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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#661

Post by harkinian »

rchaud wrote: post #405
skadamat wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree with the simplicity of purchasing an Apple computer compared to other laptop manufacturers. Headphone brands and monitor makers also suffer from this same fate :/

Not that simple when there are multiple generations of each on sale, with wildly different prices should you change the storage or RAM toggle. The MacBook Air used to have a multiple USB-A ports plus video, now it 2 ports that have to handle everything. So now the dongle/no dongle question has to become considered as well.

I hate dealing with USB-C, but on laptops, it hardly matters. Pretty rare that I'm plugging in anything besides power.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#662

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bombcar wrote: post #646
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opposite ("macs are overpriced") is something I've never been able to understand. It's simple: People without much money have basic needs and want a ~$600 laptop but Apple doesn't sell one. It doesn't matter if the $1000 Macbook has better battery life than a $1000 Dell because they don't have a $1000 budget.

Apple does partially cover that market, but only via refurbished. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FGN63LL/A/refurbished-133... The thing that's really sad is that the build quality on sub $1k laptops is just such shite

> Apple does partially cover that market, but only via refurbished.

That's not the same thing. If you're budget conscious then you presumably need to keep it for a long time, but now you've got a used battery and a machine that will fall out of support sooner.

> The thing that's really sad is that the build quality on sub $1k laptops is just such shite

The secret to this one might be refurbished Framework laptops. Sure, you've got a used battery, but now it's easy to replace and costs $50 instead of $250.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#663

Post by Dah00n »

harkinian wrote: post #634
yodsanklai wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will sound slightly provocative but I genuinely wonder: why would anyone buy anything else than an apple laptop? Gaming? ideology? budget constraints? lack of familiarity with MacOS? They are marginally more expensive, but they also very easy to sell second-hand. I'm speculating that the monthly cost is on par with a PC.

If you need Windows programs for your work, or need the ports, or want to play games, that kinda answers the question. The Mac laptops are otherwise just better for most people. And the often-repeated "every user is different" is not really true; most people fit the mold.

>most people fit the mold.

Which mould though? I'd say most fit the Windows mould, but I'm guessing you mean the Apple mould.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#664

Post by dividefuel »

ketzo wrote: post #49

The degree to which Apple has kinda just “won” laptops is nuts to me. $999 for an 13-inch M2 Air is just bonkers. You can easily pay $1500, even $2000 for Windows laptops that are hotter, heavier, AND slower.

My opinion is you can pick two: low cost, high build quality, good specs.

No one matches Apple's build and screen quality. But their base models are pretty underpowered, and it's not until you're spending closer to $2k that you get specs that feel appropriate for 2024. On the Windows side, there are lots of cheaper options, many of which have beefier specs, but the build quality pales in comparison.

The right tradeoff depends on your budget and what you really need out of a device.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#665

Post by kstrauser »

chimeracoder wrote: post #543
rkangel wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck. Actually I had to have my last work laptop replaced because 8GB wasn't enough for Chrome and a Teams video call! If I tried to screen share a browser tab of Jira everything would start paging.…

> I have found 8GB RAM to be completely unusable on Windows and Linux these days. Once you've got Chrome open with half a dozen tabs and any even slightly memory hungry program (VS Code or Android Studio etc.) you're out of luck. Honestly, even 16GB isn't enough if you keep a modest (say, O(100)) number of tabs open. I regularly find my MBP slowed down due to "memory pressure" (swapping) at that point, with closing/r…

Which browser is that with? I wouldn't try that with Chrome, but I'd be kinda surprised if Safari wouldn't handle it.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#666

Post by robbie-c »

_ugfj wrote: post #656
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

The problem is the storage is not removable in the Apple Macbooks. It is disturbing it didn't sink the Macbooks. It speaks volumes of how little people care about their own data. About their own privacy. There should've been zero sold. It truly is dismal and a very large systemic problem a laptop like this is sold. Because when it breaks, are you going to wipe it and restore from backup? No. You will just hand it ove…

Won’t it be encrypted with FileVault?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#667

Post by grecy »

jandrese wrote: post #329
deergomoo wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe we are now in the 9th year of 8GB being the baseline Mac laptop RAM config. It’s incredibly stingy. For a while you could make the argument that a lot of Air purchasers wouldn’t need it, but I don’t think that’s the case any more. My wife has an M1 Air with 8GB and between Office, Chrome, Teams, and Slack she quite regularly gets beachballs and weird performance hitches.

My wife has been complaining to me about how she regularly gets the "choose which application to terminate" dialog on her Air. I knew in my heart that 8GB wouldn't be future proof, but I underestimated how fast it would be a problem. She pretty much just runs Safari and Libreoffice Calc too, nothing that should really tax the machine.

> "choose which application to terminate"

What is that?

I've been using macs for decades, and I've never seen or heard of such a dialog.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#668

Post by harkinian »

wlesieutre wrote: post #442
bmitc wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple prdoduct? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. You basically have to refer to MacRumors to get it right. Apple has the same problem, if not worse. Dell has XPS 13, XPS 15, and XPS 17 and now the plus designation. It's pretty easy.

Disregarding that there are 10 different laptop product lines to choose from, if I've already somehow decided that what I want is an XPS and I want a 13 inch screen size, my first two search results are - XPS 13 Laptop or - XPS 13 Laptop https://i.imgur.com/2SHL91Y.png I gather that one of these is a newer revision than the other, but it's a lot more confusing than "M2" and "M3". I need to know whether I want (up to)…

I like how one is Intel i7 and one is Intel 7. Mind that the i7 is a -U, which is totally different from a -H or a desktop i7.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#669

Post by mgdev »

_ugfj wrote: post #656
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

The problem is the storage is not removable in the Apple Macbooks. It is disturbing it didn't sink the Macbooks. It speaks volumes of how little people care about their own data. About their own privacy. There should've been zero sold. It truly is dismal and a very large systemic problem a laptop like this is sold. Because when it breaks, are you going to wipe it and restore from backup? No. You will just hand it ove…

Turn on FileVault. Don't give anyone your password.

Pretty fathomable.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#670

Post by fdsfdsafdsafds »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #657
danpmurray wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much RAM does it have, and have you ever wished you had more?

I have an M2 Air with 24gb and it has no problems running Brave with 800-ish tabs, development workloads (a bunch of VSCode projects, several docker containers, lots of iTerm terminals), low-end CAD and 3D printing apps, CaptureOne and a bunch of Electron apps in parallel with room to spare. I've found I can fit more into those 24gb than into the 32gb of the Intel Mac I had before that (however that's possible).

>800-ish tabs

You're never going to read those, before the links rot.

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