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MacBook Air M4

apple.com

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#531

Post by usefulcat »

webdever wrote: post #430
usefulcat wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abusive is a stretch. If you don't like it.. you're free to not buy from them?

[flagged]

Oh I totally agree that Apple's RAM and storage pricing is egregious, but really, "abusive"?

My point was that we shouldn't be so quick to water down the meaning of the word "abusive". If you've ever known anyone who has actually been abused you might understand better.

"Don't buy it if you don't like it" is a perfectly reasonable thing to point out whenever alternatives exist, and in this case most certainly do. It's just a laptop.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#532

Post by alberth »

trymas wrote: post #5

Anyone can comment on how Apple Silicon (M) MacBook Airs deal with heat? It’s fan-less design, so how does it compare with MacBook Pros with same M chips? Does it throttle often? Can you have it comfortably on your lap in summer? Or unless you’re running 1-hour long 4K rendering or machine learning training sessions - you’d never notice? UPDATE: what I am getting at - if you are developer and don’t care about screen…

From what I’ve experienced, the only thing that will cause your M-Series warm/hot is using the GPU.

So if you’re not gaming nor have tons of UI windows open (since macOS UI is rendered with GPU) - you’ll never experience your M-series getting hot.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#533

Post by throwup238 »

indemnity wrote: post #503
throwup238 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is better because they’re not competing on price which is why they can afford to bring so many things in house. That’s how they can afford the talent and other R&D resources. We get what we pay for.

$899 (edu) or $999 is extremely competitive for what you get. Most people buying an entry level computer these days should at least consider stretching to get a MBA than the $300-400 shovelware, they’ll get so much use out of it. My wife is still using her 2020 M1 Air and it’s still as snappy as the day we got it, still works for all her use cases. Incredible value.

That’s a great point, but I think that’s the result of decades of work enabled by premium pricing culminating in their custom silicon (which is itself a product of their ability to command exclusivity with TSMC nodes). The shareholders demand ever constant growth and Apple is moving down market just like everyone else (looking at you, BMW 3 series).

Re: MacBook Air M4

#534

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Air M4

#535

Post by sneak »

turtlebits wrote: post #489
indymike wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using LG Gram laptops running linux. They are fantastic. My current daily drive is 3lbs, 17" display, 32GB RAM i7 CPU, and I bumped the SSD to 2TB. It is lighter than my 13" Macbook air and cost $1200 at Costco. Oh, and battery life is 14-16 hours of use.

Had to use one for a few weeks. Low DPI screen and horrendous touchpad.

I haven’t used or seen one, but based on this I have a very strong impression about what the built-in speakers sound like.

Plastic case?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#536

Post by JadeNB »

Aeolun wrote: post #470
buildfocus wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My $2000 linux desktop is still faster and snappier than the $4000 macbook, but it’s the only thing laptop sized that feels even close.

> My $2000 linux desktop is still faster and snappier than the $4000 macbook, but it’s the only thing laptop sized that feels even close.

What brand?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#537

Post by russelg »

Kerrick wrote: post #381
vvillena wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make the notch go away with third-party apps. On the Pro laptops the screen has miniLED backlighting, so the dark area stays purely black. Removing the notch this way leaves you with a 16:10 screen, so you still have more screen real state than in most other laptops.

Yep, it's not a notch cut into your available space. It's "wings" of extra pixels taking up what would otherwise be unused space.

This point is normally conveniently ignored by notch detractors.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#539

Post by noisy_boy »

klaas- wrote: post #353
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…

I'd say the primary problem of framework is security updates for bios etc

Depending on where you live, the main problem is they don't ship to a lot of places.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#540

Post by tomjakubowski »

VincentEvans wrote: post #336
electrograv wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, human visual perception exists along a spectrum of temporal, spatial, and chromatic resolution that varies from person to person — I’ve even met some people who can’t perceive the difference between 30hz and 120hz, while to me and most people I know, the difference between 60hz and 120hz is enormous. So you could make the same argument against high DPI displays, superior peak screen brightness, enormously better…

Lol, reminds me of audiophile discussions when most people listen to youtube streaming a recompressed version of an mp3 someone uploaded.

It continues to amaze me years later how many people happily enjoyed watching 4:3 content stretched to 16:9, before 4:3 mostly disappeared from broadcasts.
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