MacBook Air M4 • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Air M4

#831

Post by no_wizard » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:39 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #828

lotsofpulp wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth are there still no non Apple laptops that instantly and reliably go to sleep when you close the lid?

I suspect the answer to these questions are the same. When different companies are developing the OS, the drivers and the hardware it is much harder to get everything to play together nicely.

harder perhaps, but not impossible, and the market has had decades to figure this out.

My guess is typical PC manufacturers have not felt it worth the time to invest in getting this aspect right.

Ironically, the best non windows trackpad I ever used was when Vizio tried to make computers. They actually got the trackpad right. In fact, those computers were really cut above everyone else, but my guess is they didn't sell well because they were taken off the market almost as fast as they were introduced

Re: MacBook Air M4

#832

Post by atwrk » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:43 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #720

leeman2016 wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are good ThinkPads out there. P1, P16s, T16, P14s Most of which support: - Up to 96 GB RAM - 8 TB SSD (Dual slots) - Upgradable memory and storage - 4K OLED displays - Excellent build quality What more is needed?

My laptop before getting my M2 MPB was a top of line ThinkPad P series with all the best on paper specs. As long as I was running benchmarks on it while it was plugged in and I didn't care about fan noise, performance was fine. Once you tried to use it like an actual laptop it was terrible in just about every way. Performance when on battery was either so throttled as to be barely usable, or would kill the battery in…

I bet you had an Intel CPU. Intel is almost always the worse option since the first Ryzens were released in 2017 or so.

(Intel has to have some sketchy deals with manufacturers, otherwise why design a product like the Thinkpad X1 Carbon line only to put these Intel energy hogs in there?)

Re: MacBook Air M4

#833

Post by oblio » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #712

vander_elst wrote: post #250

The price point seems quite interesting, a framework laptop costs more...

You can't upgrade the MacBook.

Downvoted... can you upgrade the Macbook? Isn't everything soldered on?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#834

Post by artursapek » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

these laptops are so good they're starting to feel like magic

Re: MacBook Air M4

#835

Post by tristor » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

Endurancee wrote: post #812

tristor wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First is that Mac screens are much closer to 3K than 4K. You can find tons of really nice 14" 3K laptops so the gap is pretty much negligible there, especially if you consider how cheap you can get 3K OLEDs on Windows PCs nowadays. You are discounting the quality of a Macbook screen without understanding how it differs from competitors. A Macbook is the only laptop on the market that accurately reproduces colors ou…

I have a Macbook Pro 14 M3, I do hobby photography and you can get great laptop with excellent color accuracy with better screen than Macbook Pro out of the box, from Asus or Lenovo. There are Yoga Pro 9i, yoga aura Edition and even newer Ideapad pro has OLED options ranging from 2.3k to 4k resolution 1000 nits peak bright, depending on config, factory calibrated which is quite close. I got one from Lenovo with OLED,…

That's very good news, I found a starkly different situation the last time I upgraded my laptop. Do these competitive screens also offer a wide color gamut, with >99% sRGB coverage?

Re: MacBook Air M4

#836

Post by lifeformed » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #614

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…

Gaming laptops aren't neccessarily bulky, my Razer Blade 14 is about the same dimensions as my macbook pro 14. They're about the same age and price (2022), the main difference is that the Razer is much faster (plugged in) but the MacBook is vastly more efficient. I do respect how fast MacBooks feel subjectively, but in terms of number crunching and graphics processing the Razer is a lot better. I guess my overall poi…

Good luck with the Blade, seven out of seven Blades between my friends and I got dangerously bloated batteries.

Sacrificing some of the Blade aesthetics for better thermals with Asus laptops was a game changer for me.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#837

Post by cozzyd » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

silon42 wrote: post #814

ghaering wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why people are so fixated on battery runtime. If you actually use the device indoors, don't you have a possibility to charge anytime. For me, I alternate between my home office room and the living room. Sometimes I work when on the train. And even less often in national flights and on airports. Except when flying or on very outdated trains, there never is an issue charging.

I have a problem when the laptop doesn't survive 2 days on suspend... My previous T480 never had a problem, even on a 50% battery... but the newer T14 sometimes does.

You can thank windows modern suspend for that one

Re: MacBook Air M4

#838

Post by makeitdouble » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 2:55 PM UTC

philomath_mn wrote: post #607

tredre3 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you haven't actually looked into it if that's the impression you got, because both Thinkpad (X1) and Framework (13) make a laptop that fit your requirements. The X1 carbon even offers a 4k OLED option if you want it.

Going from an X1 Carbon to a MBP felt like stepping 10 years into the future. The seamless lid close, battery life, operating temp, build quality and performance were all _huge_ upgrades. I held out on Mac for 20 yrs, no idea what I was thinking.

Lenovo laptops are seriously overhyped.

I spent weeks last year trying to decide what to get to replace a MBP M2, and while Lenovo's offering was good for enterprise consumers, there was very few laptops with decent perfs and HiDPI screen in a practical form factor.

I think for anyone not caring about gaming perf, the Microsoft Surface line is way ahead of anything Lenovo has to offer.

For better perf Asus had a better lineup, and we get form factors like the X13 or Z13 which are just excelent in day to day use (now if only they made 32 or 64G a standard option for all their "gaming" machines I'd have no notes).

I kept a mac for backup, but am seriously waiting for Apple to make more drastic moves (finally a real iPad computer ?) before ever going back.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#839

Post by neal_jones » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:04 PM UTC

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…

The upgrade to the M chips was shocking to me. My intel suddenly felt like it was defective.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#840

Post by tonyarkles » Thu, Mar 06, 2025, 3:05 PM UTC

asah wrote: post #815

ghaering wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why people are so fixated on battery runtime. If you actually use the device indoors, don't you have a possibility to charge anytime. For me, I alternate between my home office room and the living room. Sometimes I work when on the train. And even less often in national flights and on airports. Except when flying or on very outdated trains, there never is an issue charging.

Airplanes

100% this. My daily driver is a 2015 MacBook Pro that I only have one complaint about: the battery life doesn’t come anywhere close to letting me work on an airplane if there’s no 120V plugs available. I mean… most of the time I don’t mind just sleeping but it would be great to take better advantage of the quiet time with no slack messages.