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Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

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Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#441

Post by pxmpxm »

stouset wrote: post #433
pxmpxm wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple must've spent a fortune on marketing bamboozlement ("you don't need as much RAM with apple silicone") that even people on HN now seem to parrot it. NVME is around two orders of magnitude slower than DDR3 RAM, so as soon as your heap is tapped out you'll hit a performance wall. As I sit here and type this, my 10.15.7 Catalina desktop is sitting at 12.25Gb of used memory with 2 Edge tabs and an open Citrix sessio…

What even is "used memory" anyway? I'm sitting here on an M1 MacBook Pro with 64GB of memory. I'm running Chrome with a few dozen tabs open, Slack, VS Code, and Terminal. Apparently 32GB of memory is being "used". Do you believe I would experience noticeable performance loss if I was running 16GB of memory?

Well yeah - getting that extra 16gb to the CPU from your SSD would take you around 4.5 seconds, versus 250 milli from RAM. Not to mention random access latency, nanos vs mics.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#442

Post by nextos »

Method-X wrote: post #420
nextos wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a MacBook Air 11'', and it's also a pretty unique machine in terms of small form factor and silent operation. I feel current MacBook Airs finally serve as a good replacement. However, the 11'' Late 2012 model was also quite unique in terms of being a perfect PC citizen. So one could run other OSes with zero effort. In fact, it was Linus' daily driver for a few years. I wish other manufacturers like Lenovo or De…

Totally agree. It’s just other CPUs don’t come close to the M1/M2. That’s what really makes the new MacBooks unique. It’s going to be like that for quite some time I think.

I think some Intel / AMD options are pretty similar. However, their performance per Watt is inferior which makes it tricky to come up with nice silent machines.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#443

Post by tyingq »

geerlingguy wrote: post #17

The biggest question I have is whether it has WiFi 6E or just WiFi 6 (2x2 80 MHz like the original M1 MacBook Air). That's the one thing that's kind of gimped it for me—if I could get more WiFi bandwidth, especially with the ProRes decoding built into the M2, I might be able to edit 4K video over my network wirelessly for the first time. Would be amazing. To be clear, I still think the M1 Air was the best portable la…

If you do a compare against the original M1 MacBook Air, they don't say anything about the network is different. It just says "802.11ax Wi-Fi 6". Same for the MacBook Pro M2.

So I'm guessing it's the same as the M1 MacBook Air.

Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/I9wcLIy

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#444

Post by tannhaeuser »

dgellow wrote: post #202

I hoped the notch would be just an experiment and Apple would get rid of it the next iteration. It seems I was wrong. It looks so weird to have your top menu bar split in two, I really don’t get why it is necessary.

I've read all the arguments pro-notch, that you won't notice, and that it doesn't take up screen real estate, and so on. But still, the design compromise bothers me; hiding a camera such that the aesthetic geometry isn't distorted feels wrong and fake, and something not here to stay for long, just as you say. Why not implement a mechanical flip-out camera holder? Helps with perceived big brother effect, too.

Btw, is the mandatory touch bar thingy back? That would be a step back in my book.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#445

Post by Panzer04 »

phonon wrote: post #409
pxmpxm wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooooh good point - haven't actually heard of newest NVME stuff before. The M1/M2 apple hardware specifically seems to be around an order of magnitude from what I've seen (ddr4x 60-70gb/sec vs 7gb/sec for the NVME or thereabouts). The obvious observation here is that the fab yields for high memory apple silicone must not be all that great, which is why they're mostly shipping 8 and 16gb versions.

You just switched from DDR3, to the latest (few laptops offering that) DDR4x. And even then it's barely one order of magnitude. You were wrong, it's ok...welcome to the SSD future :-)

"only" an order of magnitude.

Never mind comparing bleeding edge NVMe with (by now) decade-old DDR3, while the current bleeding edge DDR5 is now trickling out at 100GB/s+ pretty easily.

Never mind DDR memory latencies of ~50ns, vs NVMe at 50uS+.

Just because the user doesn't notice GUI problems doesn't mean it's not going to be a catastrophic bottleneck in any memory-intensive application.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#446

Post by antipaul »

danlugo92 wrote: post #394
nickpp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Displays are significantly better on the MBPs though: PPI, refresh rate.

Greater contrast ratio as well

I had no idea what "1600 nits" was until I watched some XDR movies at night on that screen

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#447

Post by julienb_sea »

exhilaration wrote: post #30

And for the first time, MacBook Air supports fast charge for charging up to 50 percent in just 30 minutes with an optional 67W USB-C power adapter. Anybody know if the 67W USB-C power adapter is finally stock? Edit: Nope, still gotta wait a month: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MKU63AM/A/67w-usb-c-power... Other (bigger) chargers are a 2 month wait. Looks like Apple is still suffering from supply chain issues.

Anker sells a lovely 65W USB-C power adapter ("USB C Charger, Anker 65W PIQ 3.0") for 34$ on Amazon, which I regularly use to charge my 16" M1 pro macbook without issue. Would recommend over buying the Apple option for 2x the price.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#448

Post by seabriez »

onetom wrote: post #152
seabriez wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating products that you can't easily repair or upgrade? Creating a vicious upgrade cycle? Hmmm...

I'm still using a 2017 MacBook Pro, though I have an M1 Mac Mini. I had 2 second-hand 27" iMacs too, from 2011 and 2013. I gave the 2011 one away, because I couldn't upgrade it anymore, but it is still used for audio/video editing. The 2013 one has some issues with its hard-drive and I'm planning to upgrade it to an SSD. It's still a pretty capable machine, though I would probably put Linux on it, since the macOS upg…

Yeah, same. Tho my PC, I pretty much upgrade everything, and keep using older components. Now I know it's not 100% green, but with an old PC you can literally grind it to the ground by using it as an old storage device, linux box, or ad blocker. My original PC case I've literally been using it for 20 years now, it's crazy it still works/fits all the hardware in there perfectly, and that's probably the biggest component.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#449

Post by antipaul »

grumpyprole wrote: post #111

Almost 10 years ago we purchased a MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for approx 2K UK pounds. It's really surprising and disappointing that a decade later these same specs essentially cost the same!

I see your point. Essentially, you get a fast computer for contemporary, real world use, for the same price as 10 years ago.

Though if you ignore the specs, the M2 air (for 1500 so you get the same storage space), is probably equivalent – 8GB unified RAM and fast SSD seems equivalent to 16GB ram from decade ago.

Together with the improved software capabilities, I think the overall "experience" is "better" and you get more bang for buck.

Re: Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip

#450

Post by joe5150 »

seunosewa wrote: post #364
elxr wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather buy a similarly light laptop, that has a touchscreen. You can already get AMD Zen 3+ machines in this size class, that isn't too far behind in perf & efficiency. Doing so gives you much better Linux compatibility, a touchscreen, and (sometimes) better feeling keyboards. Battery life will always come up short though, x86 laptops just can't match these new macbooks.

Why do you need a touchscreen? What are some of the applications? I feel like the screen would get dirty.

I recently used a friend's touchscreen laptop to reinstall Windows on it. The touchscreen was handy to scroll with while we waited for Windows Update to find his touchpad driver, but once that was installed, I don't think I even felt tempted to touch the screen again.
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