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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#521

Post by tristor »

enragedcacti wrote: post #362
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 is the gap so large? I think it appears large for a couple of reasons. First is that Mac screens are much closer to 3K than 4K. You can find tons of really nice 14" 3K laptops so the gap is pretty much negligible there, especially if you consider how cheap you can get 3K OLEDs on Windows PCs nowadays. Second is that many companies try to limit SKUs for their off-the-shelf products and 2TB or 4TB apparently aren…

> First is that Mac screens are much closer to 3K than 4K. You can find tons of really nice 14" 3K laptops so the gap is pretty much negligible there, especially if you consider how cheap you can get 3K OLEDs on Windows PCs nowadays.

You are discounting the quality of a Macbook screen without understanding how it differs from competitors. A Macbook is the only laptop on the market that accurately reproduces colors out of the box to an extent that is sufficient for color grading photographs or video. I'm a hobbyist photographer and primarily do editing on a desktop where I have LG and Ezio displays that are color accurate, but when I'm out and about there is no alternative on the market I can buy other than a Macbook, because while on paper the "resolution" of other laptops may be similar or even superior, in actuality they are somewhat between shit-tier and D tier in actual color reproduction and quality. Macbook displays are MASSIVELY better than anything any other laptop offers at any price point non-Apple.

I previously used a mixture of different laptops and have over the course of time shifted to using Macbooks for everything because the performance, battery life, power efficiency, display quality, software availability, and annoyance minimization advantages are so large for Apple that it makes no sense to use anything else, except perhaps Linux just to use Linux (which I do on a Framework 13 for personal tinkering projects). I don't see how anyone can honestly recommend that anybody purchase a non-Apple laptop in 2025 for any purpose other than tinkering with Linux, in which case the Frameworks are great.

There's obviously a cost to that superiority and not everyone can afford it, but that doesn't mean alternatives are /preferable/. They clearly are not, they are a trade-off in every single aspect. Even in the case of weight that you mentioned, that trade-off is in durability, the Macbook weighs more because it has an entirely metal chassis and most non-Apple laptops are cheap plastic monstrosities.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#522

Post by theodric »

pja wrote: post #294
Kon-Peki wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original post: > everything I want in a sleek 14" or 15" device The X1 carbon we have in our house has a 13” 16:9 screen, which I hate.

Latest X1 Carbons have 14" 16:10 OLED screens: https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t... Or pick up a Framework 13 which has a 13.5" 2880x1800 16:10 screen: https://frame.work/products/laptop-diy-13-gen-amd/configurat...

Just bought a P14s gen5 AMD with a 16:10 OLED, reconditioned, for about a grand. Two SoDIMM slots and one m.2 NVMe slot. Now rocking 96GB RAM, for which I paid the princely sum of 200 pieces of silver. Loaded openSUSE on it - everything works.

It feels plasticky (magnesium chassis T/P-series belong to the ages) but it's a damn sight more computer than I could get from Apple for that money. Well, apart from the battery life, RAM bandwidth, OS-hardware integration, and build quality. It's more RAM than I could get from Apple for that money, for sure.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#524

Post by rizzaxc »

0x457 wrote: post #350
overstay8930 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Apple wants to differentiate ProMotion as a Pro feature, but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is. Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and sl…

120Hz on Android IMO is: try once, say "damn that's smooth" and then disable to save battery life. I only ever used Pixels as android phones, so my experience is limited to that.

genuine question; why would you do that lol? phones easily get full day battery nowadays, and flagships get 2 day battery if your usage is anything but insane

Re: MacBook Air M4

#525

Post by GeekyBear »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #496
GeekyBear wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 actuall…

> Brazil and India production are just to satisfy Brazil and India requirements

I agree that this was initially the case, but China's zero Covid policy factory shutdowns led Apple (and others) to start moving production out of China in earnest.

India, for example, is now producing current generation iPhones for export, not just makung the cheaper variants for sale inside India.

> One of the biggest shifts in manufacturing has been reducing dependence on China. The magnitude of that move was reinforced today with news that India-made iPhone exports were said to have jumped by a third to nearly $6 billion in value in the six months to September.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-29/apple-...

Apple has been moving to shift a significant portion of manufacturing out of China for some time now.

> Apple Aims to Make a Quarter of the World’s iPhones in India

https://www.wsj.com/tech/apple-aims-to-make-a-quarter-of-the...

Re: MacBook Air M4

#526

Post by Tarball10 »

0x457 wrote: post #350
overstay8930 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Apple wants to differentiate ProMotion as a Pro feature, but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is. Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and sl…

120Hz on Android IMO is: try once, say "damn that's smooth" and then disable to save battery life. I only ever used Pixels as android phones, so my experience is limited to that.

120Hz on Snapdragon/Mediatek Android phones works great with little impact to battery life. Pixels are hobbled by the poor power efficiency of their Tensor chips.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#527

Post by usefulcat »

rafram wrote: post #433
usefulcat wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notch has gone away, at least as of Sonoma on a 15" M3 Air, but at the cost of some real estate at the top of the screen. Basically they just don't draw anything at or above the lower edge of the notch, so it looks like the screen ends there even when it doesn't. I actually wanted to get the notch back so I could have as much vertical screen real estate as possible and was disappointed to find that there doesn't…

It sounds like you've changed your screen resolution to a 16:10 aspect ratio: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/17j5zo5/i_think_ive_fo... The notch is definitely still there by default.

No, from the time I bought it last year I never changed the resolution until I noticed the notch was gone and was trying to get it back, but to no avail. I also don't have anything unusual installed, definitely nothing display-related. It's pretty much as I received it from Apple, modulo whatever updates have been released since then.

Currently it's set to 1710 x 1107, which is labeled "Default", and no notch. When I look closely at the right angle I can clearly see the notch dipping into the screen, but the OS does not use any of the area to either side of the notch--it's completely dark there.

Just now I ticked "Show all resolutions" and tried at least a dozen other available resolutions and none of them use the screen above the notch bottom. Sonoma 14.6.1, 15" M3 Air.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#528

Post by tester756 »

homefree wrote: post #411
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…

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.

What about Lunar Lake?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#530

Post by mcgrath_sh »

dsego wrote: post #477
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 1TB of storage makes something professional equipment. I have well over 500 GB of photos. I want each of those stored locally where I control the data. Nor do I think 32 GB of RAM makes something professional. I'd prefer to future proof such a large purchase, and because I can't even go back to Apple in 3 years and purchase more RAM I have to decide right now what might be useful in 5-7 years.

You can always use portable drives, cloud, or a NAS to store photos. In either case you need a backup, storing everything on one laptop is a bit limiting.

I do use portable drives, Dropbox, and Amazon Glacier. I have four copies of my photos. They are, by leaps and bounds, my most irreplaceable data. I want every single one of them on my main machine, which makes automating backups to the external drives and Glacier infinitely easier. It is a dealbreaker for me, and I don't find $400 an acceptable price to pay to get past said dealbreaker. Well, realistically, $800, seeing as my personal Dropbox is at 850 GB, it would be silly of me to buy an un-upgradeable drive that would be teetering on storage space issues from the jump. Apple thinks it is reasonable to pay $199 less than it would cost for an entire second MacBook Air to upgrade drive space to 2TB.
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