4 ms·

“Hell of a laptop”’s M1 MacBook Air review

17 points by eddieoz 6y ago

bjoli 6y ago
I am sceptical of all comparisons to the previous intel based laptops. The thermals in those were atrocious, even to the extent that Linus of Linus Tech Tips made a comment saying roughly "Apple has been sandbagging the performance of their intel laptops for years now, so that when they launch their ARM-based ones they can claim it runs at half the temperature". Even the MacBook Pro, which actually has a fan, thermal throttles in under a minute. Edit: found the video. About 2 minutes in: https://youtu.be/ https://youtu.be/ I am not saying that the M1 isnt amazing. It clearly is. But you should compare it to something that at least lets the laptop run somewhere close to optimal.
- kelchm 6y ago
  Do the Intel MBPs actually thermal throttle any faster than similar Windows laptops? As I recall the thermal performance on something like the XPS 13 isn’t much better.
  - bjoli 6y ago
    The XPS throttles. Which is pretty amazing considering it is targeted at getting work done. My 9th Feb i7 no-brand clevo manages to not throttle unless I max out both CPU and GPU. Of course, I have set the fan to ramp up to max instead of throttling, but neither the XPS nor mbp has that option. Which is atrocious. I'd rather sacrifice battery for better cooling if it means I can actually use whatever fancy processor I have purchased.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > Of course, I have set the fan to ramp up to max instead of throttling, but neither the XPS nor mbp has that option. There are various tools for doing this on MacOS. iStat Menu definitely does it, but I believe there are some free ones, too.
- culopatin 6y ago
  The potential of the older Intel CPUs with better thermals are really not that relevant if that product does not exist in a MacBook format. The MacBook offerings are much better with the M1 and that is the comparison to make because that is the reality.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  It is the chip causing the runaway thermals. Yes Apple could have gone crazy with fans or water cooling, but just like the PowerPC to Intel Core transition, the execution performance per watt is what this is about. You can tell even more so on the massive battery life increase. That electricity being burned so quickly on the Intel chip is translated into increased thermal output as well. TANSTAAFL
  - bjoli 6y ago
    The last gen MacBook air disagrees. There is no reason that thing should throttle. My unbranded clevo 9th gen i7 does not throttle and that has a lot higher tdp than the 9w of the base MB air. Sure, my laptop sounds like a spaceship when I'm compiling, but at least I am getting the advertised core clocks. Edit: which is why I'm looking twice at the new MBP :) if only it would run Linux.
    - Solocomplex 6y ago
      As well as the macbook using the entire case as an aluminium heatsink
      - bjoli 6y ago
        The newer ones might, but the older ones seem to have the worst thermal solution of just about any modern laptop if that Linus Tech Tips video is to be believed. If I opened my computer that was thermal throttling and found that I would demand a refund. An undersized heatsink that wasn't making proper contact to the die. With a fan that 1. Isn't sucking air in from anywhere. And 2. Isn't blowing anything over the heat sink. "Think different" as in "be dumb". Or smart; Because that makes their new computers that are properly amazing look even better in comparison. Edit: paste mistake. the video link is here. Can't edit the original commet. https://youtu.be/MlOPPuNv4Ec https://youtu.be/MlOPPuNv4Ec

17 points by eddieoz 6y ago

I am sceptical of all comparisons to the previous intel based laptops. The thermals in those were atrocious, even to the extent that Linus of Linus Tech Tips made a comment saying roughly "Apple has been sandbagging the performance of their intel laptops for years now, so that when they launch their ARM-based ones they can claim it runs at half the temperature". Even the MacBook Pro, which actually has a fan, thermal throttles in under a minute. Edit: found the video. About 2 minutes in: https://youtu.be/ https://youtu.be/ I am not saying that the M1 isnt amazing. It clearly is. But you should compare it to something that at least lets the laptop run somewhere close to optimal.

kelchm 6y ago
Do the Intel MBPs actually thermal throttle any faster than similar Windows laptops? As I recall the thermal performance on something like the XPS 13 isn’t much better.
- bjoli 6y ago
  The XPS throttles. Which is pretty amazing considering it is targeted at getting work done. My 9th Feb i7 no-brand clevo manages to not throttle unless I max out both CPU and GPU. Of course, I have set the fan to ramp up to max instead of throttling, but neither the XPS nor mbp has that option. Which is atrocious. I'd rather sacrifice battery for better cooling if it means I can actually use whatever fancy processor I have purchased.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    > Of course, I have set the fan to ramp up to max instead of throttling, but neither the XPS nor mbp has that option. There are various tools for doing this on MacOS. iStat Menu definitely does it, but I believe there are some free ones, too.
culopatin 6y ago
The potential of the older Intel CPUs with better thermals are really not that relevant if that product does not exist in a MacBook format. The MacBook offerings are much better with the M1 and that is the comparison to make because that is the reality.
mrkstu 6y ago
It is the chip causing the runaway thermals. Yes Apple could have gone crazy with fans or water cooling, but just like the PowerPC to Intel Core transition, the execution performance per watt is what this is about. You can tell even more so on the massive battery life increase. That electricity being burned so quickly on the Intel chip is translated into increased thermal output as well. TANSTAAFL
- bjoli 6y ago
  The last gen MacBook air disagrees. There is no reason that thing should throttle. My unbranded clevo 9th gen i7 does not throttle and that has a lot higher tdp than the 9w of the base MB air. Sure, my laptop sounds like a spaceship when I'm compiling, but at least I am getting the advertised core clocks. Edit: which is why I'm looking twice at the new MBP :) if only it would run Linux.
  - Solocomplex 6y ago
    As well as the macbook using the entire case as an aluminium heatsink
    - bjoli 6y ago
      The newer ones might, but the older ones seem to have the worst thermal solution of just about any modern laptop if that Linus Tech Tips video is to be believed. If I opened my computer that was thermal throttling and found that I would demand a refund. An undersized heatsink that wasn't making proper contact to the die. With a fan that 1. Isn't sucking air in from anywhere. And 2. Isn't blowing anything over the heat sink. "Think different" as in "be dumb". Or smart; Because that makes their new computers that are properly amazing look even better in comparison. Edit: paste mistake. the video link is here. Can't edit the original commet. https://youtu.be/MlOPPuNv4Ec https://youtu.be/MlOPPuNv4Ec