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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#781

Post by mcculley »

SG- wrote: post #538
mcculley wrote: post #529

Still no cellular modem.

it turns out you can simply tether this thing called an iPhone that almost everyone over wifi.

I know that. I use it often and know how flaky it is. I want my laptop to have an always on Internet connection, just like my phone, tablet, and watch. I want to open my laptop and have my email already downloaded. I want my MacBook Pro to have the same option for a cellular modem that is available for a Dell laptop. I do a lot of work away from home. It is okay that you do not need such a thing.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#782

Post by mcculley »

aurareturn wrote: post #655
fenced_load wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this was a serious response. But tethering kills battery life on your phone, which especially sucks if you are travelling.

Plug the phone into the laptop. 5G on a laptop also hurts battery life.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43278854

Re: MacBook Air M4

#783

Post by bipson »

camillomiller wrote: post #687
Arn_Thor wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really require that much R&D? Slap one of the excellent AMD mobile processors with built-in GPU in there, standard cooling (they don't use much more power than they did 5 years ago. They surely have the blueprints for the last XPS machines), and a bigger NVME. It's all more or less commodity hardware in a name-your-preference shell.

It’s easy until you can’t really fine tune the software because you use windows and it’ll eat the battery alive for reasons you can’t control as a manufacturer (but customers will still think it’s your fault)

Even with Linux (where the manufacturer could fine-tune) if they want to, the story isn't much better.

The performance/power gains come from the own ARM-chips and a OS/build system/framework fine tuned to make use of that

Re: MacBook Air M4

#784

Post by [deleted] »

hypercube33 wrote: post #588
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can easily take my M3 MBA on trips, using in on the plane both ways and a couple hours there for a few days, and not charge it once. I honestly looked for alternatives when I bought it last summer but there weren’t any competitive options.

I mean my AMD T14 G4 gets like 12 hours of battery running windows, 150 browser tabs and a virtual environment. Not sure how the newer ones are and no they aren't as sleek or probably durable as a metal apple or dell XPS but I haven't got any complaints for the price.

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Air M4

#785

Post by arjonagelhout »

ericmcer wrote: post #448
homefree wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing close, Apple has better talent and the vertical integration gives them an edge (especially on performance per watt on their chip designs). Since the M series chips, there's been no other option if you care about quality. There are crappy alternatives with serious tradeoffs if for some reason you are forced to not use Apple or choose for non-quality reasons.

The leap from intel to the M series chips really left everyone else behind. I can't even use my 2019 Macbook anymore it feels so sluggish. I have an M3 Pro and it blows all my old computers out of the water. Can handle pretty insane dev workflows (massive Docker composed environments) without issue and the battery life feels unfair. I can put in an 8 hour workday without my charging cable, I don't think I have turned…

I have the M3 Max, and a custom built pc using some Ryzen chip that has roughly equivalent benchmark scores to the M3 Max.

The amount of cooling and power required for such a PC versus the aluminum slab with small fans that almost never turn on is a testament to the insanely good engineering of the M series chips.

I compile large c++ codebases on a daily basis, but the M3 Max never makes me feel like I can “grab a cup of coffee”.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#786

Post by leeman2016 »

porphyra wrote: post #741
ruuda wrote: post #247

My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition is in fact lighter than the Macbook Air, has Lunar Lake, up to 2 TB storage, great battery life, and a 2880 x 1800 OLED display. It's pricy, though.

Around the holiday season they usually drop to around $1k

- Time your purchase

- get coupons

- get a corporate discount if you can

to get them at a sane price

Re: MacBook Air M4

#787

Post by ProZsolt »

jen729w wrote: post #715
jpalomaki wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually quite crazy that we need to get those bulky pro models just to get the basics like better screens and more memory. The performance between the Air and Pro is anyways pretty much the same, except for long running tasks where pro benefits from active cooling. Wonder if we are going to see some changes here with the upcoming M5 models.

How else do you propose they differentiate, given that the internals are essentially identical?

I don't think they really need to. You can have the base model with the same specs, but let me configure it with a better display. I can currently spec up a Mac Mini without any problem.

The second option is to bring back the MacBook brand for entry level devices and use the Air brand for "Pro" devices that don't require active cooling.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#788

Post by caleb-allen »

kerkeslager wrote: post #603
hnlmorg wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t agree. Compile times are definitely and very noticeably quicker on my Intel gaming laptop (that’s actually a few years old now) vs my M3 MBP. That said, I’ve never once felt that the M3 MBPs are sluggish. They are definitely super quick machines. And the fact that I can go a full day without charging even when using moderately heavy workloads is truly jaw droppingly impressive. I’d definitely take the power p…

In guhidalg's defense, they did say that the "Mac laptops feel faster" (emphasis mine) not that they are faster. There's a trick here with Macs, which is that their user interfaces for the OS and many programs are tightly integrated with the hardware which makes the UI faster--that's the "feel faster"--it's a software, not hardware thing. In cases where the software is equivalent (i.e. cross-platform compilers like G…

The arm architecture is also optimized for UI-like tasks, quick to start and stop processes on one of many cores with differing power constraints, whereas x86 is more for workstation-type sustained workloads

Re: MacBook Air M4

#789

Post by mcgrath_sh »

emrah wrote: post #681
natnatenathan wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are crazy. The performance difference between MacOS and WSL is like night and day. I was just shopping for a Linux laptop and I have found that the top end models from Microsoft, Lenovo and Dell to be as or more expensive than Apple (with the exception of having user replaceable SSDs). There is nothing in the PC world that compares to Apple Silicon. If the price is too much, look at the refurb or used mar…

100%! I find that folks like this are comparing specs on paper but have no clue what the real life differences are like in practice, hence missing out. Or maybe they are trying to justify not spending the money but still life is short, go for the best

If I am spending $1700+ on a machine, it is going to be my primary machine. I know exactly what "the real life difference" is between 256 GB storage on my primary machine and 2TB storage on my primary machine. My personal Dropbox sits at 850 GB. It is simple math. It is egregious that going to 2TB storage costs $199 less than buying an entire second laptop. No thanks.
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