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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#471

Post by robertlagrant »

okasaki wrote: post #448
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

If you know what you want then most sites will have filters to narrow down the choices very quickly. If you don't know what you want and nobody told you what you need then any model is probably fine. I don't get it. What's so great about Apple's lack of choice?

> then any model is probably fine

Er, no. You still need something. You just don't know what.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#472

Post by exe34 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

> Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway.

The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could find in shops at the time cost the same, and felt like cheap rubbish. And this laptop just refuses to die, and handles my workload just fine after all these years. I'm dreading the day I have to replace it.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#473

Post by coolspot »

jcadam wrote: post #450

Finding a laptop that runs Linux natively and acceptably is always a challenge. My Dell XPS 9315 touts linux support, but only with an older version of Ubuntu using custom drivers (as I discovered after purchasing it). So I've got manjaro running that took quite a bit of coaxing - though the built-in webcam has never, and probably will never work with any linux other than Ubuntu 20.04, and the APM has always been ext…

Next time look into Lenovo. I have a Legion 5 Pro with Ryzen and RTX 3070. Everything just works running Linux.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#474

Post by itsoktocry »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

>Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them.

They are awesome, but not perfect.

Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS. Any one of these could be reason enough for people to look elsewhere.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#475

Post by qwertox »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

> And for some reason, so many companies are still shipping laptops with 1080p screens in 2024.

I am in the group of people who go for Full HD. It's enough for me, my eyesight is relatively bad. Then again, I use 3 monitors.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#476

Post by diffeomorphism »

numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

Okay, without googling tell me: what is an Apple model number Z15T_5108?

> All other details can be configured in the buying flow but there's not much to think about if you just want a simple laptop.

You would think so, but unfortunately not. Apple is quite good at upselling and their price gating for screens, ram etc. is very opaque. In other words: whether you want the air with non-sabotaged specs or the pro or the pro pro or the pro max is not simple.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#477

Post by lynguist »

CharlesW wrote: post #466
lynguist wrote: post #455

It’s good but they should’ve upped the memory from 24G to 32G. In my opinion a new Macbook Air only makes sense when you can get more memory. And I still think it’s the best laptop.

Even the Pro M3 tops out at 24GB of RAM. On the bright side, you can get a Pro M3 MAX with 36GB of RAM for not much more than a loaded Air.

But it’s chunky! I love the Air for its lack of chunk and lack of fans! For me it’s a precision machine that’s pure joy to use; I just want more RAM.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#478

Post by AnthonyMouse »

numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

> I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen".

Newegg's feature selector is pretty good at sorting through this. Just uncheck all the bad screen resolutions and CPU models and see what's left. Bonus: Require at least 32GB of memory in an exact power of two, excluding all the junk that solders 8GB to the system board.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#479

Post by itsoktocry »

exe34 wrote: post #472
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

> Anything even remotely within Macbook vicinity costs the same as a Macbook anyway. The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. Back in 2013 when I bought my current laptop, the mac book air was the thinnest, lightest, longest battery life, nicest keyboard, and a bunch of superlatives I don't remember, and it was somewhat over £1000. The closest non-mac "ultrabooks" I could…

>nicest keyboard

When have MacBooks ever had the nicest keyboard? They have pretty good keyboards, but I have 10 year old ThinkPads with keyboards that I prefer.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#480

Post by gumby »

rchaud wrote: post #405
skadamat wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree with the simplicity of purchasing an Apple computer compared to other laptop manufacturers. Headphone brands and monitor makers also suffer from this same fate :/

Not that simple when there are multiple generations of each on sale, with wildly different prices should you change the storage or RAM toggle. The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything. So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.

> The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything.

I doubt this is much of a constraint in the real world. Most people plug power in, perhaps an external mouse, and that's it. (They should be plugging in external storage for backups, which might require an extra port, but I doubt most people do in practice).

> So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.

I'm pretty much USB-C only at this point, but even before then I never understood the fixation on "dongles".

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