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MacBook Air M4

apple.com

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#421

Post by scrlk »

ruuda wrote: post #392
huang_chung wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays? Panasonic Let's Note. Your welcome. It's repairable, upgradable, and has a * removable battery * (unheard of in 2025).

From the pictures, it looks like this device does not have the kind of build quality that XPS and MacBook have.

They use a magnesium alloy chassis, which IMO, is superior to aluminium. Lighter and more dent resistant.

Frankly, I'm not sure why people think that laptops with CNCed aluminium chassis are the pinnacle of build quality.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#422

Post by adastra22 »

tasuki wrote: post #401
giancarlostoro wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It will. Just give it 10 years.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#423

Post by mvanbaak »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #303
brk wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never really felt this way, and have used all kinds of screens of various resolutions, sizes, technologies, etc. For 99% of the typical use cases (chats, email, doom scrolling, etc.) there just is not a big enough perceptible difference for most buyers. Screen refresh rate arguments are starting to have hints of audiophile discussions.

I flatly will not buy any monitor, laptop, phone, tablet, or TV with a refresh rate below 120hz. I had 120hz 1080p over DVI-dual link in 2010. I can accept graphically demanding games going down to ~50 fps, but for UI interactivity and navigation, I'll take 120hz+ only.

And there you are, watching a movie on that 120p+ tv. You do k ow the movie is only 24p right?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#424

Post by r00fus »

ericpauley wrote: post #240
Kerrick wrote: post #24

The 13” model is only $300 more than the M4 Mac Mini whether comparing the base models or the 32GB RAM options. That’s a pretty good value for a battery, screen, webcam, trackpad, and keyboard. The main thing you give up is the ability to connect a third large display when at your desktop, a few ports, and support for higher than 60Hz refresh rate on an external display.

I think it's highly unlikely that the M4 mac is actually limited to 60Hz for all external displays. I'm running a 1440 ultrawide at 100Hz on an M2 right now. Instead this is likely the maximum px*Hz configuration supported, and smaller or fewer monitors are supported at higher Hz.

I run a 49" 32x9 screen at 120hz on my M1 Air perfectly fine.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#425

Post by senordevnyc »

electrograv wrote: post #354
VincentEvans wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, reminds me of audiophile discussions when most people listen to youtube streaming a recompressed version of an mp3 someone uploaded.

It’s deeply flawed logic at best (or an intentional red herring at worst) to cite the existence of pseudoscience discussed elsewhere, as an argument against real science being discussed here. There is a well-understood science to both auditory and visual perception, even more concretely so for the visual side. The scientific literature on human perception in both categories is actively used in the engineering of almo…

It's not about whether people can perceive the difference. They don't care.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#426

Post by homefree »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #416
homefree wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing close, Apple has better talent and the vertical integration gives them an edge (especially on performance per watt on their chip designs). Since the M series chips, there's been no other option if you care about quality. There are crappy alternatives with serious tradeoffs if for some reason you are forced to not use Apple or choose for non-quality reasons.

No vertical integration is what did intel in because they both do fab and design. TSMC won because they aren't vertically integrated into anything. Apple is better because of actual superior technology. The chips are custom made and no one can match the technology yet.

They have superior technology because they control the full stack and have taken more and more ownership of it over the years (most recently building their own modem in the iPhone 16e). They could design chips for an exact set of constraints (originally iPhones) and then expand that to the mac. Intel with x86 had to support legacy and tons of different devices (and bad leadership caused them to ignore efficiency and later ignore gpus). Other laptop manufacturers have to run other people's software and few really make their own underlying hardware to the extent apple does.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#427

Post by throwup238 »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #416
homefree wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing close, Apple has better talent and the vertical integration gives them an edge (especially on performance per watt on their chip designs). Since the M series chips, there's been no other option if you care about quality. There are crappy alternatives with serious tradeoffs if for some reason you are forced to not use Apple or choose for non-quality reasons.

No vertical integration is what did intel in because they both do fab and design. TSMC won because they aren't vertically integrated into anything. Apple is better because of actual superior technology. The chips are custom made and no one can match the technology yet.

Apple is better because they’re not competing on price which is why they can afford to bring so many things in house. That’s how they can afford the talent and other R&D resources.

We get what we pay for.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#428

Post by apparent »

financetechbro wrote: post #290
mrtksn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With M1 Air, Apple had to blow us away. People, including me, had hard time believing Apple's claims and many people were coping by looking at the Keynote charts and assuming that Apple must have tricked everyone by not giving proper scale metrics etc. When people put their hands on the real device, it was slaying almost everything on the market and soon it was clear that this thing is a revolution. You don't one up…

How do you manage 147 open tabs and why have them all open at once?

I have several hundred open on my M2 MBA and have no problem. Maybe it's because I use Brave? I don't know but have never had to think too much about it. I also don't have much RAM (either the base amount or up a little).

I do restart my browser once a month or so, if things ever feel less snappy than normal.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#429

Post by adastra22 »

usefulcat wrote: post #410
Keyframe wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have exactly that setup, and I see a notch. Are we talking about something different?
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