Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The MacBook Neo

daringfireball.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 1001 posts

Re: The MacBook Neo

#591

Post by NetMageSCW »

joe_mamba wrote: post #369
fxtentacle wrote: post #89

The legacy PC makers are lucky that Ubuntu doesn’t work on this, or else they’d face even more competition. By now, everyone hates Windows. And I’d wager some people hate it enough to be willing to switch to whatever works and is halfway ad-free.

>The legacy PC makers are lucky that Ubuntu doesn’t work on this If Linux would be able to be installed and fully working on this out of the box, then the laptop wouldn't cost 600 dollars. Apple profits from monetizing people tied to its iOS+MacOS ecosystem. If you're not gonna be a MacOS/iOS user, you're worthless to them and selling you a laptop for only 600 dollars is not good for business anymore.

That’s never been true for Apple, and while possibly they are getting closer, it still isn’t true for Apple. They don’t sell anything at a loss.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#592

Post by dzhiurgis »

Very obvious next step is to release 15" or 16" variant. It would put nail in coffin on cheap PC market. But would also cannibalize their own air/pro sales.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#593

Post by benjiro3000 »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #286
bigyabai wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's amazing someone can post that without the slightest hint of self-awareness. It's amazing that people attribute it to lacking self-awareness. You can spend $400 on a laptop and have a perfectly fine experience. There are damn good Chromebooks in the $200-300 territory that I can genuinely recommend to people. If you just need to do your taxes or answer a Zoom call, why would you get a Macbook Neo? macOS itself…

I have a relatively recent expensive gaming laptop from Asus for the occasional LAN party with friends. I hate it and it’s a huge piece of shit. Windows 11 is necessary for anti-cheat shenanigans. Apple could change the Mac OS wallpaper to a permanent photo of a turd and it would still be better than Windows 11. Also the trackpad and keyboard suck.

[dead]

Re: The MacBook Neo

#594

Post by xp84 »

zarzavat wrote: post #450
fsh wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, displays are commodity components. So much so that motivated enthusiasts have managed to swap better panels into their ThinkPads for a long time. Manufacturers don't prioritize display quality in cheap devices because it doesn't show up on the spec sheet and most customers don't care that much.

Consumers don't read spec sheets. My mother doesn't even know the difference between RAM and SSD - it's all just "memory" right? But she knows that when she goes to the Apple Store the computers are built to an impressive standard. Quality speaks for itself, and the way that people buy computers is through their eyes and fingertips, not their heads. Go to the Apple Store and just observe how people make their buying…

People already in the Apple Store have already chosen to probably buy an Apple computer, and they all have approximately equally great displays to the layperson (myself included -- I can't tell an important difference between my M1 MacBook Air's screen and the one on the nicest MacBook Pro in the Apple Store).

Go into a non-Apple space though, where money is not "no object," and see how many people would choose a 16-17" 1920x1080 screen over a 13" MacBook Neo purely because of the big screen, nevermind that the Mac has roughly 4x the number of pixels. I guarantee you, it's more than you think.

My only point was that yes, the MacBook Neo wins on quality construction and aesthetics (but I'll argue NOT on durability since plastic laptops can take a lot more incidental bumps than Macs will), cool factor/perceived eliteness, and screen quality. I am sure there are plenty of people who care about those things, but I think most of those people are already buying a Mac today.

I suspect we'll actually see a modest cannibalization of those casual but cheap Mac users from the MacBook Air, since most people don't really understand how to evaluate RAM and storage size, but a lot of them will have a bad experience after filling the disk.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#595

Post by xp84 »

officeplant wrote: post #366
xp84 wrote: post #259

> You cannot buy an x86 PC laptop in the $600–700 price range that competes with the MacBook Neo on any metric — performance, display quality, audio quality, or build quality. Interesting metrics, though I'd add that if you count storage and memory as metrics, it'd be hard to find a worse PC laptop. And I don't see why we should artificially exclude ARM PC laptops from the comparison. https://www.bestbuy.com/product/…

>And I don't see why we should artificially exclude ARM PC laptops from the comparison. As an ARM enthusiast who has tried a lot of WinARM, I think at this point I really struggle to believe MS has a single care in the world for improving quality of life for WinARM users. They sure do market it, and the laptops do work most of the time. I've just never had any other computers shit the bed when it comes to graphics dr…

That's sad to hear. I continue to hold out hope for more efficient ARM CPUs outside of the increasingly controlling Apple walled garden (and for those computers to be good).

