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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#441

Post by znpy »

ruuda wrote: post #247

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? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

> bulky 16" ThinkPad.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the thinkpad x1 extreme laptop. It was basically the lenovo/thinkpad response to the xps 15. It's way thinner than the ThinkPad T16/P15 lines.

they claim it's a 16" laptop but only because they made the bezel smaller enough to fit a larger display in the same space.

it's usually mostly on par with the dell xps but i'm not sure about the specs though... my personal laptop is a rusty thinkpad x270 (i'm torn between the newly announced m4 macbook air or the upcoming framework 12) and i've been issued a m3 macbook pro for work.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#442

Post by guhidalg »

buildfocus wrote: post #437
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.

Is the performance gap so huge? Power efficiency yes, absolutely, but for peak performance last I saw the last AMD vs M3 benchmarks were a slightly slower single core, and a little faster in multicore. Doesn't seem as world changing as described.

Yes. No other laptop can sustain peak performance as long as the M-series Macs. The only thing that competes is a dedicated desktop with a big cooler and fan.

Mac laptops feel faster, even if the synthetic benchmarks say otherwise.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#445

Post by kllrnohj »

crazygringo wrote: post #398
toxik wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not imagined though, I use my partner’s phone sometimes and every time I used it I thought it was broken because the UI jitter was so jarring at 60Hz. Actually I’m still not convinced her phone isn’t broken. Also her flashlight resets to the lowest brightness EVERY time it’s cycled.

> because the UI jitter was so jarring at 60Hz See this is what confuses me. If the UI jitter on their phone was "so jarring", it's not because it's 60 Hz. It's because the phone's CPU isn't keeping up. Like, nobody watches a video filmed at 60 fps and then watches their favorite TV show or a motion picture at 24 fps and says "the jitter was so jarring". And that's at less than half the rate we're even talking about!…

> Like, nobody watches a video filmed at 60 fps and then watches their favorite TV show or a motion picture at 24 fps and says "the jitter was so jarring". And that's at less than half the rate we're even talking about!

Those have motion blur.

> Similarly, even if you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz

I don't know why you're phrasing this so oddly doubtful? Being able to tell the difference between 60hz and 120hz is hardly uncommon. It's quite a large difference, and this is quite well studied.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#446

Post by ed_mercer »

kccqzy wrote: post #96
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #42

I have considered going back to Mac after about 5-7 years on Windows/WSL, but the storage premium is just too much to swallow. If the $999 was a base 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, I'd consider it. I just added another 32GB of RAM to my 2020 built desktop for $50. You can get a 1TB crucial M.2 drive for $70. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges, but the storage cost is too much, and 256GB is much too little. Edit: to…

Of course. Apple wants you to purchase their iCloud offerings and put your documents on iCloud Drive. I just buy lots of storage on my desktop and access it remotely. Tailscale makes it easy to do so.

What if your desktop fails?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#447

Post by hermitcrab »

The trackpad on my Macbook Air stopped working after 2.5 years. The Apple warranty in only 1 measly year. Apple wanted nearly £500 to fix it. Caveat emptor.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#448

Post by ericmcer »

homefree wrote: post #411
ruuda wrote: post #247

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? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

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.

The leap from intel to the M series chips really left everyone else behind. I can't even use my 2019 Macbook anymore it feels so sluggish.

I have an M3 Pro and it blows all my old computers out of the water. Can handle pretty insane dev workflows (massive Docker composed environments) without issue and the battery life feels unfair. I can put in an 8 hour workday without my charging cable, I don't think I have turned it fully off in a few months, it just chugs along. It really embodies the "it just works" mindset.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#449

Post by cosmic_cheese »

buildfocus wrote: post #434
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem with the Framework 13 at this point is underwhelming battery life. I have one of the newly announced models reserved in hopes that the new CPU improves that to a reasonable degree, but if reviews come out and that turns out to not be the case there’s a substantial chance I’ll cancel.

I upgraded to the AMD board and the larger batteries and this improved significantly - 7/8 hours of real usage now, which for me is fine. On linux with minor tweaking. Depends what you need, but surely for most people a full workday without power is manageable!

Are those numbers with power saver mode turned on? For what this laptop is being used for I don’t need much muscle and would rather need to charge less frequently.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#450

Post by otterley »

kllrnohj wrote: post #435
ruuda wrote: post #247

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? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

> But now Dell discontinued XPS https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/scr/laptops/appref=xps-p... ? Sure doesn't seem to be discontinued at all? And just checking the XPS 14 it has both 2tb and 4tb storage options, and the 3.2k OLED screen is higher resolution than what Apple's 14" offering contains and it's 120hz.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/the-end-of-an-era-de...

Current models at the time of the announcement may still be produced and then inventories depleted, but those will be the last of them.

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