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MacBook Air with M5

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Re: MacBook Air with M5

#451

Post by elxr »

brokencode wrote: post #210
lotsofpulp wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?

It’s funny that this is even remotely a concern in 2026. We have computers you can talk to but Windows laptops maybe won’t go to sleep in your backpack. I do hope that it’s fixed though. I haven’t followed Windows laptops that closely, but my work laptop from a few years ago does lose battery surprisingly quickly when “sleeping”.

I don't think going with windows is the move if you're trying to have sleep working like in a macbook. Too many stories of laptops waking up for no good reason.

Linux on the other hand has always been able to sleep as expected. I'm definitely advocating for panther lake + linux. Not panther lake + windows, which I hoped was clear given the context of the parent comment.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#452

Post by epiecs »

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 had the same issue. The fix for this is to order directly from Apple and then to choose the “English (US)” keyboard layout. That way you get the ANSI layout :)

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#453

Post by TingPing »

allthetime wrote: post #178
TingPing wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asahi is great on earlier models but it will certainly not support the M5 before its already multiple models behind.

Is it? I have my old M1 Air and I am very curious but don't want to go through the trouble of fiddling about with linux for a few days just to leave it rotting after. I would be inclined to maintain a dual boot situation as well and SSD space is at a premium.

I think it’s wonderful, go for it if the few rough areas don’t bother you: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overvie...

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#454

Post by brokencode »

elxr wrote: post #451
brokencode wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny that this is even remotely a concern in 2026. We have computers you can talk to but Windows laptops maybe won’t go to sleep in your backpack. I do hope that it’s fixed though. I haven’t followed Windows laptops that closely, but my work laptop from a few years ago does lose battery surprisingly quickly when “sleeping”.

I don't think going with windows is the move if you're trying to have sleep working like in a macbook. Too many stories of laptops waking up for no good reason. Linux on the other hand has always been able to sleep as expected. I'm definitely advocating for panther lake + linux. Not panther lake + windows, which I hoped was clear given the context of the parent comment.

Idk, searching online gives me lots of results where people are complaining about Linux battery life when sleeping.

I haven’t used a Linux laptop in over a decade personally, so can’t really speak to that much though.

What I do know is that Windows sucks and macOS has absurdly good battery life, both in active use and in sleep.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#455

Post by elxr »

philistine wrote: post #330
dagmx wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quantify your claim? PTL’s highest SKU is comparable to the base M5 for only multicore perf at double the power use in every benchmark I’ve seen. It lags significantly behind in single core. But I’d love to see a benchmark showing otherwise. Just the latest I’ve seen https://youtu.be/7OxE7FwJPJM?si=b5T0PbmhUD1TXhX4 But I can find none that have PTL actually anywhere near M5 without strapping a much larger bat…

It's ridiculous to claim high and mighty that a chip that's not out yet is competitive. The only real way to test a laptop chip is in a laptop with the thermal choices made by the laptop maker. Hell, the M5 has been mostly benchmarked on the Macbook Pro, and that has a fan! The M5 is not going to be as impressive in the Air. It's been five years since M1 and Intel has never been competitive in single-core perf per wa…

> a chip that's not out yet

Panther lake and the M5 have been out (I know fan makes a difference, but hey it's still a decent reference), and fully tested by a number of reviewers. The "almost every way" comment is with the exception of single-core scores. Outside of that metric, when you look at photoshop/premiere/davinci resolve/compilation/SSD speeds/multicore cinebench; both are about as fast as one another (with some back-and-forth wins on either side). How is it a ridiculous claim when so many publications/reviewers have arrived at the same conclusion?

The point is both achieve nearly the same experience (performance wise) averaged-out, doing real work, and any differences are small enough that it hardly matters. The tests are out there. See: Just Josh (youtube), Notebookcheck (various articles), Zip Tie Tech (youtube), Phoronix (article), Hardware Canucks (youtube), and Max Tech (youtube). Plenty of test results for actual panther lake machines.

The Max Tech review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77AzvY3FTE) directly doing a head to head of the M5 macbook pro vs the Expertbook ultra is a good enough summary of how close they actually are. Bunch of heavier tasks being run one after the next, all on battery, side-by-side, in a nicely edited video. As a whole, the chips are more similar than they are different. They are 100% in the same performance tier.

In the real-world, stuff like animation timings for switching virtual desktops are 100% more noticable than the single-core performance gap between those two chips. Or having a 120Hz vs 60Hz like these new macbook airs.

