.
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The base MBA comes with only 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD and has very limited upgrade option. Also Apple charges crazy prices for more RAM and storage. For $1000 one can buy a Windows laptop with 32GB RAM and 1TB SDD, that can cheaply be upgraded to 64GB memory and 10+TB SSD (2x SO-DIMM slots + 2x M2 PCIe slots).
Um. Cheaply to 10+ TB SSD? Where are you shopping?! I want to go there.
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Someone had a battery life test for phones. The iPhones beat the android phones in nearly every test by hours. And they only had 60-70% of the raw battery capacity. And you know they have faster processors too. It’s so weird to me. The A series is kind of “that doesn’t count” because the competition can’t get close. The M series wowed people and then we all went back to normal AMD/Intel stuff like nothing happened. I…
It is astonishing to me that people are out there buying Intel PC laptops when the M1 MBA can be had for <$1000
Honestly, if Apple were to care, they could undo the course of computing history where at one point Windows became the monopoly. Launch a 500$ category laptop, say 3 gens old. That would soon be M1. Won't be very profitable, but a direct competitor to the typical crappy Windows low-end laptop. Yet it's so much better in performance, security, battery life, total lifespan, etc. Double down on making it idiot-proof. Op…
They could make a m1 SE in late 23 with a plastic case as old MacBooks, same ports of m1 air, slightly less battery and 1080p screen at 500$ and it will sell like crazy.
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I’m not advocating everyone switch to Mac. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I’m advocating Windows/Linux users should have the choice of a machine roughly as good. Doesn’t have to 1:1, but clearly there is a lot of space for “better” past what everyone is selling today. And I don’t see that improving much after 2 years and I find it kind of sad. Why should you have to switch OSes and everything to have a fast com…
Are you (MBCook) and sylens the same person? You are replying as if you are.
No we’re not. I thought it was a reply to my comment higher above in the hierarchy.
Sorry about that.
I want to install Linux on one of these and use it as a low power consumption home server.
Just looked over the energy report and it's averaging 0.18kWh daily (so the average power draw is 7.5W) - that's with a 3.5in SATA HDD. Better power use than my Raspberry Pi 4 with an external USB HDD!
If low power consumption is your main motivator, I'd say you can do a lot better with one of those instead.
There is no other supported desktop/CI/etc. solution for Windows on ARM. (Mac mini with Parallels/VMware is a popular unsupported alternative. It may still be your fastest.)
Seems like a truly decent machine (ordered one) but I'm not sure if there's remaining appetite for Windows target-specific development. After years and years of development platform missteps and PC usage pattern changes, I fear web (electron, etc.) has become good enough for Windows users.
[1] https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/windows-on-snapdrago...
[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/ecs-liva-mini-box-qc710-de...