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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#491

Post by rv3392 »

tw04 wrote: post #345
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…

Why not a surface laptop 7? https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/microsoft-surfac... Wtf is with the downvotes? It literally hits every requirement he had, and the surface laptops are some of the best windows/nix laptops on the market.

I don't think the SL7 is a like-for-like comparison even if it seems like it on paper. The SL7 is great if you want/need to run Windows - I convinced my sister to get one and she loves the battery life and low heat (less fain noise) compared to her previous devices.

If you want a nix experience, Linux support is still a WIP and progress is quite slow because of a lack of help from Snapdragon and OEMs. I expect that it might take a generation or two to get it to the point where it was with the x86 SLs.

However, at this stage, I'm tired of the quirks of Windows so the lack of nix support pushed me to get the Macbook Air for myself.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#492

Post by thewebguyd »

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…

Yep, there's no one else. It's a sad state of affairs in the laptop world outside of Apple.

Used to be primarily a Linux on the desktop user, but have been on macOS since the M1 air, and now typing this from a 14" M4 Pro MBP that will probably last me the next 5+ years easily.

I don't love macOS but it's usable, I pretty much live in the terminal anyway, and the ecosystem features are nice - I make heavy use of clipboard sharing between my laptop and phone, iMessage, and universal control with my iPad that's on my desk.

There's just no other laptop on the market that has this combination of aesthetics, performance, thermals (this thing is cool and silent), screen quality, top notch speakers and microphone for a laptop, and unmatched trackpad. Let alone anything that'll run Linux without some headaches.

I had hopes for the Snapdragon X elite laptops, but no Linux still, and they still don't hold a candle to the Macbooks.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#493

Post by turtlebits »

crazygringo wrote: post #186
permanent wrote: post #3

This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]" [4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air

It makes sense because that's who's upgrading. I've got an M1 Air and there's still no really compelling reason to upgrade. MagSafe and a nicer camera don't really justify it, especially when Continuity Camera is better than on the M1 or M4.

I'm in the same boat. My base model M1 air is the longest I've owned a laptop without upgrading. And it's perfectly fine. (and yes it only has 8gb)

Re: MacBook Air M4

#494

Post by jbverschoor »

kllrnohj wrote: post #445
crazygringo wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

It’s especially noticeable when scrolling, when moving windows, and when moving around the cursor

Re: MacBook Air M4

#495

Post by zitterbewegung »

hnlmorg wrote: post #473
guhidalg wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t agree. Compile times are definitely and very noticeably quicker on my Intel gaming laptop (that’s actually a few years old now) vs my M3 MBP. That said, I’ve never once felt that the M3 MBPs are sluggish. They are definitely super quick machines. And the fact that I can go a full day without charging even when using moderately heavy workloads is truly jaw droppingly impressive. I’d definitely take the power p…

M3 vs other high end intel chips on code compilation generally has the higher clock speed always winning. Only with the M4 is starting to hit clock speeds nearer to high end intel chips . We are 2 generations out to probably 5ghz sustained on Apple chips.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#496

Post by seanmcdirmid »

GeekyBear wrote: post #463
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hasn't priced in tariffs yet, if the 20% tariff in China stays, then it will definitely affect their prices eventually. If they just have to move final assembly to another country though, they should be able to recover in a year or so as FoxConn opens up a factory in Vietnam (assuming Trump doesn't get specific about Chinese made components, but those should pale in comparison to South Korea/Taiwan's supplied p…

> If they just have to move final assembly to another country They started shifting production out of China several years ago. For instance this 2023 news item. > Apple is continuing to reduce its reliance on China for production of its most popular products, moving to India and Thailand for key manufacturing. https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-moves-iphone-macbook-pr... Things have only accelerated since.

Brazil and India production are just to satisfy Brazil and India requirements (they will tariff heavily or not allowed to be sold otherwise).

I don't think Apple has enough final assembly in Thailand or Vietnam yet. US-bound product should still coming from China unless I'm missing something here. I just wouldn't put too much faith in to a one year old article with no followup and then assume that things have actually been accelerating without anyone noticing. The most I could find is:

https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/apples-production-stra...

I can't find anything at all on Thailand beyond hopeful articles.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#497

Post by mFixman »

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…

I bought a Thinkpad P16s because I wanted to use Linux but got used to the beautiful Macbook screen. So far I'm very happy with it.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#498

Post by turtlebits »

hermitcrab wrote: post #447

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.

Most if not all consumer laptops have a baseline 1 year warranty. If it's too expensive to repair from the manufacturer, repair it yourself? $80 from ifixit.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#499

Post by CoolGuySteve »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #334
m01 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you upgrade the storage of your XPS laptop? Maybe check out the Framework laptops? For example the Framework 13's new screen is 2.8k @ 256PPI apparently [1], which has slightly more pixels than the Macbook Air M4[2] (obviously pixels isn't everything), but you can get up to 8TB NVMe storage + an extra storage expansion cards if you're happy to sacrifice ports and up to 96GB RAM. [3] [1] https://community.frame.wo…

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.

It’s annoying that Asus is shipping 14” laptops with 75Wh batteries while the Framework 13 maxes out at 61Wh and doesn’t use LPDDR. On the other hand, it’s annoying ASUS doesn’t ship models with more ram.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#500

Post by teaearlgraycold »

ericmcer wrote: post #448
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.

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…

I can easily take my M3 MBA on trips, using in on the plane both ways and a couple hours there for a few days, and not charge it once.

I honestly looked for alternatives when I bought it last summer but there weren’t any competitive options.

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