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I'm beginning to think I can replace my Macbook Pro 2015 with the new Macbook Air...the numbers are so tempting. Let's see how the reviews turn out, where peop

I'm beginning to think I can replace my Macbook Pro 2015 with the new Macbook Air...the numbers are so tempting. Let's see how the reviews turn out, where people will use at real-world tasks.

entropicdrifter 6y ago
I'm especially interested to see how it deals with heavy loads heat-wise. With no fan it could end up getting up to leg-roasting temps
- jandrese 6y ago
  It seems like Apple may err on the side of just letting it get painfully slow instead of crisping your legs. The primary differentiator between the Air and Pro is that the Pro comes with a fan and a $300 premium.
  - lostgame 6y ago
    Don't forget the Touch Bar - that weird uncle in every family that we just have to put up with - the feature nobody asked for and every coder I know would so much rather be without. It annoys me any my coworkers (we use 2017/2018 15" MBP's) every work day to no end. I hate it when when I'm accidentally logged out by feathering the 'lock' icon. I'm aware I could move it - but ideally where are times that I'd want to use the feature as intended. The lack of haptic feedback for the Touch Bar is a bizarre and unusual oversight for a company usually so detail-obsessed as Apple. We are not allowed to install anything but specifically approved software, so any third-party solutions are a no-go here. It should be built-in, it's a no-brainer. I've personally taken to using a bluetooth Apple keyboard half the time with my work laptop just to avoid the Touch Bar as it honestly feels infinitely more comfortable for coding to not have it there.
  - efficax 6y ago
    The air is using binned chips where one core has failed (a very common practice that intel also does), so the pro is on a better processor
mbesto 6y ago
This is exactly the camp I'm in. I won't touch the new MBPro because of the touchbar (and keyboard woes), but I'm willing to concede the peripheral inputs if it means the thing is much lighter/slimmer and has better performance.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  FYI the keyboard has since been fixed and is, apart from some slight differences to key layout, the same as the air.
unclemase 6y ago
You have 2 weeks to return it ;)
- leecb 6y ago
  In the US, you have even longer during the holiday period: > Items purchased at the Apple Online Store that are received between 10 November and 25 December 2020 may be returned up to 8 January 2021. https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund
Zealotux 6y ago
The idea of changing my 2015 MBP for something else is a tough one to accept, my biggest beef with the recent Air being the heat issues: the fan on the previous Air is so useless it's laughable[1] and they completely removed it on the new one, I remain skeptical. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg
- somehnguy 6y ago
  I just upgraded my 2015 MBP to a 16" 2019 MBP. I specifically bought it now so that I have an Intel chip because I don't want to deal with the headache while things slowly switch over. I hadn't realized how much faster computers had gotten since 2015, this new machine runs circles around the old one. The keyboard is great and I actually like the touch bar. 0 regrets, it's an upgrade in every single way.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  If your needs require high CPU utilization for extended time periods, you might be better off what the new MacBook Pro. The Air is intended for more causal use cases.
felipesoc 6y ago
I would wait some time until more software and os projects gets native support and kinks are ironed out. I don't know your workflow but maybe some dependency in your pipeline has issues and then you are in a world of pain trying to figure out why.
- qudat 6y ago
  I started using a pi for some personal projects and I concur. There are things that aren't supported or have to be build from source, and that is if there's support at all. I'm sure the M1 is going to light a fire in getting ARM support on most projects, but it's not there yet.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  I’ve gotten update notices for a large percentage of my apps where they call out that they are now compiled for M1 Macs. I think it likely that most actively maintained apps will publish M1 natives version in short order.
banachtarski 6y ago
What is tempting about this? This benchmark shows that the M1 performs marginally worse than the low-end sku from 3 generations ago.
- _venkatasg 6y ago
  For mac users these numbers are amazing lol
  - banachtarski 6y ago
    lol what's hilarious is the numbers probably go up just by installing windows and using the actual first-party nvidia driver.
- DeRock 6y ago
  No, it shows it performs better? Go look again at the numbers in the linked comparison. Also calling it low-end is misleading, the 1050Ti was solidly mid-tier, and also a dedicated graphics card used in desktop machines. This is comparing it to integrated graphics in a lightweight laptop (the M1 in the recently announced MacBook Air).
  - qw3rty01 6y ago
    1060 is budget mid-tier, I don't really see how you could say the 1050ti is anything but low-end when looking at either performance or price
    - AgloeDreams 6y ago
      We are talking about a half-inch thick ultrabook with 18 hours of battery life here. The idea is that this can do the same as what was historically in a thick and heavy gaming laptop that got 4 hours of battery life in use..is very impressive. It firmly destroys all SKUs of the 15 inch MBP
  - banachtarski 6y ago
    I'm a graphics engineer. It's so low end at this point I honestly dread benchmarking on it.
seanalltogether 6y ago
I was tempted as well until I realized it's only 8GB of memory. There's no way i could survive on less then 16 currently. edit - ignore that I'm an idiot :)
- mbirth 6y ago
  For $200 you can upgrade to 16GB during the order process.
  - bialpio 6y ago
    Ouch, that's pretty steep price for additional 8gb ram. How does it compare to other devices in the same category? I'm out of the loop when it comes to laptops, for desktops iirc you can get one 32gig die of ram for cheaper than that.
    - rewtraw 6y ago
      It's definitely more expensive than simply buying a DIMM, but keep in mind that is "unified" memory and is part of the SoC, and is likely much faster than any old stick of RAM you'd normally put in a laptop. That, plus the Apple Premium.
  - AgloeDreams 6y ago
    Yup, thats what I did, also if you "work in education" it's $180.

