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.
Is the performance gap so huge? Power efficiency yes, absolutely, but for peak performance last I saw the last AMD vs M3 benchmarks were a slightly slower single core, and a little faster in multicore. Doesn't seem as world changing as described.
Yes. You need to go to server class chips (eg. threadripper) before beating the raw multi-core performance of a top-spec M4 Max in a Macbook pro, and the battery life is still crazy good!
I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro (ProMotion/120hz and XDR/HDR, at least). The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro despite its chunkier weight, since the local compute/memory of the Air is already plenty for me (and most users). The iPad Pro proves that weight and battery life is no excuse here for the lack of state-…
As others have said, they do this on purpose. It's the same with memory. I'd probably switch from a Pro to an Air if I could get 64gig ram (for LLM work) but they'd rather charge me $4800 instead of ~$3200 (guessing the price given the top end 32gig Air is $2800) It's frustrating because I'd prefer a lighter device. In fact, even the Air isn't that light compared to its competition. I'd happily pay +$500 ($5300) for…
A pro will still be a good 2.5x the speed compared to the Air due to memory bandwidth. It would be rather silly to spring for that amount of memory for that purpose, anything more than say a 14B param model will be painful.
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…
you have the choice to go with the AMD Ryzen AI Max processor which rivals the M4. And gives similar battery life and performance. Or the Intel Lunar Lake processor. Both have extremely good laptop options - the Lenovo Yoga Aura edition is pretty much macbook quality. And runs LLMs ( https://github.com/intel/ipex-llm/blob/main/docs/mddocs/Over... )
"Ryzen AI" has to be the worst name for a line of general purpose CPUs ever conceived.
Yeah I think when they say non-tech people they mean a subset of people who know a bit about refresh rates (example being avid PC gamers for instance), but I'd still say the vast majority of people cannot tell 60 to 120. That or its not something they think about. Certainly if they had both side by side they may be able to notice a difference, but in everyday use it makes no real difference to the vast majority of pe…
Just tried ProMotion vs. 60Hz on MBP, no/very little difference I can see. Sure it's just me but for me all the claims here are way exaggerated/psychological, almost like audiophiles being able to "hear" stuff that doesn't exist in a blind test.
It's baffling to me that some people claim to not see the difference. It's literally light and day to me. It's like someone looking at a low DPI screen and a high DPI screen and not being able to tell the difference.
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.
It’s also annoying that the latest Intel/AMD Zenbooks don’t offer a non-PWM IPS panel screen option. The OLED panels they use apparently bother some people at low brightness settings with flickering and of course there’s the usual longevity concerns with the technology.
I’ve been browsing the Lenovo (and others’) website for weeks, and the only two laptops it shows with 2TB storage and 4k display are the ThinkPad P1 and P16s. The ThinkPad X1 and Framework 13 have a much lower resolution display. Also, I appreciate Framework’s mission, but it’s not the build quality that I’m looking for.
There should be no questioning on matters of personal taste, but I will offer my experience with the 13 FW, which is that build quality is pretty great already, but also you get the option to maintain it longer term, such as changing hinges etc. which gives confidence on longevity. I also have a Macbook M1, and I have found myself reaching for the framework almost exclusively now. It feels great to work on a machine…
I own a Framework 13, my biggest problem with it is the poor build quality. After only a few months of carrying it in a laptop bag (not in a backpack), it stopped being able to sit flat on a table. I have never had this problem before, including with laptops that cost way less than the Framework. I get that I could try to repeatedly buy case components from the site and replace them until it sits flat on a table again, but I don't want to have to do that and then have it start wobbling again in another few months. The fan on mine is also very loud and on a lot, and if you use it on anything besides a flat table (i.e. your lap or a bed), the vents get blocked, causing the fans to go super high and the computer to start thermal throttling. Overall it's nice that the Framework is upgradable long-term, but I don't think it's worth it when the benefit is that I'm just able to use a computer that I don't enjoy using for longer.
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.
You mean plugged in or battery?
You’ll get regular performance on battery.
I’ve gone entire work days with my Pro on battery because I didn’t notice I hadn’t plugged it in. All my docker containers, IDE etc plugged into my external monitor. It was a good 9hrs before I noticed.
Macs are easy to beat depending on what trade offs you want to make though.
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.
Is the performance gap so huge? Power efficiency yes, absolutely, but for peak performance last I saw the last AMD vs M3 benchmarks were a slightly slower single core, and a little faster in multicore. Doesn't seem as world changing as described.
Yes it is. My M2 Max MBP runs multithreaded workloads in the same ballpark as my water cooled 12900k.
They have superior technology because they control the full stack and have taken more and more ownership of it over the years (most recently building their own modem in the iPhone 16e). They could design chips for an exact set of constraints (originally iPhones) and then expand that to the mac. Intel with x86 had to support legacy and tons of different devices (and bad leadership caused them to ignore efficiency and…
No they don't all their technology is equivalent to what's in the industry save their chips. Which btw is manufactured by TSMC so the chip itself is not vertically integrated.
You’re treating vertical integration as if it’s this absolute thing. Apple is clearly more vertically integrated than any other laptop brand by virtue of designing everything from the CPU to the OS. That remains true even though Apple doesn’t run their own chip fabs or mine their own bauxite.
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…
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.
I thought this too but I think the amd mobile series chips have mostly caught up