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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

#501

Post by coldtea »

makeitdouble wrote: post #419
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…

> Apple continues to simplify the laptop naming scheme, we're at a point where it's simply: > Air OR Pro > Small screen OR big screen The weird part of that argument to me: to arrive to that point you've already made a ton of choices that need to be educated. You decided on the form factor: you don't want a convertible (neither a Surface like tablet + keyboard, nor something like a Yoga). You decided to forgo touch.…

>Then sure there's about 10 models. But at that point is it much complicated than say, choose from the DELL XPS line ?

Yes. A thousand times more complicated. I usually get Apple gear for myself, but am always asked to help friends and relatives with PC laptop buying decisions...

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

#502

Post by bloopernova »

itsoktocry wrote: post #474
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…

> 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.

Lordy does that multiple monitor thing grind my gears.

I just want to display on 3 screens. But the base model is the only one that corporate IT will buy. So I have to buy a DisplayLink adapter to do what the Intel macbooks did with zero problem.

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

#503

Post by threeseed »

skadamat wrote: post #193
ajross wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's on-chip silicon, not a marketing feature. This kind of product design is just really hard. Mask sets get well into the billions of dollars, you can't just assemble a list of features as if they're all free. You need to decide upfront, often years in advance, what feature you think people will want to buy for the market you think you'll find yourself in. There are no easy answers. But just in general, Intel has a…

In principle I agree. But the M3 chips are similar for the M3 Macbook Pro and M3 Macbook Air. The PRO laptop is the one that only supports 1 display while the AIR supports 2 with the lid closed. The M3 Pro has more space and is more ... pro?

Apple already said that a software update is coming to support dual displays for MacBook Pro.

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

#504

Post by kayodelycaon »

dataworm wrote: post #367
seam_carver wrote: post #345

M3 MBP will also get 2 display support when the lid is closed in a macOS update. https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/04/14-inch-m3-macbook-pro-multi-...

The M2 MacBooks should also get that because the hardware supports it. The M2 Mac mini allows to connect 2 displays over USB-C if you don't use the HDMI port.

The M1 mini could connect 2 displays as well. I'm pretty sure one of the two display controllers in the laptops is hardwired to the internal screen.

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

#505

Post by miggol »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #224
samatman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook. Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... lite…

Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 14" 14ACN6. Got one at Costco over a year ago for around $700US. Runs Pop_OS! really well. Weight is very much light enough for me. Edit: There is one downside I found. I replaced the 512GB SSD with 1TB and nearly needed stitches because the bottom plate was so sharp. Oh and I just looked it up, it's listed at 3.04lbs

Hello, laptop buddy!! Paid more than $700 in euros for it two years ago though. Can totally relate to the sharpness, but otherwise still very happy with it. Had to patch my ACPI to nuke S0 and get decent S3 suspend though. Did they ever patch that with firmware?

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

#506

Post by conradfr »

sircastor wrote: post #369
jjice wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right that they make a damn fine laptop (the build quality stands out to me) and they do a great job in that market. Anecdotally, my Framework 13 AMD ran me 1500 and I ended up with 64 GB of ram, 2 TB of storage, and an AMD 7840U. I bought my RAM and storage separately to get that end cost, to be fair. I wouldn't be surprised if the M3 actually outperforms my processor by a bit, but having way more…

I've oscillated a lot on "my next" laptop over the years. For a while (at the height of the butterfly-keyboard/touchbar-madness) I thought about going to Linux for my personal machine. I haven't gotten there, but the Framework gives me hope that a really really excellent, serviceable, and understandable laptop can and does exist. I would love if I could run macOS on a Framework.

I would love the opposite ;)

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

#507

Post by AnthonyMouse »

technothrasher wrote: post #406
izacus wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on, you're overexaggerating a bit. If you follow your pattern with Apple, you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing. (And with more and more Electron apps, might struggle even with that once you hop onto a video call.)

> you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing. I must be doing something wrong then. I've got one of those measly models and I do quite a bit more than just basic browsing without any problem. Video calls are the least of that, and they work fine.

Video calls require trivial amounts of memory and no real storage at all. Video editing, on the other hand, would pretty quickly fill up a 256GB drive. If you want to play with the fun new AI stuff, 8GB of RAM isn't enough.

Modern machines also have a nefarious failure mode. It used to be that you needed more memory to cache the hard drive, but SSDs are pretty fast and that doesn't matter as much anymore. So now you have the opposite problem -- if you're out of memory and start swapping you don't notice as much, because SSDs are pretty fast. Except that now you're silently wearing out your SSD. Which in the Macs, is soldered.

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

#508

Post by bowsamic »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #494
bowsamic wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there. Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

> Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it I've always wondered why that is. No other community I'm active in insists so much on explicitly spelling out everything and very literal language – most will actually reward playing with language, if done well. Writing as if targeting Commander Data seems to work quite well though.

This might come off as projection, but in my experience, HN has a lot of people who pride themselves on their rationality, and part of this is giving off the image of never joking and always being serious. You can see this when people get mass downvoted for making jokes, which is also uncommon in other programming communities. Somehow this often spills over into metaphors as well as jokes. I think that jokes and metaphors are quite similar in that regard, both not to be taken totally seriously and/or literally. The HN insistence of being above jokes inevitably leads to being above metaphors.

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

#509

Post by nebula8804 »

bmitc wrote: post #407
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…

Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple prdoduct? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. You basically have to refer to MacRumors to get it right. Apple has the same problem, if not worse. Dell has XPS 13, XPS 15, and XPS 17 and now the plus designation. It's pretty easy.

I just tried their Apple "Trade In" Tool.

They ask for serial which you can copy and paste from the "About this Mac" dialog box that is in MacOS.

From there it asks you the year of your laptop which is also in the same dialog box.

From there it asks you which CPU version and core count you have (for M series laptops with multiple options.) To get this info, you click on "More Info" on the same dialog box(In Sonoma you also click System Report and it is all there).

Afterwards it just asks the condition of the laptop (ie, does it turn on, screen cracked etc.)

I don't see why you would need MacRumors for this.

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

#510

Post by pquki4 »

chongli wrote: post #404
jm4 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.

I disagree, and I always upgrade the RAM even though I don’t like paying more. Why? Because it puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control. Think of an alternate universe where Apple does the opposite: every new model they push the envelope and double the baseline RAM compared to the previous year. In that world you’d have all the software growing in memory use without bound. Consumers would be forced…

> It puts pressure on developers to keep the bloat under control

If you are talking about "native" apps, maybe. Otherwise, nah. Cross-platform apps based on web like Teams and Spotify won't put too much effort on performance as long as it is not too slow. And if you haven't realized, most of the stuff you interact with is online. People just shove an entire website.

As for professional apps -- if you can't run a heavy audio/video editing application smoothly, I'm pretty sure that's your problem. Developers can put more effort into optimizing for 8GB RAM, but at the end of the day these workflows require large amount of memory, and after a certain point it is not worth to optimize for this segment of users

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