I'm beginning to think I can replace my Macbook Pro 2015 with the new Macbook Air...the numbers are so tempting. Let's see how the reviews turn out, where people will use at real-world tasks.

entropicdrifter 6y ago

I'm especially interested to see how it deals with heavy loads heat-wise. With no fan it could end up getting up to leg-roasting temps

jandrese 6y ago
It seems like Apple may err on the side of just letting it get painfully slow instead of crisping your legs. The primary differentiator between the Air and Pro is that the Pro comes with a fan and a $300 premium.
- lostgame 6y ago
  Don't forget the Touch Bar - that weird uncle in every family that we just have to put up with - the feature nobody asked for and every coder I know would so much rather be without. It annoys me any my coworkers (we use 2017/2018 15" MBP's) every work day to no end. I hate it when when I'm accidentally logged out by feathering the 'lock' icon. I'm aware I could move it - but ideally where are times that I'd want to use the feature as intended. The lack of haptic feedback for the Touch Bar is a bizarre and unusual oversight for a company usually so detail-obsessed as Apple. We are not allowed to install anything but specifically approved software, so any third-party solutions are a no-go here. It should be built-in, it's a no-brainer. I've personally taken to using a bluetooth Apple keyboard half the time with my work laptop just to avoid the Touch Bar as it honestly feels infinitely more comfortable for coding to not have it there.
- efficax 6y ago
  The air is using binned chips where one core has failed (a very common practice that intel also does), so the pro is on a better processor

mbesto 6y ago

This is exactly the camp I'm in. I won't touch the new MBPro because of the touchbar (and keyboard woes), but I'm willing to concede the peripheral inputs if it means the thing is much lighter/slimmer and has better performance.

dawnerd 6y ago
FYI the keyboard has since been fixed and is, apart from some slight differences to key layout, the same as the air.

unclemase 6y ago

You have 2 weeks to return it ;)

leecb 6y ago
In the US, you have even longer during the holiday period: > Items purchased at the Apple Online Store that are received between 10 November and 25 December 2020 may be returned up to 8 January 2021. https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund https://www.apple.com/shop/help/returns_refund

Zealotux 6y ago

The idea of changing my 2015 MBP for something else is a tough one to accept, my biggest beef with the recent Air being the heat issues: the fan on the previous Air is so useless it's laughable[1] and they completely removed it on the new one, I remain skeptical. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg

somehnguy 6y ago
I just upgraded my 2015 MBP to a 16" 2019 MBP. I specifically bought it now so that I have an Intel chip because I don't want to deal with the headache while things slowly switch over. I hadn't realized how much faster computers had gotten since 2015, this new machine runs circles around the old one. The keyboard is great and I actually like the touch bar. 0 regrets, it's an upgrade in every single way.
Tagbert 6y ago
If your needs require high CPU utilization for extended time periods, you might be better off what the new MacBook Pro. The Air is intended for more causal use cases.

felipesoc 6y ago

I would wait some time until more software and os projects gets native support and kinks are ironed out. I don't know your workflow but maybe some dependency in your pipeline has issues and then you are in a world of pain trying to figure out why.

qudat 6y ago
I started using a pi for some personal projects and I concur. There are things that aren't supported or have to be build from source, and that is if there's support at all. I'm sure the M1 is going to light a fire in getting ARM support on most projects, but it's not there yet.
Tagbert 6y ago
I’ve gotten update notices for a large percentage of my apps where they call out that they are now compiled for M1 Macs. I think it likely that most actively maintained apps will publish M1 natives version in short order.

banachtarski 6y ago

What is tempting about this? This benchmark shows that the M1 performs marginally worse than the low-end sku from 3 generations ago.

_venkatasg 6y ago
For mac users these numbers are amazing lol
- banachtarski 6y ago
  lol what's hilarious is the numbers probably go up just by installing windows and using the actual first-party nvidia driver.
DeRock 6y ago
No, it shows it performs better? Go look again at the numbers in the linked comparison. Also calling it low-end is misleading, the 1050Ti was solidly mid-tier, and also a dedicated graphics card used in desktop machines. This is comparing it to integrated graphics in a lightweight laptop (the M1 in the recently announced MacBook Air).
- qw3rty01 6y ago
  1060 is budget mid-tier, I don't really see how you could say the 1050ti is anything but low-end when looking at either performance or price
  - AgloeDreams 6y ago
    We are talking about a half-inch thick ultrabook with 18 hours of battery life here. The idea is that this can do the same as what was historically in a thick and heavy gaming laptop that got 4 hours of battery life in use..is very impressive. It firmly destroys all SKUs of the 15 inch MBP
- banachtarski 6y ago
  I'm a graphics engineer. It's so low end at this point I honestly dread benchmarking on it.

seanalltogether 6y ago

I was tempted as well until I realized it's only 8GB of memory. There's no way i could survive on less then 16 currently. edit - ignore that I'm an idiot :)

mbirth 6y ago
For $200 you can upgrade to 16GB during the order process.
- bialpio 6y ago
  Ouch, that's pretty steep price for additional 8gb ram. How does it compare to other devices in the same category? I'm out of the loop when it comes to laptops, for desktops iirc you can get one 32gig die of ram for cheaper than that.
  - rewtraw 6y ago
    It's definitely more expensive than simply buying a DIMM, but keep in mind that is "unified" memory and is part of the SoC, and is likely much faster than any old stick of RAM you'd normally put in a laptop. That, plus the Apple Premium.
- AgloeDreams 6y ago
  Yup, thats what I did, also if you "work in education" it's $180.