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New MacBook Air with M2

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Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#541

Post by april_22 »

Aperocky wrote: post #384
eropple wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM--under very light use it was great, but under anything a little more taxing (a good number of tabs, having Discord open, a relatively "light" creative app like Logic or Fusion 360) it would very rapidly not just get bad, but get stop-the-world awful. (edit: and as a sibling poster notes, plugging it into an external monitor made things a lot worse!) I don't know if MacOS's low-RAM…

I have a M1 with 16G ram. I don't think 8GB ram is even feasible - and that's coming from a user whose primary interface is terminal. 16GB is great though, never had a problem with RAM issue.

Why is that though? I have a ten year old machine at home with 8gigs of ram and it smoothly runs with alot of chrome tabs open?

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#542

Post by derefr »

commandersaki wrote: post #291
chrisjc wrote: post #253

I'm sorry if this doesn't add anything to the discussion, but one of MKBHD's latest reviews discusses the differences between the MacBook Pro 13 and this new MacBook Air. The video does a great job of shining a light on all of the tradeoffs between the two devices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSdKnNj7ozk This little device is a beast!

What annoys me about MKBHD's video is that he complains about an ageing design like it's a bad thing for the general case. I laud any manufacturer that's come up with a time tested design that doesn't change, which is why the IBM Thinkpads of the day were so popular. But in this specific case, MKBHD is right, this is an Apple being lazy about design and probably reusing their existing parts and tooling just to slap o…

"Being lazy about design", as if the point of this model refresh isn't:

1. an upgrade path for those in the Business Leasing program who are due a replacement for their existing MBP13-with-touchbar, that is careful to not break their use-cases;

2. to use up an existing stock of parts. (See also: most of the reason the iPod Touch existed for so long.) Any touchbars they already cranked out ideally have to go into something, rather than just being left in a warehouse to depreciate.

3. to relieve demand pressure on their limited supply of newer-model parts (which could be fairly important in the middle of a global tech-supply-chain crunch.)

Points 2+3 could theoretically be called "lazy" (or perhaps "selfish") on Apple's part — but there's little real downside for anyone here, since, per point 1, most of the expected consumers of this hardware are business customers doing bulk buys/leases, who don't care about having the "newest and sexiest" designs anyway; and releasing a "retread" model for those customers "frees up" the logistical resources to get new laptops to the customers that do care about those things.

Home users are expected to just get an Air; "individual professionals" are expected to get the MBP14/16. It's only corporate buyers that requirements-checkbox themselves into buying MBPs rather than Airs, but then also economize themselves into the cheapest possible MBPs.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#543

Post by theflyinghorse »

jeswin wrote: post #243

For many in the HN audience, this may not be a good buy. You'd need to buy the 16GB + 512GB version since the bundled 256GB SSD is considerably slower than the previous gen as reported by many people. That bumps the price to $1599, which isn't significantly cheaper than the 14" MacBook Pro - which sells for $1799 on Best Buy.

Thermal issues also mentioned in this thread should be factored in too.

I personally ended up going for the pro over waiting for m2 air because of active cooling and multiple display support

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#544

Post by _ea1k »

rayiner wrote: post #449
uneventual wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s basically the exact same pricing as the US. $1 ≈ €1 today and $1200 * 1.25 for VAT equals $1500.

And the US price is also only $100 more than the nominal price of the base model of the original MacBook in early 2008, and $300 less adjusted for inflation.

I think those had 4GB and complaints about not enough memory. 14 years later, we have 8 GB and complaints about not enough memory.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#545

Post by mstipetic »

MilaM wrote: post #395
Thaxll wrote: post #280

The pricing outside the US is outrageous though. Those are very expensive laptops. €1520 for the base version with only 8GB lol

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.

I have a base M1 MBA, I've been running k8s clusters, building stuff with elixir, python and go, doing web dev, all without any issues at all

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#546

Post by april_22 »

evo_9 wrote: post #514
joshspankit wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it too distracting. When I have multiple screens I spend way too much time thinking about what I should put on which screen.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#547

Post by april_22 »

retrac98 wrote: post #286
chrisjc wrote: post #253

I'm sorry if this doesn't add anything to the discussion, but one of MKBHD's latest reviews discusses the differences between the MacBook Pro 13 and this new MacBook Air. The video does a great job of shining a light on all of the tradeoffs between the two devices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSdKnNj7ozk This little device is a beast!

His videos are consistently brilliant. My go-to example for people who think "YouTuber" isn't a legitimate career.

Exactly. I espcecially think his content is extremly well thought out. Like when he compared all the iPhone models from first to last.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#548

Post by april_22 »

Aperocky wrote: post #419
senttoschool wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For M1 owners, just wait for M3. It should be on TSMC 3nm which will be the next true node shrinkage.

M1 owner but since 2020, so probably the among the longest users. I'm tempted. I also think 3nm is going to beset with production problems, I don't think it's coming around anytime near.

I am reading that alot of users had issues with the 8gig model. If you have 8gigs, did you experience any perfomance issues?

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#550

Post by april_22 »

apexalpha wrote: post #272

€1520 in Europe for 256gb ssd and 8gb ram... The 512/16 version is almost €2000. Man this is just insane pricing. It sucks because besides ssd/ram everything is fantastic for a laptop. I would buy it almost instantly for $1000

the M1 Air is also still a great option though, the M1 is still really fast.
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