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Whats stopping you from using a macbook air? they are incredibly small for the power they pack. Plus you get a descent keyboard to boot. To add some context. H

Whats stopping you from using a macbook air? they are incredibly small for the power they pack. Plus you get a descent keyboard to boot. To add some context. Had to take my fully specced out 2018 MBP 15" to get the battery replaced. Basicly, I had to go a week without my daily driver and I didn't have a backup. So I picked up a macbook air since they have a 14 day no questions asked return policy. I expected this thing to do some light work. I didn't expect it to actually keep up with my entire workload but it did and without getting particularly warm either. This tiny 1k laptop with 8 gb of ram was ding the job of a 3.5k fully specced mbp with 32 gigs of ram. can't wait to see what they do with the m1x but I think the macbook air will handle everything you need + allow you to devlop locally.

karmelapple 5y ago
I'm guessing that's the kind of laptop the person you're replying to is using. That's what I used when I first went on motorcycle rides with a laptop. I put a leather case from TwelveSouth around it, and it rode in the saddlebags of a Harley Sportster for thousands of miles without a problem. I'm getting a MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro next, since I really want the ability to drive more than 1 external monitor. But if the Air could do that, I'd be all over it now even with the original M1.
blunte 5y ago
My M1 Air is fantastic with thus far only one exception - recent frequent OS out of memory notices, but no apparent single cause. I imagine it's a software problem that will be soon resolved (and it's the first such memory problem I've ever encountered on any Mac in 10+ years). With 16GB, I normally have open: RubyMine, DataGrip (two heavy JetBrains products), a terminal with two tabs, one having tmux and multiple local subshells and one with a remote connection to a server which has tmux (love tmux!), PostgreSQL, MailCatcher, any number of custom app servers (some ruby, some Node), Firefox with far too many open tabs, Spotify, and a handful of other apps. I'm just about to find out how this thing handles 4k video processing as I got some new video toys to travel with. Maybe I'll end up needing the extra cores of an M1 Pro Max, but hopefully not.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  > My M1 Air is fantastic with thus far only one exception - recent frequent OS out of memory notices, but no apparent single cause. Mmm. That's disconcerting, as I just bought my fiancee an M1 Air with 8gb. (Getting her to spend more than strictly necessary on a laptop would be worse than pulling teeth.) Hopefully that's not an issue with her computing needs, which should be fairly minimal ... Word, Excel, BlueJeans for teleconferencing, Chrome.
  - blunte 5y ago
    Something changed which brought these errors on... I suspect it was an OS update. My usage habits did not change, and for the first few months I had none of these errors.
    - d1sxeyes 5y ago
      Do you use a Photos album as screensaver or desktop background?
      - blunte 5y ago
        Nope, blank screen screensaver for me. FWIW, it hasn't happened to me in days now. Normally I never reboot, and I usually have a lot of services and dev stuff running in the background that I forget about. Since my last reboot, days ago, I haven't had the problem. Maybe it's because I also haven't been working :D, so the background pressure is low.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    For the record, 8GB was unusable for me as someone who habitually leaves tabs open. I use IDEs that are heavier duty than the average user, but those didn't even seem to be the issue, once I had more than about a couple dozen or so tabs open the machine would start grinding to a halt. Sometimes so badly that even closing applications was difficult. I upgraded to a 16GB and have zero issues now. It seems browser tabs just don't play to the strengths of the M1's memory setup
FearlessNebula 5y ago
Seems like you didn’t realize this, but the new MacBook pros are available as of this week, and they aren’t called M1X. They’re as exciting as you imagined
wlesieutre 5y ago
> can't wait to see what they do with the m1x but I think the macbook air will handle everything you need + allow you to devlop locally. No need to wait, they're available starting this week! https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-pro-max-everything-we-know https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-pro-max-everythin...
nicbou 5y ago
It's a lot of money for shaving an inch or two off that big rectangle. I already have my Macbook Pro.

karmelapple 5y ago

I'm guessing that's the kind of laptop the person you're replying to is using. That's what I used when I first went on motorcycle rides with a laptop. I put a leather case from TwelveSouth around it, and it rode in the saddlebags of a Harley Sportster for thousands of miles without a problem. I'm getting a MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro next, since I really want the ability to drive more than 1 external monitor. But if the Air could do that, I'd be all over it now even with the original M1.

blunte 5y ago

My M1 Air is fantastic with thus far only one exception - recent frequent OS out of memory notices, but no apparent single cause. I imagine it's a software problem that will be soon resolved (and it's the first such memory problem I've ever encountered on any Mac in 10+ years). With 16GB, I normally have open: RubyMine, DataGrip (two heavy JetBrains products), a terminal with two tabs, one having tmux and multiple local subshells and one with a remote connection to a server which has tmux (love tmux!), PostgreSQL, MailCatcher, any number of custom app servers (some ruby, some Node), Firefox with far too many open tabs, Spotify, and a handful of other apps. I'm just about to find out how this thing handles 4k video processing as I got some new video toys to travel with. Maybe I'll end up needing the extra cores of an M1 Pro Max, but hopefully not.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
> My M1 Air is fantastic with thus far only one exception - recent frequent OS out of memory notices, but no apparent single cause. Mmm. That's disconcerting, as I just bought my fiancee an M1 Air with 8gb. (Getting her to spend more than strictly necessary on a laptop would be worse than pulling teeth.) Hopefully that's not an issue with her computing needs, which should be fairly minimal ... Word, Excel, BlueJeans for teleconferencing, Chrome.
- blunte 5y ago
  Something changed which brought these errors on... I suspect it was an OS update. My usage habits did not change, and for the first few months I had none of these errors.
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    Do you use a Photos album as screensaver or desktop background?
    - blunte 5y ago
      Nope, blank screen screensaver for me. FWIW, it hasn't happened to me in days now. Normally I never reboot, and I usually have a lot of services and dev stuff running in the background that I forget about. Since my last reboot, days ago, I haven't had the problem. Maybe it's because I also haven't been working :D, so the background pressure is low.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  For the record, 8GB was unusable for me as someone who habitually leaves tabs open. I use IDEs that are heavier duty than the average user, but those didn't even seem to be the issue, once I had more than about a couple dozen or so tabs open the machine would start grinding to a halt. Sometimes so badly that even closing applications was difficult. I upgraded to a 16GB and have zero issues now. It seems browser tabs just don't play to the strengths of the M1's memory setup

FearlessNebula 5y ago

Seems like you didn’t realize this, but the new MacBook pros are available as of this week, and they aren’t called M1X. They’re as exciting as you imagined

wlesieutre 5y ago

> can't wait to see what they do with the m1x but I think the macbook air will handle everything you need + allow you to devlop locally. No need to wait, they're available starting this week! https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-pro-max-everything-we-know https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-pro-max-everythin...

nicbou 5y ago

It's a lot of money for shaving an inch or two off that big rectangle. I already have my Macbook Pro.