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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

#791

Post by pquki4 »

porphyra wrote: post #361
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.

Hotter, heavier, and worse battery life, for sure. Slower is up for debate --- having more ram, more cores, and possibly discrete GPU is great for all sorts of things. The Ryzen 7840HS is not any worse than the M3 in multithreaded things. Just recently there was a Thinkpad P14S on sale for $999 that blows the Macbooks out of the water in terms of ram and storage, while having a high quality OLED display and a Ryzen C…

I just find it fascinating that people think Macbooks are faster without even bothering to at least look at some benchmarks as context. Sure, M processors are good, but Intel and AMD aren't really sleeping the past few years, but rather made some significant improvements that are worth acknowledging.

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

#792

Post by DataDive »

rkangel wrote: post #171
DataDive wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah? Please link to a model, just one in the 500-600 range that is comparable to a 1K Apple model. I have owned half a dozen Windows laptops in the past, in all kinds of price ranges, cheaper and far more expensive than a Macbook Air. None were even remotely comparable to the build quality and practicality of a Macbook Air. This was true even in the Intel CPU era. In the M processor era, the gap only increased. Y…

The parent isn't saying that there are $500 laptops that are as good as $1k Air. They're saying that there are $500 laptops that are "good enough" for most people's use. Personally for home use I buy pre-owned Thinkpads and then put Linux on them. They're fine for normal use - Internet, Email and light to moderate SW Development. The screens are mediocre, but I pay £300-£400 (UK). Oh and I don't care about battery ag…

Good enough is not the correct term.

The other day I bought a 30 dollar phone,

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Walmart-Family-Mobile-BLU-View-4-...

it has all the functionality that you might need it has map, a browser, runs facebook and twitter apps, tiktok what else do you need

can I use that as an argument that why buy an iPhone for 1K if you can get a great phone for $30 - no because when you talk about phones or laptop you are talking about comparable products

what I was saying that you cannot buy the same value you get with a Macbook in any laptop product

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

#793

Post by acdha »

pquki4 wrote: post #785
datadrivenangel wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm torn as I consider getting my next laptop: * Framework is philosophically best, and they make solid machiness. * Macbook Air has just insane battery life and is so small.

Battery life is important, but does 6hr vs 9hr vs 16hr actually matter to you? Do you actually carry your laptop around all day without access to power outlets? If not, I don't see why that should be a factor.

Apple users do - 9hr is short enough that you’re going to want a charger for a full day’s work unless you’re certain you’re only going to do very untaxing activities. People get worried when they start approaching the low battery warning point.

The run time Apple’s ARM systems get is very noticeably better - I don’t even bother packing a charger even knowing that I’ll have a full development environment, containers, etc. running all day because I’ll still arrive home at 60%.

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

#794

Post by pquki4 »

kube-system wrote: post #164
Der_Einzige wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

999 for a laptop with 8 gbs of ram in 2024 That's pathetic.

It's on par with normal pricing from MS.

Honestly I don't think it is worth bringing Surface devices into the discussion. Microsoft isn't even trying. They only care about enterprise customers and are not competitive in the consumer market at all.

Maybe look at some high-end Lenovo or Dell laptops.

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

#795

Post by mbreese »

Dah00n wrote: post #651
mbreese wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re going about your decision tree backwards. People don’t say “I don’t want a touchscreen” or “I don’t want to game”. You don’t make decisions based upon what you don’t want to do… you make them based upon what you do want to do. I was talking with my dad recently, and he wanted a new computer that could handle email, a little Excel, Facebook, and some other light web browsing that didn’t get stuck in an infinite…

>If a Mac fits your requirements, then you have far fewer decisions. That's what OP said? Because now you have already decided you don't want to game, etc. >Even if you say you want a Dell laptop — have you ever tried to browse their site? This is the iPhone versus Android discussion all over again. Yes, many will be happy with the iPhone, but they also often didn't know they had the option to buy an Android phone th…

> Because now you have already decided you don't want to game, etc

That’s exactly what I’m not saying. If you want to play games (with Windows only games), then a Mac won’t work for you. If you get a Mac, that means that gaming likely wasn’t part of your decision tree.

Think of the choices as a positive selection. I want to do X, does computer A allow me to do that? People make decisions based on positive selections… not negatives. If gaming isn’t on your requirements list — you aren’t actively rejecting gaming… you just don’t care one way or the other. The post I was replying to asserted that if you chose a Mac, then you’ve already decided not to do X and not to do Y and that you don’t want form factor Z. But that’s not it… decisions are made based on what you DO want. They aren’t made based upon what you don’t want.

Some people just prefer one ecosystem over the other… it doesn’t mean that they don’t know that other options exist. It’s not ignorance, it’s just a different choice than you made.

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

#796

Post by greggsy »

richardw wrote: post #732
jandrese wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is an intermitted and basically unacknowleged memory leak in M1, which is supposedly addressed in M2. It also depends what app you're using - Logitech Options was somehow hogging top to 12gb on occasion, but was fixed sometime in the past few months.

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

#797

Post by dataworm »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #504
dataworm wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M2 MacBooks should also get that because the hardware supports it. The M2 Mac mini allows to connect 2 displays over USB-C if you don't use the HDMI port.

The M1 mini could connect 2 displays as well. I'm pretty sure one of the two display controllers in the laptops is hardwired to the internal screen.

It could but only if you connected one of them to the HDMI port. The M2 allows to connect both over USB-C. One of the M1 display controllers is hardwired to a DP output which goes to the screen on laptops and iMacs and to a DP->HDMI converter on the Mac mini. The controller isn't hardwired anymore since the M2, only the output is.

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

#798

Post by datavirtue »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

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…

Yeah, whoever managed (or didn't manage) the Surface trackpad project needs fired. Can't count how many times I have belted out obscenities while working on my Surface Pro. Garbage. I forgot it had a touch screen and I never flip the screen. All that caused the trackpad to be ignored, I guess. Again, hot garbage.

I have a MacBook Pro M1, which is pure fluid bliss. It cost less, it's faster, and the battery lasts for days.

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

#799

Post by grow2grow »

numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

They do it so that the consumer can't price match nor return swap from one retailer to another. The model number ultimately becomes a type of trace to reveal which retailer sold the device.

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

#800

Post by fritzo »

silverlake wrote: post #71
Keyframe wrote: post #63

Outside of pricing, why would one buy Air vs Pro these days? I've had OG Air back in the day and tapered form factor was great. I recently was in an Apple store and looked at pro and airs.. they felt same, and also air seemed heavy (compared to ye olde tapered one). Now with Pro at 14" and Air pushing to 15".. why?

The weight of the 13" Air vs 15" Air vs 14" Pro is 2.7 > 3.3 > 3.4 lbs. For developers who do development on remote machines, weight and form factor are more important. I would pay top dollar for a 12" Macbook with M processor because I do my focused editing on a big screen. Other people use their laptop for everything so a 15" screen is preferred. Also, different strokes for different folks.

> For developers who do development on remote machines

Gosh having started program on 286s in the 1980s, my M1 air feels blazingly opulently fast. What sort of local development are people doing that requires heavier compute than an M1 air, but doesn't require a full on cluster?

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