IMO, the main tradeoff with choosing these intel chips over the M5 is the price. Only the X7/X9 panther lakes have the strong GPU, and those are priced significantly higher than base M5 macs (which already have a strong GPU). But for someone who really prefers linux (like the parent comment), then I do think it's worth it.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#456

Post by elxr »

brokencode wrote: post #454
elxr wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think going with windows is the move if you're trying to have sleep working like in a macbook. Too many stories of laptops waking up for no good reason. Linux on the other hand has always been able to sleep as expected. I'm definitely advocating for panther lake + linux. Not panther lake + windows, which I hoped was clear given the context of the parent comment.

Idk, searching online gives me lots of results where people are complaining about Linux battery life when sleeping. I haven’t used a Linux laptop in over a decade personally, so can’t really speak to that much though. What I do know is that Windows sucks and macOS has absurdly good battery life, both in active use and in sleep.

> What I do know is that Windows sucks and macOS has absurdly good battery life, both in active use and in sleep.

Ever since lunar lake (intel's prev-gen ultrabook chip), this isn't even true anymore.

And now with panther lake, competing windows and macOS laptops do have comparable active use battery life, especially when comparing against macbook airs which do sometimes lose because of their smaller batteries.

This guy: https://www.youtube.com/@JustJoshTech does really good battery tests (brightness at 300 nits, looped office tasks, wifi on, BT on), and a number of windows laptops match even the 14in macbooks pros. That macbook pro already gets noticably more battery life than both the 13 and 15in macbook air.

For a specific example ,the current XPS14 without the OLED (meaning the base 1200p screen) will have hours more battery life than any macbook. If you're looking for "absurdly good battery life", both macOS and windows laptops can give you this today. Your last comment hasn't been true (at least for active use) for at least since lunar lake came out (end of 2024).

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#457

Post by dev_l1x_be »

giobox wrote: post #352
giwook wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what are some good use cases for a MBP now with the MBAs being so powerful? I can think of things like 4K video editing or 3D rendering but as a software engineer is there anything we really need to spend the extra money on an MBP for? I'm currently on a M1 Max but am seriously considering switching to an MBA in the next year or two.

The Apple Silicon fanless MBAs are great until you end up in a workload that causes the machine to thermal throttle. I tried to use an M4 MBA as primary development machine for a few months. A lot of software dev workflows often require running some number of VMs and containers, if this is you the chances of hitting that thermal throttle are not insignificant. When throttling under load occurs it’s like the machine s…

It is just Apple’s way trying to tell you not to use microservices.

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#458

Post by dev_l1x_be »

boutell wrote: post #185
cj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm excited about this. The previous generation base model 15" Air was good enough for our company to make it the default computer for everyone. Previously we were giving out base model MBP's. And they're $1000 cheaper. Today, the MBP is just way too powerful for anything other than specific use cases that need it.

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

MPS is okish, is this is what you mean. ANE and CoreML is kind of meh for most use cases, great for some very specific tasks.

https://github.com/hollance/neural-engine/blob/master/docs/a...

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#459

Post by beAbU »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #324
lotsofpulp wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also close the lid and trust it to stay off and open it up even a week later and resume at the same place you left off with very little battery usage. How no one else can figure out how to do this in almost 15 years or more is beyond me.

Its absolutley mind boggling. My work machine (lenovo) regualry roasts itself to 0% battery in my backpack during my commute

Unplug before closing. I'm not sure where I read this, but this is the cause for the backpack cooking. When plugged in it goes into active sleep or something, not really sleep. When unplugged and it goes to battery mode, and activates the real sleep mode.

Something something windows something something shitty power management.

Try it for yourself and see if that makes a difference. It worked for me!

I remember at some point dell had a warning to not sleep your laptop and put it in a bag, as it can actually cook the lcd panel!

Re: MacBook Air with M5

#460

Post by TiredOfLife »

cromka wrote: post #294
std_move wrote: post #216

This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k. - it has no annoying fans, it is completely silent - a high res display with no PWM flickering and reasonable response times, no burn-in issues, enough brightness for outdoor use - best-in-class hardware, very very efficient, amazing single thread performance, good multi thread, very good GPU - no Microsoft Windows annoyances, ads, bloatware, broken stuff a…

> very good speakers All of the above is true but this, actually, is not entirely: they use a lot of DSP. If you try the same speakers with regular Fedora Asahi with no DSP profile (i.e. vanilla sound), they're very mediocre and do not handle bass well. So, like with many aspects of Apple hardware, this is an example of their software/firmware complimenting the hardware.

Windows laptops also do, but unfortunately the DSP is not hidden in OS and are part of preinstalled software and usually not active by default.
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