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MacBook Air M1: the best laptop?
- numlock86 5y agoI just wish programs would stop randomly crashing all the time. I am not sure if it's connected to the dozen memory leaks or a consequence of those.
- xbar 5y agoThat must suck. Crashes are not part of my experience on either of my 16GB M1s nor on my 32GB M1 Max. The only software that I found vexing is Docker, so I don't use it. This is major and is a good reason to be wary of these Macs. I left off Docker 6 months ago on M1. Things may be better now. 16GB was fine for a secondary machine. 32GB is now enough for me to be productive as a primary machine.
- Havelock 5y agoLots of issues running docker and other strange segfaults in VM.
- joconde 5y agoI see new Safari tabs crash and close immediately after I open them. It's been the most annoying issue, along with some pages rendering the first screen, and staying blank below for 2 minutes.
- user-the-name 5y agoI have two MacBook Airs and I can't remember the last time a prgoram crashed unexpectedly. Either you have some kind of hardware problem, or some really dodgy software installed.
- tn890 5y agoI own an M1 MBA with 16GB of RAM and it's a lovely little machine. I generally do SRE work and it works out ok for that for the most part. Intellij Idea, VS Code, a terminal and a browser. Coming from an i9 16" mbp the difference in usability is massive, I hated those fans so much. I do miss the larger screen size though; that, coupled with the lack of ports (just 2 Type-C, would like more) made me consider getting one of the new 14". The battery life is so insanely overkill in this laptop that I'd be willing to compromise on it for a bigger display, perhaps for the first time ever. Would highly, highly recommend it for traveling though.
- csdvrx 5y ago> Would highly, highly recommend it for traveling though. I travel with a thinkpad nano: smaller, lighter, and it has cellular wireless. Yet it can be stuffed- I put a 2Tb NVMe (Sabrent) in mine, and I'm now waiting for larger NVMe to hit the market
- tn890 5y agoI suppose it all falls down to OS preference more than anything. I've been using macOS for a long time and wouldn't feel comfortable with something else. Owning an iPhone and iPad don't help escaping the walled garden for sure.
- synergy20 5y ago90% of the time is spent on browser and editor these days, the OS is not a major factor for me to choose computers anymore.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago> the biggest pain point for software developers is the small amount of RAM Software developers thinking that 16GB is a small amount of RAM is why all of our software is fat barges of bloat now. Y'all, this prophecy is entirely self-fulfilling. Please stop.
- secondcoming 5y ago16GB isn't a lot when developing, but that doesn't mean your final code should need 16GB to run. My old desktop has 32GB and my laptop has 128GB, both at their motherboard limits.
- simonh 5y agoThe memory needed to efficiently compile an application isn’t the same as the memory needed to run it.
- hulitu 5y ago> The memory needed to efficiently compile an application isn’t the same as the memory needed to run it. This is becoming more and more false. See Firefox for example.
- simonh 5y agoYou need 8GB of memory to efficiently compile Firefox, but you can run it in a lot less than that. Fundamentally when compiling the application you aren't running the application, you're running the compiler. They are different pieces of software with independent resource requirements. Even if they happen to be similar, that's really just a coincidence.
- nikita2206 5y agoIt’s just not enough when it’s a multi-service backend that you want to run on your local machine, plus IDE, a browser, and a few well known electron/react native apps that play music and let you chat with your colleagues.
- glogla 5y agoI think the price/performance ratio depends on whether your use case works with with the 8/256 or 8/512 configurations. The moment you need to go 16/512 or more, the price difference to 14" is not that large, especially considering the better display - with the first improvement in resolution since October 2012, so over 9 years.
- raihansaputra 5y agoTrue for the pro at $1600, but 16/512 for Air is $1400 against $2000 for the 14". Is it worth $600 for 2x GPU, ~2X CPU, 2x Memory bandwith, MiniLED display + size, great speakers, etc? Probably. But that $600 can feed my family for a month, and the actual performance difference to my workload would probably be +25% instead.
- cehrlich 5y agoI recently bought a 16/1TB Air over a similarly specced 14” Pro. I can see the advantages of the Pro, but the Air also has things going for it - smaller and lighter, better battery life, 100% silent in absolutely every use case, no moving parts. I love this computer. It’s without a doubt the best one I’ve ever owned, even better to me than the 2012 15” Pro was for it’s time. However due to the bloat of modern software I might have to upgrade to a 32GB machine in the not so distant future. Hopefully there Air-class machines wont be limited to 16GB for too much longer.
- alphabettsy 5y agoI’ve had the 16” M1 MBP for a month and have yet to hear the fans. With my 16” i9 MBP the fans were a very regular thing for the same workload. Fast, responsive, silent and incredible battery life make it easy to call it the best machine I’ve owned.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- csdvrx 5y agoFor me, I see: - No OLED screen - Limited RAM - No ECC option - Fixed NVMe of a small size - Can't have more than 1 NVMe for raid1 - No amd64 core for legacy software It has advantages for some people, but not for me.
