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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

#961
post #339

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> You can get that much ddr5 today for like $400 Not comparable. M2 Ultra with 128GB RAM has 800 GB/s bandwidth. Maximum bandwidth for a DDR5 Intel 14900K system is 89.6 GB/s. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236773/...

You can only get 2tb of storage max i believe, you are probably bottlenecked elsewhere if you are actually needing to move that much data that fast into memory in practice. I wonder what the temps would even be doing something that maxes that ram bandwidth

> I wonder what the temps would even be doing something that maxes that ram bandwidth

The temps will be completely normal since that is normal operation. TDP is only 80 watts for M2 Ultra.

> You can only get 2tb of storage max i believe, you are probably bottlenecked elsewhere

No. Just no. This is not the issue. The models are loaded into GPU memory.

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

#962

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How much RAM does it have, and have you ever wished you had more?

I have an M2 Air with 24gb and it has no problems running Brave with 800-ish tabs, development workloads (a bunch of VSCode projects, several docker containers, lots of iTerm terminals), low-end CAD and 3D printing apps, CaptureOne and a bunch of Electron apps in parallel with room to spare. I've found I can fit more into those 24gb than into the 32gb of the Intel Mac I had before that (however that's possible).

> running Brave with 800-ish tabs

Why am I not surprised that an apple fan uses Brave - a browser that offers literally nothing but 100% false claims of improved privacy and performance?

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

#963

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The 14 inch is already so light imo its probably worth it to splurge just to get things like the non gimped screen

I have an M2 13" air for a personal computer and a 14" pro for work. The Air is noticeably lighter and much easier to throw in a bag without thinking about managing weight. The Pro is a fine weight for commuting, but for traveling longer distances, the weight definitely makes a difference. To the point where I'm seriously considering setting up a work partition on my personal machine so I don't need to lug the pro ar…

If a seventh of a pound is the straw that breaks the camels back there are larger problems than the macbooks weight

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

#964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 14 inch is already so light imo its probably worth it to splurge just to get things like the non gimped screen

To me the 14" Pro feels like a brick, the 16" is a veritable paving slab. I want something I can toss in a backpack and not feel it's there, which the Air is still just about light enough for. That may be because I live in a very walkable and bike-able area in Europe, and I do lots of both, I'm sure the trade-offs are different if you drive everywhere. As for the screen, I think "gimped" is not doing it justice. I re…

Well if you had a fan you could always turn it off too. On the other hand once it is throttling its over. I used an air in the old case without the notch but with the black bezel and I gave it to the parents. Couldn’t stand throttling and how it affects the performance of my use cases. Like every five seconds a stutter like a scratched up CD. Two fan macbook pro for me. Even going all out its quieter than the 2012 era mac fans I am used to, but thats only when I push the cpu. Most of the time the fan is off entirely not even by my own doing.

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

#965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offer and support desktop Linux? Windows keeps dropping the ball and Linux just stands there looking at it on the ground.

I think that Canonical is doing an excellent job. It's been at least a decade that you could easily install Kubuntu on most computers and things would just work with no configuration. It's easy to use for the vast majority of use cases and reasonably secure.

Canonical: Gnome was stable Let's water two years making unity Now let's go back to gnome, two more years of instability Now let's force everyone onto snaps

Canonical has done a lot to help Linux, but their recent dogma and churn is a huge missed opportunity.

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

#966
post #407

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Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple prdoduct? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. You basically have to refer to MacRumors to get it right. Apple has the same problem, if not worse. Dell has XPS 13, XPS 15, and XPS 17 and now the plus designation. It's pretty easy.

I just tried their Apple "Trade In" Tool. They ask for serial which you can copy and paste from the "About this Mac" dialog box that is in MacOS. From there it asks you the year of your laptop which is also in the same dialog box. From there it asks you which CPU version and core count you have (for M series laptops with multiple options.) To get this info, you click on "More Info" on the same dialog box(In Sonoma yo…

Why do they need more than the serial number, though?

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

#967

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook. Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... lite…

> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there. Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

People don't think about sports or boxing etc in the context of talking about laptops, and some people here speak English as a second or third or more language.

But no, let's be snarky about HN peeps being literal and misinterpreting things.

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

#968
post #955

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>What 'innovation' has Apple introduced in the last 10 years other than their M chips? Computers that Just Fucking Work(tm) if you stay on the One Apple Way(tm), which 99% of people are perfectly content to be on because shit Just Fucking Works(tm). Seriously, Just Fucking Works(tm) is a virtue.

Every single PC I've had in the last 15 years just fucking works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .... (except some things mostly on apple products).

Windows 10 and 11 take some seriously wrangling (and paying for a Pro license) before it behaves.

As for Linux, my kill ratio is practically infinity with a mountain of dead installs in my wake.

MacOS? So long as I stay on the One Apple Way(tm) it Just Fucking Works(tm).

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

#969
post #728
post #699

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256GB is completely acceptable? Really? That's less than phones these days!

Cloud storage is a thing. I don't run games on my hobby laptop. I also have external storage for sensitive docs (encrypted). I use like 50% of the storage right now.

People always respond with "cloud storage is a thing" as you have, but the point that people are trying to make is: Apple is hella overcharging for memory and storage.

And instead of everyone going "Apple, stop this" and creating change, they'd rather defend the $1T company by spouting "but the cloud".

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

#970

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Idk Macos has terrible stuff too:

No calendar included in taskbar in OS like Windows has, only a calendar app that you have to launch

Per folder sorting in finder doesn't work in the file dialogue, finder never remembers which folders I want by date, alphabetised, etc.

Everything hidden away and abstracted, finding out what's actually consuming memory and swap can be much more difficult than it should, esp for ppl that got 8gb model bc AAPL want to make 99999% profit on ram and ssd upgrades.

Lots of features that are only available when your other devices are also in the Apple ecosystem. If they could get away with making MBs only connect to special "Apple AirTalk™" (WiFi) APs then they absolutely would.

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