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MacBook Air with M5

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Re: MacBook Air with M5

#411

Post by rahimnathwani »

drob518 wrote: post #380
boutell wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can buy it with 32GB of unified RAM, the MBP is now actually the cheapest device for something... useful local AI models!

Have you used local AI models on a 32 GB MBP? I ask because I'm looking to finally upgrade my M1 Air, which I love, but which only has 16 GB RAM. I'm trying to figure out if I just want to bump to 32 GB with the M5 MBAir or make the jump all the way to 64 GB with the low-end M5 MBP. I love my M1 Air and I don't typically tax the CPU much, but I'm starting to look at running local models and for that I'd like faster a…

For local models are you wanting to do:

A) Embeddings.

B) Things like classification, structured outputs, image labelling etc.

C) Image generation.

D) LLM chatbot for answering questions, improving email drafts etc.

E) Agentic coding.

?

I have a MBP with M1 Max and 32GB RAM. I can run a 20GB mlx_vlm model like mlx-community/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-4bit. But:

- it's not very fast

- the context window is small

- it's not useful for agentic coding

I asked "What was mary j blige's first album?" and it output 332 tokens (mostly reasoning) and the correct answer.

mlx_vlm reported:

  Prompt: 20 tokens @ 28.5 t/s | Generation: 332 tokens @ 56.0 t/s | Peak memory: 21.67 GB

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#412

Post by themadturk »

Xeoncross wrote: post #74

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

I never understood the 256GB SSD on the MBA. That's no space at all.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#413

Post by dzhiurgis »

Needs 64GB ram so I can update from my 16" M1 32GB (whopping 5 years now). Higher resolution screen would be nice too. Otherwise I'll keep extending warranty on current one.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#414

Post by dzhiurgis »

Findecanor wrote: post #356
odiroot wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department. Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux. X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.

Not just low key travel. Here in Europe, Mac keyboards have an anemic vertical Return key. Its widest point is as wide as the `\` key on a US keyboard. No such issues on ThinkPads.

I always get UK keyboard, not because of enter, but tilde and ` placement. CMD+` for window switching is so much easier on UK keyboard.

I was pretty pissed off when warranty accidentally replaced it with US layout (battery went under 80% which means top case replacement which basically feels like brand new laptop).

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#415

Post by themadturk »

prmph wrote: post #221
Xeoncross wrote: post #74

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

Where does it stop? Of course having a bit more room does not hurt, but my view is that if 256GB was not enough for you, 512GB wouldn't be either. To me it's mostly about learning to mange RAM and storage space on your machine. A lot of stuff does not need to be hoarded on the machine. Move infrequently accessed data to an external drive. Be ruthless about purging stuff you no longer really need. Refuse to run apps t…

My first Apple Silicon machine was an 8GB/512GB M1 MacBook Air. I rarely bumped up against the RAM, but I was pretty happy using between 300-400GB on the SSD, so I really think the 512GB was plenty. I have a 1TB machine now, and typically still use less than 512GB...but now and then I've found a good use for nearly all of that terabyte.

You're right, learning to manage storage space is important, but you need to have some storage space to manage first. 256GB is the bottom of the barrel.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#416

Post by themadturk »

sonofhans wrote: post #277
Xeoncross wrote: post #74

I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space. It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps. Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 serie…

Can I just lean on my cane for a second, and say that the first machine I connected to a network had 256KB RAM, and I considered myself lucky to have so much. My 150 baud modem downloaded text slower than I could read it. I know how we got to these large numbers. Shit, I helped build the road. It still blows my brains out.

Yup. I ran UUCP on a 64K Kaypro with a 1200 baud modem.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#417

Post by sonofhans »

themadturk wrote: post #416
sonofhans wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just lean on my cane for a second, and say that the first machine I connected to a network had 256KB RAM, and I considered myself lucky to have so much. My 150 baud modem downloaded text slower than I could read it. I know how we got to these large numbers. Shit, I helped build the road. It still blows my brains out.

Yup. I ran UUCP on a 64K Kaypro with a 1200 baud modem.

1200 baud? It was like science fiction come to life the first time I saw text downloading faster than I could read :D

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#418

Post by sonofhans »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #376
sonofhans wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just lean on my cane for a second, and say that the first machine I connected to a network had 256KB RAM, and I considered myself lucky to have so much. My 150 baud modem downloaded text slower than I could read it. I know how we got to these large numbers. Shit, I helped build the road. It still blows my brains out.

Luxury. I dialled into FidoNet with my 64k Amstrad CPC (contd. p94. Mein gott I’m old)

A whole 64k, huh? IIRC those things presented the most costly spilled drink opportunity of any computer at the time.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#419

Post by Whatarethese »

mg wrote: post #14

The one thing that interests me most when it comes to laptops these days is weight. So I jumped right into the tech specs section and looked it up. Since this is the "Air" laptop of the company that is popular for thin and lightweight devices, my hopes were high. But ... The 13 inch version is heavier than a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Which has a 14 inch screen and can run Linux.

Carbon fiber vs aluminum.
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