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MacBook Air M4

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Re: MacBook Air M4

#931

Post by aprilnya »

kccqzy wrote: post #224
ndiddy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of Apple's pricing strategy over the past few years is that since they have a monopoly on storage/RAM upgrades, they can price base model computers at margins below what they'd normally be comfortable with, and then gouge users on the upgrade costs to claw back some of those margins. That's how they're able to charge $400 for an extra 16GB of RAM.

I doubt it. In corporate environments I see so many base models being used. Most office workers do everything on SaaS web apps anyway; they only need sufficient RAM to run a browser and browser-based apps. Having small amount of storage is a feature not a bug, because it prevents employees from downloading too much company proprietary information onto their laptops.

Same with stuff like OneDrive and SharePoint.

I do something similar with my personal laptops/PCs too — any actual files are in cloud storage[1], and mounted[2] so that they don't actually sync to the device, therefore not taking up space...

Honestly it feels very freeing having your data just be in server(s) somewhere, not having to worry about moving it between devices, or having to copy it over if you need to format/get rid of the device, or forgetting to copy over a file you need to your phone when going out, etc...

[1] Nextcloud rented from Hetzner https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/

[2] Nextcloud client has a feature called Virtual Files on Windows, and on Linux I just use the Nextcloud integration which uses WebDAV under the hood

Re: MacBook Air M4

#932

Post by evilduck »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #220
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still occasionally use a 2013 Air when I need a laptop. How no PC manufacturer has been able to get close to Apple's touchpad in two decades is crazy to me.

Near-MacBook trackpads can be found in nicer x86 laptops these days, but as always the monkey’s paw curls and some other aspect(s) of these laptops invariably sucks. Fan runs too often and/or is noisy, heat isn’t effectively managed, battery life is bad, screen becomes a flickery mess at low brightness, build quality is poor, laptop uses off the wall chipsets that Linux doesn’t like… it’s always something .

To add to the litany of failures by laptop PC makers:

Utterly garbage speakers, poor microphones, inferior screen hinges, coil whine, structural flex, light leak from the keyboard backlights, poor keyboard PWM dimming, poor keyboard switches (admittedly, butterfly keyboards were a bad era for Apple), slow or missing sleep management, terrible idle power usage, slow wake time, poor weight distribution, more ports but they're stupidly placed or don't work as you'd expect or want, uneven heat distribution, strange aesthetic choices (like fake vents) and dumb case designs that snags when slipping it into a bag.

In my experience with PC laptops for every hardware spec benchmark that exceeds something Apple does, you'll lose out on three other aspects of the laptop that aren't commonly discussed in reviews. The most frustrating part is that besides buying from Apple, money cannot solve this problem. There just isn't a PC maker that gives a shit.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#933

Post by overgard »

accurrent wrote: post #717
overgard wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I use a razer blade 14 personally... My mileage varies. I love that I can run a lot of stuff on it, but I hate the fact the ram was soldered and the GPU definitely throttles. I recently ran a benchmark for some GPU code I wrote and found that my steamdeck outperforms the Laptop 3060. Its also got terrible battery life and doesnt help that my work laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad P1 beast (FWIW the razer 14 has better batt…

If you ran the benchmark on battery, I'd definitely run it plugged in. It's not a power drain thing, if it's not plugged in (with the dedicated plug) the GPU can't run full throttle (it can't pull enough current from the battery I think). I had the thing for like a year before I found that out.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#934

Post by overgard »

lifeformed wrote: post #836
overgard wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So far I'm 2/2 for ok batteries, but we'll see in a few years! Weirdly I've had more problems with apple products with bloated batteries, I had to replace two macbook batteries and an ipad. The thing I worry most about with the Razer is how hot it gets.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#935

Post by Reason077 »

jscheel wrote: post #922
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?

Yeah, because apple is totally reliable for sleeping when it is supposed to. I love my macbook, but I have dealt with over a decade of macbooks waking when they should not. Love it when my macbook cooks itself in my bag overnight.

