New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip • Hacker News Board

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

#901

Post by whywhywhywhy » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 10:55 AM UTC

jhickok wrote: post #174

princevegeta89 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part about M3 is that they now have an 8GB Macbook Pro lineup. These "pro" machines have always been known for work and productivity, and 8GB just sounds like a piss poor product decision

8gb in a pro machine honestly wild. I guess it makes some sense if you consume content and you want a better screen and audio, but it still offends.

It doesn't make sense in any world, it only exists to be there so people get to into the checkout flow and throw a few hundred dollars to get it to a usable spec.

It's pure ewaste that it exists.

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

#902

Post by ricardobayes » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 11:07 AM UTC

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…

What keeps me from Mac is some people report some weird incompatibility issues with third-party things. Like external mouse, keyboard, monitors. All of my mac user friends complained about this to some extent.

Plus, on my laptop I just simply upgraded the RAM with another 16GB of RAM which will give me some breathing room for at least another year.

For me, a windows computer "just works". Everything I connect I know will work as expected. Not looking forward to learn some new quirks. Even the top left action buttons just irk me to death.

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

#903

Post by BeFlatXIII » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 11:43 AM UTC

93po wrote: post #214

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I still need to use Instant View with my docking station, got it. Been using that on my M1 air to drive 2x4K displays (the 30Hz display isn't that useful if I'm mousing around, though)

if that only mirrors, can you set the built in display on the laptop to 4k so the external mirror is the full 4k too?

It's set up as 3 separate displays, from left to right: 4K30 (you can also notice compression in color saturation), 4K60 (main monitor), built-in display. Even at 30Hz, the second 4K monitor is good for keeping up documentation.

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

#904

Post by darthrupert » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 11:56 AM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #599

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think ThinkPads are better than MacBooks. You can get P14 with 32gb of RAM, 1TB SSD, very fast and quiet CPU (AMD U series), decent battery, 2.8k OLED screen and it weights 1.34kg (weight between 13 inch and 15inch new Airs). It also has imo better ports and a track point. The problem is that Windows sucks more and more with every iteration and there is nothing Lenovo or other manufacturers can do about it. Lenovo…

I just got a T14S to replace my macbook m2 (because I wanted to use NixOS). It's a bit disappointing: the laptop is ok, but the macbook feels so much better.

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

#905

Post by BossingAround » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 12:05 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #120

kjkjadksj wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your use cases the software environment for the mac has never been worse right as the hardware has gotten so powerful and cool running. Major mac devs have totally abandoned the platform in recent years. Apple needs to rebuild good faith among developers especially game developers, or at the very least get ahead of the software drain and put and end to what factors have been causing it.

> Major mac devs have totally abandoned the platform in recent years. Abandoning the (clearly lacking) Mac Store is not these same as abandoning the macOS platform.

Isn't Apple locking unsigned binaries from being run on macOS?

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

#906

Post by BossingAround » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 12:08 PM UTC

postalrat wrote: post #129

sombrero_john wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good enough for local development

If you can get away with the performance of machine that feels 10 years older than it is.

Why do you care about filesystem performance in containers? If you're running a DB from it, you surely have <10-20 concurrent users (e.g. other containers) to that DB, so who cares whether a lookup takes 1us or 10ms?

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

#907

Post by ode » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 12:22 PM UTC

tcmart14 wrote: post #847

makeitdouble wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple continues to simplify the laptop naming scheme, we're at a point where it's simply: > Air OR Pro > Small screen OR big screen The weird part of that argument to me: to arrive to that point you've already made a ton of choices that need to be educated. You decided on the form factor: you don't want a convertible (neither a Surface like tablet + keyboard, nor something like a Yoga). You decided to forgo touch.…

Am I so glad though that Apple didn't buy into the touch for the laptops. Now this comes with a caveat, if you have some like the Yoga that the hinge can go all the way around, touch isn't bad. But god, in the early 2010s when everyone was throwing touch on their laptop screens, I hated that so much. Laptop hinge only goes 120 degrees or something like that, lets throw touch screen on it! horrible idea. Although I he…

In LTT's recent video reviewing the Vision Pro he predicts Apple is going to go to touchscreens on their laptops because users will be used to it coming from the headset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuHOf_kZK6Q

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

#908

Post by Liskni_si » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 12:59 PM UTC

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #752

__mharrison__ wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Thinkpad P1 with 64gb. I love that it has a trackpoint. I hate that it had a fan. I guess not so much that it had the fan but that the fan constantly sounds like it is impersonating a helicopter. Not sure where it wants to take the laptop. Also the battery life is horrible, 1 hour or so. And Windows is sluggish. Otherwise, it is a great machine (I occasionally RDP into it when demoing thing for my Windows cl…

It’s possible to buy an external keyboard with a trackpoint: not as convenient as having it builtin, but it’s great if you’re mostly using the laptop at your desk anyway

Imagine buying a MacBook Air only to need an external keyboard to be able to use it comfortably…

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

#909

Post by raxxorraxor » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:11 PM UTC

postalrat wrote: post #88

vultour wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they have Linux integrated into the system. I'm amazed how many developers get a Macbook just to install Docker Desktop right after.

Isn't docker's filesystem performance still terrible in macox compared to linux?

I think performance of Apple silicon is mediocre in many applications. Direct memory access by the GPU is pretty nice, but even with that it doesn't really convince. There are scenarios where it is surprisingly good though and that even includes some applications in x86 mode.

The only thing I really like about MacBooks are their displays. If notebook manufacturers would get their houses in order, they could have more attractive devices again. Perhaps their management suffers from bad eyesight.

Although one strength of Apple is also that Windows is so incredibly terrible right now. And I don't see that improving in the near term, their strategy is anti-user for decades. Apples strategy is too, but to a lesser degree and I don't see Windows getting anything right.

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

#910

Post by raxxorraxor » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:13 PM UTC

vundercind wrote: post #152

vultour wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they have Linux integrated into the system. I'm amazed how many developers get a Macbook just to install Docker Desktop right after.

"Integrated"? It's still just a VM. They gave up on "integrated" with WSL2.

But it is a well integrated VM, since you have direct access to most hardware.