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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

#731

Post by deskamess »

CadmiumYellow wrote: post #576
jb1991 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still using an original M1 Air and the thing is used nearly all day for light casual web usage, and I only plug it in about two times per week -- the energy efficiency is no joke. This kind of battery life really spoils you and when you see other laptops that nearly require the plug charging all the time, tethered, you realize what a big deal these M chips are for true portability.

I've been out of the house all day (6+ hours) with my M1 Pro and it's only just starting to get close to needing to be plugged in. What have I been doing all day? Just running the 23 different docker containers required for my local dev environment. This thing is an absolute beast.

Do you think the new M3 Air w/16 GB could be comparable CPU wise to the M1 Pro? I am guessing GPU wise (for inference like apps) it probably falls behind.

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

#732

Post by richardw »

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.

I get this on an M1 Pro with 16GB. It's astounding. It claims to use swap but the trust is broken. I keep the Activity Monitor around and try to guess when it'll go flaky on me, but I never guess it right. I just restarted my machine now to reset whatever stupidity it has going on.

Never had it with Windows. Or iPad, or iPhone. Why does the pro computer do this? My guess is 5k external monitor and a few desktops, but...really. I'm not running multiple layers of VM's, it'll crash it with a few VS code windows, browsers, command lines.

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

#733

Post by paulryanrogers »

internetter wrote: post #561
danpmurray wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can answer this. I have a very similar workload to OP. I've found myself with resolve, affinity photo, chrome, vscode, spotify, ect open simultaneously, and have had absolutely zero struggle on my 8gb air. If you become "enlightened" you can notice that sometimes when you, say, open your spotify window after a long time elsewhere, the spotify is briefly unresponsive. Not in a way you notice , more in the sense that…

If it's really swapping then won't that reduce the lifetime of the (irreplaceable?) internal storage?

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

#734

Post by rockdoe »

threeseed wrote: post #649
vilunov wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tauri is not that much different from Electron honestly.

That is simply not true. My Tauri app is 38MB: https://github.com/harana/search/releases Electron Framework alone on macOS is 356MB. And this is reflected in memory usage as well.

The Tauri app just uses the system WKWebView. Memory usage can be misleading due to reporting, see e.g. https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri/issues/5889

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

#735

Post by paulryanrogers »

dotancohen wrote: post #645
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offer and support desktop Linux? Windows keeps dropping the ball and Linux just stands there looking at it on the ground.

I think that Canonical is doing an excellent job. It's been at least a decade that you could easily install Kubuntu on most computers and things would just work with no configuration. It's easy to use for the vast majority of use cases and reasonably secure.

IME battery life will suffer significantly. But otherwise I agree.

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

#736

Post by ambichook »

mort96 wrote: post #699
r00fus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it's completely acceptable for hobby usages that don't involve running offline LLMs. If you're doing work, get a Pro.

256GB is completely acceptable? Really? That's less than phones these days!

my phone has 16gb ram and 512gb storage, if i'm paying 50% more than i spent on it i expect at least those specs on a current, or maybe last gen macbook, not half the storage and memory on a 2 generation old device

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

#737

Post by ciupicri »

threeseed wrote: post #649
vilunov wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tauri is not that much different from Electron honestly.

That is simply not true. My Tauri app is 38MB: https://github.com/harana/search/releases Electron Framework alone on macOS is 356MB. And this is reflected in memory usage as well.

> There aren’t any releases here

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

#738

Post by tailspin2019 »

switch007 wrote: post #93
switch007 wrote: post #45

£1,699 for 13" Air with M3 (8/10/16), 24GB RAM, 512GB vs £2,299 (from Costco) for 14" MBP M3 Pro (11/14/16), 36GB RAM, 512GB I'm unsure if £600 extra is worth it for average dev use? The main points I know are: better screen, speakers, fans, 12GB extra ram. But not sure about valuing those at £600. Hm (I'm making this specific comparison because I've just ordered the MBP, but could return it, and get the MBA :D)

(replying to myself) Half the reason I'm getting is a Mac is because they're so nice to look at, so I think I really want the better screen. And the extra RAM is always nice. And I know I'll appreciate the decent speakers. Plus it'll arrive way quicker. I think I'm happy with the MBP...

FWIW I think you made a good choice with the MBP

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

#739

Post by windowsrookie »

eropple wrote: post #548
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.

I'm not sure those people are the intended Macbook audience, though. How many of those people wouldn't be roughly as productive using an iPad or something? I've found myself doing almost all my non-development, non-media stuff on an iPad Air as of late and the environmental constraints have been really helpful for focus. (My iPad Air was $599 new, and I use a shockingly pleasant $30 case-and-keyboard combination for…

I have tried several different iPads over the years and I have never found them to be useful in any way. A laptop is superior in every situation for me.

Also the M1 MacBook Air was on sale many times for $700. That's less than $100 more than your iPad Air + keyboard.

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

#740

Post by paulryanrogers »

dave78 wrote: post #684
babypuncher wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a good trackpad over the trackpoint any day. I also find something weirdly repulsive about the plastics they use on ThinkPads. A true Macbook alternative shouldn't be using much plastic at all, though.

Maybe I'm odd, but I much prefer the Thinkpad's body to the Macbook (I have both). I don't like the coldness of the metal chassis, either on my palms or on my legs if using it away from a desk. Thinkpad plastic does not feel cheap or weak to me, so that's not an issue. I also can't stand the Mac keyboard, especially compared to the Thinkpad.

Those butterfly keyboards on older Macs are terrible: bad UX, impossible to self repair, costly for pro repair. Truly form over function, to a fault.
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