I assume you’ve turned off “allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer” and “wake on network access” in system preferences? Those are the only things I can think of that can randomly wake up macs

Re: MacBook Air M4

#936

Post by jnaina »

vincengomes wrote: post #929
jnaina wrote: post #897

Joined a new company and requested a MacBook Pro, but they declined and instead issued me a brand-new ThinkPad X1 running Windows. So, I went ahead and bought a MacBook Pro myself, set up all corporate apps (since the company runs M365 and mostly SaaS apps), and everything works seamlessly. My productivity is great—I don’t have to deal with the frustrations of Windows. Now, once a week, I power up the ThinkPad X1, in…

Thinkpad is great. At-least you know your job is safe for next 28 years.

It is, though pales in comparison to the MacBook in terms of whole (working) day battery like. The real non-start is their insistence that I'm not allowed to re-image it to run Linux.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#937

Post by wyclif »

whatagreatboy wrote: post #905
mihular wrote: post #873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

850W is an overkill and will affect efficiency. I'd go with less power.

Then you suddenly want a Nvidia GPU on the side and you need more power.

Is 850W really "overkill"? I don't know. I suppose it depends on how likely it is you will expand and add devices.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#938

Post by alexis_y »

usefulcat wrote: post #864
sunshowers wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been repeatedly abused for big parts of my life, and I have a CPTSD diagnosis from it. It's not just paying too much, it's one of the world's most valuable mega-corporations asking you to pay too much. If it were a boutique shop I wouldn't call it abusive. It's a combination of the bad behavior and the exercise of raw power that makes it so.

I think I'd be in much more agreement with you if we were talking about people being forced to buy Apple products, but that's rarely if ever the case. By and large, the people who buy these products are freely choosing to do so. To claim that, for those people, the price is "too high" is equivalent to telling them "you shouldn't be willing to pay that much for that product". I think it's perfectly fine for me or any…

I think it is safe to assume that nobody particularly likes being on the cashcow end of price discrimination though, however valuable they perceive the product to be. This sort of pricing strategy cannot be good for consumers overall in some economic sense under certain assumptions, right?

Not to mention that design decisions have surely been made to ensure this segmentation works that destroy repairability - so much for environmental friendliness. It is difficult not to feel Apple's contempt for its customers when it has been actively crippling the usefulness of its devices to squeeze some more profits.

To Apple's credit, it has established an effective monopoly over the market of _decent_ laptops fair and square and OS X seems to be less of a malware than whatever is Windows 10/11. I am not _that_ salty to pay the premium.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#939

Post by teo_zero »

kllrnohj wrote: post #435
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…

> But now Dell discontinued XPS https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/scr/laptops/appref=xps-p... ? Sure doesn't seem to be discontinued at all? And just checking the XPS 14 it has both 2tb and 4tb storage options, and the 3.2k OLED screen is higher resolution than what Apple's 14" offering contains and it's 120hz.

IIUC Dell will have a line called Dell Premium that will cover the same market segment. It's just the XPS name that will disappear.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#940

Post by commandersaki »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #809
motorest wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mostly overpriced shit wrapped in a nice cellophane. That's orthogonal to the concept of a Veblen good. A Veblen good can very much be shit wrapped in cellophane. The core trait of a Veblen good is that customers buy it as a status symbol. Also, being overpriced contributes to reduce the number of those who can afford to buy one.

Apple products have always been status symbols and this Macbook is no different. One could easily put together a significantly more powerful Linux desktop for a lower price. This has always been the case, but Apple's marketing tries to convince you otherwise. Honestly, I've always been surprised by how effectively their marketing has misled the tech-savvy crowd on HN.

You can’t simply swap OSX for Linux. I heavily use accessibility tools that are just not comparable on Linux. These tools probably cost more than the laptop, even though Apple include it in the OS.
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