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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#421

Post by tantalor »

cannolicannon wrote: post #254
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup: - Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants) - Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants) - Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 1…

> Pro Max Premium

lol

Re: The MacBook Neo

#422

Post by eldaisfish »

jitl wrote: post #272
carabiner wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 2026 the year of the linux desktop? Can I update video drivers in Linux without seeing a console? OS X updates them automatically where it's a non-issue.

It's been Year Of The Linux Handheld for gaming since 2022, the best platform to play games is Steam Deck where updates are clicking "Update" in the System panel. You can run either Bazzite or SteamOS on your own hardware, although I haven't tried that.

The best platform, provided the games you want to play actually work and work well. Many do not, even some popular ones.

I own a steam deck and love it, but please, let’s temper the enthusiasm with realism.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#423

Post by nottorp »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #405
nottorp wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask me, all web devs should be forced to work on 4 Gb machines. This way you'll be able to run more than one "web app" at the same time on your devices.

I like to imagine the gaming landscape if developers were forced to work on 5yr old hardware.

Sometimes I have the feeling AAAs can be better optimized than Unity based indies.

It's probably a bit better than when Unity was new. I do remember the first x-com remake in 2012 was lasting longer on battery than $random_unity_indie.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#424

Post by fainpul »

officeplant wrote: post #225
hackyhacky wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get it, other than price, the Neo and Air are a bit confusing product wise. Have they looked at how Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are doing their products though? It's absolutely wild the disparity between PC and Apple for laptops. Yep. I'm a long-time ThinkPad user, but I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from the ThinkPad E series or ThinkPad L series or ThinkPad X series, and their website certainly…

> I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from ... My personal rundown and how they get assigned: E - Educational / Lower office personnel spec L - Office personnel you hate spec, but don't offer the E because they might complain. T - Give this to all the technicians because they can't take care of anything and it will survive typically. P - Give this to the engineers who believe having an RTX gpu will…

I think I got it:

- E is for economy

- L is for loser

- T is for tank

- P is for power

- X is for executive

Re: The MacBook Neo

#425

Post by fl0ki »

Reason077 wrote: post #278
cannolicannon wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup: - Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants) - Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants) - Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 1…

Apple isn’t this bad, of course, but they’re slowly heading in that direction. The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. Now there’s the MacBook Neo and a rumoured new MacBook Ultra in the pipeline. The easy days of “pick standard or pro, select a display size, select RAM & storage” are starting to fade.

I think the big difference is that if you just want to optimize for some objective, it's usually very clear how to do that from Apple's options, so there's not much research to be done. It can still be challenging to choose what's the best value when it's your own money, but at least you know what you're getting, and the quality hasn't been a concern for years.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#426

Post by Fraterkes »

I feel corny being so positive about a megacompany, but I bought my first Macbook air half a year ago after a life of PC's, and it has been genuinly surprising to use something made by a huge company that is constantly better than I expected.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#427

Post by snuxoll »

thewebguyd wrote: post #339
enraged_camel wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The number of overlapping iPad models and variants, for example, is getting kind of crazy these days. One of the first things Steve Jobs immediately did after returning to Apple in 1997 was to kill most of Apple's product line-up, which had exploded in his absence. Too bad he's not around to save them from the same over-segmentation anymore.

The goal is different. Jobs wanted to make the product spread simple to understand. Apple's current method is a pricing ladder, make it simple to spend $200+ more than you planned. MacBook Neo, $599. Great but maybe I want Touch ID & more storage, ok $699. Well at this point now it's "only" $300 to get the air which is much better. Well, now that you're already spending $1000, might as well just do the extra $500 and…

> Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to.

Don't underestimate how much of a bitch it is to maintain all the separate SKUs. This isn't the old CTO days where you had: 1 chassis, N mainboards for different CPU/GPU combinations, a bunch of SODIMM's of varying capacities, and a couple of different fixed storage drives to toss in.

When any given MBP has 2 CPU/GPU options, multiple memory options, and multiple storage options, with everything being soldered to the board? Honestly, the Neo is the one product in their portable lineup that doesn't cause a massive headache for logistics.

But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#428

Post by dhosek »

lurking_swe wrote: post #367
izacus wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After growing up in eastern Europe it's still wild to see young Americans stupidly demand less choice and more monopolies in their market. Like seriously, having laptop choice is causing you crippling issues? Is other people having a laptop to choose based on preference causing you distress when you go to Apple store?

I don’t think you fully understood their argument. The problem is not that other manufacturers offer choices – the problem is that for a typical consumer it’s IMPOSSIBLE to really understand which computer in the lineup is appropriate for their needs. It seems most of them are focused on B2B sales. Of course, if you are a gamer or a nerd like myself, you don’t mind spending a week finding the perfect computer. But th…

Indeed, it’s a simple matter to figure out what you want if you’re buying a Mac. Laptop vs desktop. For desktop: integrated screen or not, for laptop, screen size, weight, then pick your processor, memory and storage and it’s done. There aren’t confusingly named and positioned overlapping models that it’s unclear what you’re gaining or losing for each one.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#429

Post by nirava »

dangus wrote: post #325

While the impact of the MacBook Neo is huge, this type of review is really screaming of an inexperienced reviewer who can't actually make good purchase recommendations to average people. It's really cool that this device is cheap but 8GB of RAM is the elephant in the room. Even non-technical web browsing users will notice the sluggishness coming from that spec. The moment they upgrade it to the next iPhone processor,…

> Even non-technical web browsing users will notice the sluggishness coming from that spec.

I'm sorry but this line invalidates most of your comment, to the point of looking like satire.

We have reviews and videos of people editing 4k videos with glee, launching and switching between all apps at once, and stuff like that.

I used the base M1 as a power user/developer for years when it came out, and the only reason I had to switch was the storage. Sluggishness wasn't on the top 10 issues I had with that device.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#430

Post by bean469 »

drnick1 wrote: post #174

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. And certainly not software quality. I would argue the opposite: while Apple hardware is generally excellent, it is the software that leaves to be desired. Apple has also been consistently pushing the industry in a dangerous direction (walled ga…

> I won't be buying a Neo before a compatible Linux distro is confirmed.

You mean confirmed by Apple? I think that seems unlikely

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