Wish the nano-texture display was available when I upgraded last year. The last MacBook I personally bought was in 2012 when the first retina MBP had just released. I opted for the "thick" 15" high-res matte option. Those were the days...
M4 MacBook Pro
471–480 of 1001 posts
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#472Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#473I'm pleased that the Pro's base memory starts at 16 GB, but surprised they top out at 32 GB: > ...the new MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of faster unified memory with support for up to 32GB, along with 120GB/s of memory bandwidth... I haven't been an Apple user since 2012 when I graduated from college and retired my first computer, a mid-2007 Core2 Duo Macbook Pro, which I'd upgraded with a 2.5" SSD and 6GB of RAM with…
> I'm pleased that the Pro's base memory starts at 16 GB, but surprised they top out at 32 GB: That's an architectural limitation of the base M4 chip, if you go up to the M4 Pro version you can get up to 48GB, and the M4 Max goes up to 128GB.
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
But no update to a M4 for the MacBook Air yet unfortunately. I would love to get an M4 MacBook Air with 32GB. I believe the rumor is that the MacBook Air will get the update to M4 in early spring 2025, February/March timeline.
The big question for me is whether they will have a matte option for the Air. I want a fanless machine with a matte screen. Unfortunately Apple won’t tell you until the day they sell the machines.
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#475What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#476Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#477What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…
I always catch myself in this same train of thought until it finally re-occurs to me that "no, the variable here is just that you're old." Part of it is that I have more money now, so I buy better products that last longer. Part of it is that I have less uninterrupted time for diving deeply into new interests which leads to always having new products on the wishlist.
In the world of personal computers, I've seen very few must-have advances in adulthood. The only two unquestionable big jumps I can think of off hand are Apple's 5K screens (how has that been ten years?!) and Apple Silicon. Other huge improvements were more gradual, like Wi-Fi, affordable SSDs, and energy efficiency. (Of course it's notable that I'm not into PC gaming, where I know there has been incredible advances in performance and display tech.)
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#478The weird thing about these Apple product videos in the last few years is that there are all these beautiful shots of Apple's campus with nobody there other than the presenter. It's a beautiful stage for these videos, but it's eerie and disconcerting, particularly given Apple's RTO approach.
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#479What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years. New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters. Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve. Can stuff be faster? Tec…
> I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I upgraded my M1 MBP to a MacBook Air M3 15" and it was a major upgrade. It is the same weight but 40% faster and so much nicer to work on while on the sofa or traveling. The screen is also brighter. I think very few people actually do need the heavy MBPs, especially not the web/full-stack devs who populate Hacker News. EDIT:…
I can fairly easily get my M1 Air to have thermal issues while on extended video calls with some Docker containers running, and have been on calls with others having the same issue. Kind of sucks if it's, say, an important demo. I mostly use it as a thin client to my desktop when I'm away from home, so it's not really an issue, but if I were using it as a primary device I'd want a machine with a fan.
Re: M4 MacBook Pro
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people buying a new MacBook don’t have the previous version, they’re going much further back. That’s why you see both intel and m1 comparisons.
No it isn't. It's because 1.8x faster sounds better than 12% faster. Back when Moore's law was still working they didn't skip generations like this.