Re: The MacBook Neo

#596

Post by NetMageSCW »

rekabis wrote: post #482

I am perfectly fine with many of the technological restrictions on this device, and think it represents a great balance. However, I think that two will bring sour tastes to people’s metaphorical mouths much more than expected: the RAM and drive space. There should have been a 16Gb option. Nosebleed the price if you have to, or include a SODIMM slot if needed, but the option should have been there to expand the memory…

Anyone who knows what any of that means, or even to looks at those specs, are not in the market for this and should know better.

Why do you think the cheapest MacBook available should be one that costs more to support power users. Apple has the MacBook Air for those users.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#597

Post by dzhiurgis »

Schmerika wrote: post #126
ozlikethewizard wrote: post #72

When did $600 become budget?

Would you be surprised if I told you that $600 is slightly under 11 days of the average rent [0]? 0 - https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/

Are you comparing 11 days of utility vs 5+ years worth?

Re: The MacBook Neo

#598

Post by brailsafe »

koyote wrote: post #551
brailsafe wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Dell Pro Max Plus (that I legit thought might be a joke) is a big horkin laptop for ~$6k+. 3cm thick, nearly 3kg, and you can do wireframes on it, wow! A full HD screen with 500 nits brightness. What a piece of shit product comparatively speaking. I imagine someone would buy it for a niche specific engineering purpose that can only be practical on Intel Windows, but damn. I really don't think it would fair bette…

I use the non-Plus version as my work machine (not by choice). It's massive and heavy and feels less snappy than my personal X1 Nano after all the corporate malware uses up most of the CPU and RAM. The screen resolution is also shockingly bad (my 13 inch X1 Nano has a higher res than this 16 inch beast). That being said, it's nice having 64gb of RAM, a fast CPU and an Nvidia card (we build stuff that runs on CUDA). B…

> That being said, it's nice having 64gb of RAM, a fast CPU and an Nvidia card (we build stuff that runs on CUDA). Build times are quick and I can run some of our more demanding test suites without RAM filling up and slowing everything down.

No question there, more RAM and a specifically CUDA capable card make sense. At a big corp gig I did years ago, they issued me this atrocious HP thing they must have bought in bulk. I really tried to be optimistic, since it was just a tool and I was otherwise grateful for the work, and I'm sure the ram and CPU situation was fine, but for my use it only actively detracted from my ability to get things done. It pretty much had to be docked at all times, the screen had one viewing angle, Windows was functionally detrimental for my workflow (frontend web at that time), and the battery life was just sad.

ThinkPads have always seemed a bit better, even their more chonkier versions.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#599

Post by joshAg »

cannolicannon wrote: post #254
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #31

IMO the consumer PC industry is near an existential crisis. The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. The exact same specs will be in two different chassis designs. Additionally, you can’t count on the basic being correct. It takes a hour of research to know if the trackpad is not-awful, keyboard doe…

The big players are just awful at marketing; too many SKUs and models - it takes a paragraph to figure out how 2 Dell laptops from the same release year differ. Just hired a new colleague who prefers Windows. Dell seemed like a reasonable option for a good laptop. Here is Dell's current lineup: - Dell Laptop (with 14, 15, 16 inch variants) - Dell Plus (with 14, 15, and 16 inch variants) - Dell XPS (with 13, 14, and 1…

FWIW, it's a little better on the thinkpad side, even today: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models

If they want dell, though, they want dell. I'd say give them a budget and have them send you a SKU that fits :P

Re: The MacBook Neo

#600

Post by NetMageSCW »

j45 wrote: post #517

If the Neo had been the next 12" macbook (2.0 lb), it would be the first apple product I would have lined up for. The article sums up why quite well: "The biggest shortcoming of the decade-ago MacBook “One”, aside from the baffling decision to include just one USB-C port that was also its only means of charging, was the shitty performance of Intel’s Core M chips. Those chips were small enough and low-power enough to…

Given that the 12” MacBook cost $1300 back then, that new MacBook would be triple the cost, or around $1800 today. Still worth it?
Post reply on HN