Is there anything out there that can run linux that has battery life like this? I'm debating just getting one and running a linux VM full time in it.
AMD 6xxxU has really good battery life.
New MacBook Air with M2
511–520 of 796 posts
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#512I wonder how many casual power users are going to get this and then realize they can’t run their current windows VM anymore…
You can run a Windows VM and x86 apps work.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 2016 MacBook Pro was a turd. The butterfly keyboard would inevitably break. I went through several of these laptops. To add insult to the injury, this model's unique innovations were "Touch Bar" and "no ports"... I've been buying Macs since 2000, and the 2016 MBP is definitely the worst Mac I ever had. It was enough to drive me to purchase a Surface Book as an alternative.
The 16" Macbook pro I bought in 2019 has been a source of constant irritation to me - unexpected fan thrashing, overheating, the usual stuff - and the performance and low cost of the new M1-based MacBooks has done nothing to improve my mood.
Try customizing the fan curves to spin up at lower temps. Not much more noise over all if at all, but much more responsiveness.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lack of a center bar was a bigger deal than I expected. Being able to extend my SQL window to the full screen seeing all columns for example, beyond 'just nice'. Same with code, not always but sometimes I need a wider view. There are a lot of subtle gains that I'm probably forgetting about and really only one negative that I've run into - games don't play super nice on the ultra-wide, but that's not really what I…
If you had 3 wide monitors instead, would that make the ultrawide less appealing? It would solve the “center bar” issue, for example
For me that's just too much screen, but I have guys (DevOps in particular) that do exactly that.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#515Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that going to change anytime soon? Genuinely interested because all currencies, other than USD are depreciating.
Unless Western leaders or US particularly, want a severe global recession to persist, I think they will eventually pursue whatever means necessary to weaken $ and help Europe, rest of world, perhaps with a new "Plaza Accord" type arrangement[0]. This is if one believes they actually care about stabilizing European industry and economy and not rather that they are keen on seeing global chaos for a period of time and a…
How is that last part prescient? That's a year after Euromaidan. Ever since then, 2014, critics have always lambasted any US/EU in support of the Ukrainian people. Why? Because geopolitically Ukraine was meant to be another Belarus, a patsy state, for Russia and its allies. That statement is the opposite of prescient, in that we now see the mask off and the devil that patsy Ukrainian governments were actually making a deal with.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the 8GB M1 mini, which I bought as soon as it went on sale, so it's a year and a half old. In general the 8GB thing has been fine, and the notion that it can swap pretty quickly has been fine, but it's definitely noticeable now that the swapping is no longer fine, whether because the flash is wearing out or because there was a software update. These days I regularly reboot the thing just to clear the decks aft…
I can't imagine the SSD having worn out yet; that's very odd. Mine hasn't quite hit a year yet, so I'll definitely keep an eye on it, but I haven't noticed any slowdowns.
Excessive swapping due to ram pressure can wear out an SSD pretty fast.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#517Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.
Ooo yes, it's so stilted and unnatural and transparently done on purpose. It's nearly as bad as people referring to a baby as just "baby" rather than "the baby" or "your baby".
They just took a page from the Columbo[1] playbook. Why use names when you just can call it "baby". :D
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#518Does anyone have reviews of any comparable ARM-based (good battery backup and speed) Windows laptops? Seems like there should be a transition of the entire laptop market to ARM, given that Apple has demonstrated that ARM processors are viable on the laptop.
Non-Apple ARM chips are garbage. Half the performance of M1 at best.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#519Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering the shared GPU memory, 8 GB is going to be very limiting going forward. Also, this Mac is very likely going to have the same slower SSD like the recently released 13 inch M2 MBP. This means you have to upgrade the SSD as well, if you care about performance. I would not recommend buying an MBA with base specs.
And once you spec it up to the 16 / 512 that it minimally needs to be for any serious work, you are close to the (now discounted) price for the base 14 inch macbook pro at third party resellers. This air is currently way overpriced. At the price it was released it should have had 512 gb storage, which also would have avoided the performance issues. It is still going to sell really well though, so maybe the previous m…
I agree. I'm torn between the already discounted 14" Pro model and the new MBA. The weight difference is quite considerable, so it's a tough choice if you value portability. I'll have to compare them in the store before I decide.
Re: New MacBook Air with M2
#520Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering the shared GPU memory, 8 GB is going to be very limiting going forward. Also, this Mac is very likely going to have the same slower SSD like the recently released 13 inch M2 MBP. This means you have to upgrade the SSD as well, if you care about performance. I would not recommend buying an MBA with base specs.
And once you spec it up to the 16 / 512 that it minimally needs to be for any serious work, you are close to the (now discounted) price for the base 14 inch macbook pro at third party resellers. This air is currently way overpriced. At the price it was released it should have had 512 gb storage, which also would have avoided the performance issues. It is still going to sell really well though, so maybe the previous m…
For reference, the slower speed seems to be around 1500 MB/s read and write, compared to 3000 MB/s read speeds for the M1 MBP [0]. While there are definitely applications that would benefit from the extra speed, I wouldn't call 1500 MB/s - ~2.5x the speed of the fastest SATA SSDs - a "performance issue."
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/06/26/base-m2-13-inch-macbook...