Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#731

Post by windowsrookie » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

mattrighetti wrote: post #470

nonninz wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the new M2 runs much cooler?

Definitely! I mostly use it connected to my 4K display and on a typical day it does not heat over 50C and that happens when you're compiling stuff for minutes. My Intel Mac's fans activated simply because it was connected to a 4K external display.

All external displays are powered by the dedicated GPU on the intel MacBook pros. This allowed MacBook pros to output 40k60 through any of the 4 USB-C ports (unlike windows PC’s of the time). The downside was it meant the dedicated GPU was consuming an extra ~20watts whenever you were connected to an external monitor.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#732

Post by babypuncher » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #418

layer8 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Way too low” isn’t really true. I have RDP and Firefox and Word and Excel open, and Windows still uses just around 4 GB of RAM according to Task Manager.

It depends on the version. In Vista, the one mentioned, they certainly were. It you ran a computer using the minimum specs, it was almost unusable. https://www.osnews.com/story/16675/vista-minimum-requirement...

Vista came out over 15 years ago, it hardly seems relevant today.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#733

Post by babypuncher » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

howinteresting wrote: post #673

princevegeta89 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of developers and video editors use Macbook Air and 24GB is what is considered sufficient for them. They buy into Macbook Air for portability reasons. Windows laptops on the other hands hold incredibly well at 16GB of RAM. There are also windows laptops with the same weight as Macbook Air at half the cost and double the specs.

[flagged]

"makes you look like an asshole" might be a slight overstatement here...

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#734

Post by bombcar » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #541

bombcar wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is finding the $1200 windows machine that feels valuable and worth it after four years; it's hard to find one that has the "build quality" if you will. Maybe people with the Surface are pleased with it still, that looked pretty nice.

I mean, any "pro" grade Dell or Lenovo laptop will last 10 years if it's not dropped or otherwise abused too badly. I've had several. I don't run Windows on them, so don't know how that experience would be. But hardware-wise they hold up. They aren't quite as light and elegant as a Mac but that doesn't matter to me.

They usually keep working just fine, but the Macs get beat up and bent a bit and keep "sticking together", the Dells and friends end up with broken covers, cracks, etc. Doesn't matter for the working part, but makes it much harder when someone wants "a newish one".

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#735

Post by Rimintil » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

goosedragons wrote: post #657

sovnade wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are adapters that let you use multiple and bypass that limit. Kensington has a few. This one is pricier but also doubles as a docking station/100w PD: https://www.kensington.com/p/products/device-docking-connect... They have some cheaper, more basic models too. edit: for the record I think this limit is stupid and the biggest flaw of the Air. You're right that other than that, it's a damn near perfect daily dri…

Which comes with drawbacks. Video is sent out compressed over USB protocol which requires CPU cycles, more resolution + moving images = more CPU grunt required. Plus there is the risk some update will break the driver making your dock useless.

The chip in the Air is no different from the Pro. And the Air has enough unified memory to drive >1 external display at high resolution.

This limitation is purely artificial/for market segmentation purposes.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#736

Post by vetinari » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #370

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…

> FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time.

No. The spare parts are available 5 years since the end of sale of the product; may be longer, if they are available, but max for 7 years. Batteries for 10.

See here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

I also have 2015 13" MBP. It is perfectly fine hardware-wise, but it is not supported by the current OS already. (It is supported by Monterey, which still receives security updates). I also have 2012 Thinkpad (T430s). It is also perfectly fine hardware-wise, and it is supported by current OS (both Windows and Linux), and neither of them even plans to obsolete them. (Heck, Linux distributions are just starting carefully considering x86-64 microarchitectures).

> the anti-apple bias is strong enough

You should consider whether you are not having apple-bias. The Job's RDF joke existed not without a reason.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#737

Post by tourgen » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #36

I was just buying a laptop for my family and the prices of MacBooks here in Europe are utterly crazy. The crappiest 8GB RAM (?!) 256SSD M2 Air model is 1650EUR. 1650EUR for a laptop that won't have enough ram to run the browser in two years. The 16GB model is rounded 2000EUR, which was before reserved for a high-end gaming laptops. It's bonkers.

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Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#738

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #370

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…

[deleted]

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#739

Post by Rimintil » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #685

jedberg wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these devices basically sat on a desk in a ~68F office most of the time. That's the problem. You need to discharge the battery once in a while or it builds up gas and expands. I had a 2015 that was perfect until I stopped going anywhere in March 2020. So I basically didn't unplug it for a year, and then the battery got explodey. So now that I still work at home, I make sure to unplug my laptop once in a whil…

> So now that I still work at home, I make sure to unplug my laptop once in a while just to drain it down a bit. That's still a defect; the laptop battery management should do that for you. As an example, the Dell laptops I'm used to automatically drain the battery to ~95% when plugged in all the time (it appears to be at 100% while on AC, but when you unplug it you can see the true charge).

Macs drain to 80% when plugged in all the time.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#740

Post by auggierose » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

aix1 wrote: post #173

gambiting wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple care+ isn't available everywhere. Here in Poland a basic Air is about 1.5x national average monthly wage and apple won't sell you apple care+ for any apple device(you can only buy regular apple care which is just an extension of original warranty,nothing more). So yes, if I had one I'd also baby it.

And besides, there's nothing wrong with looking after things we own, instead of treating everything as disposable.

If "looking after" means not using your thing for what it was made for (in this case, carrying your laptop around with you), then everything is wrong with it.