- shepherdjerred 5y agoYou have a very niche set of requirements there; few others care about the things you listed.
- csdvrx 5y ago> You have a very niche set of requirements there; few others care about the things you listed. What can I say, I have a refined palate for exquisite computers! (but I'm surprised that on Hacker News of all places, my tastes are considered exotic!) At the moment I have a thinkpad P1 Gen 3 as my main computer (Xeon, 64Gb of ECC, multiple 2Tb NVMe in RAID, OLED...) but I'll ditch it in a second if I can get an AMD equivalent (and preferably 128G of ECC).
- vehemenz 5y agoDo you use the eraserhead on the Thinkpad? I ask because most users (including here) probably use the touchpad, and non-Mac touchpads are 10+ years behind and borderline unusable.
- csdvrx 5y agoActually, most of the time I don't, but the Lenovo trackpad is great. I've tried a mac (because I like to keep my options opened) but I have found the trackpad to be only slightly better (mostly bigger), while the lack of trackpoint ("eraserhead") was painful
- vehemenz 5y agoThe trackpoint is nice once you figure out an acceleration curve that works for you. I am a huge fan. It would be pretty amazing if that was available on Macs, but honestly, the touchpad is good enough that it's probably not needed (unlike most other laptops).
- reducesuffering 5y ago[flagged]
- realusername 5y agoThe hardware maybe yes but I really don't like macOS so it's a pass for me.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- oojuliuso 5y agoThe new air’s right around the corner, so hopefully some of those concerns will be addressed. I’m excited that Apple can now release yearly refreshes without hesitation. No more vendor roadmaps to rely upon. This should mean faster iteration and refinement for what customers want.
- slmjkdbtl 5y agoComing from a 2014 MBP the trackpad is a HUGE downgrade (not nearly as responsive), macOS is for sure getting worse on each generation too. Other than these are pretty good. A side note: I've been wanting to move to linux, the only thing stopping me is the local music management & mobile syncing workflow, if anyone have any recommendation
- kello 5y agoOkay same situation right here. Seriously, if anyone has suggestions especially for the mobile syncing workflow with linux I would love to hear them. The seamless message-notiifcation experience with Apple is what holds me hostage.
- dm319 5y agoApple do this quite nicely. I don't have mac equipment, but I see the integration is good where the grass is greener. In linux it is replicated using the websites for messages(android)/whatsapp/telegram and signal has an app. When I used to have an iphone (4s days), I loved the move to android (pixel) which gave me so much freedom. Cloud apps weren't restricted to Apple PCs (I think this has changed now), and I could just plug into my linux laptop and just drag and drop files to read on a journey. Also tethering always worked nicely on linux.
- 1986 5y agoHave you tried KDE Connect? Despite the name, it doesn't require KDE
- ksec 5y ago> the trackpad is a HUGE downgrade (not nearly as responsive) Finally, someone pointed this out. But again majority of people aren't picky about keyboard, key distances or Trackpad for some reason.
- dmitshur 5y agoIt's unfortunate it can't drive an 8K display, but good that it can do 6K.
- enraged_camel 5y agoIs it possible to run Windows on these yet (in virtual)? That's the only thing stopping me from getting an M1.
- TranquilMarmot 5y agoYou can use parallels to run Windows applications, but that's not really a "native" Windows environment. I love my M1 MacBook Pro that I was given for work but I absolutely _despise_ macOS.
- opless 5y agoCould it be that you're used to the increasingly stupidity of windows? Win -> Mac conversion is annoying I agree. But once you've shrugged off the expectation of windows behaviours you'll be fine. Cognitive dissonance is a thing with user interfaces.
- TranquilMarmot 5y agoIt's definitely "all in my head" how much I don't like macOS. The window management and way that it bunches together applications and windows in the task bar drives me crazy. Keyboard shortcuts are another pain point (I have a pretty intense Karabiner Elements setup to use the same keyboard in Windows and macOS) I'm curious what you mean by the "increasing stupidity of windows"... I've been using Windows for personal use since 1995 and macOS for work use for about 7 years now and they honestly don't feel too different from how they've always been. Biggest change in Windows the past few years has been WSL and being able to use Linux tools "natively" which has been awesome. macOS is almost exactly the same as when I first started using it...
- opless 5y agoYou've not noticed that windows has moved system settings dialogs each version since NT3.1?
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- emrah 5y agoLong battery life and fanless quiet design are killer features imo but the 13" screen is a no-go for my aging eyes.
- kikowi 5y agoI work a lot with Java 8 and Docker. Anyone has any hands on experience with these on M1? I am thinking about moving from MBP 2015 to MBA M1 16GB.
- ginja 5y agoI have the 16GB M1 Air. Haven’t done a lot of Java on it, but it seemed to work smoothly. Docker works okay but IO is really slow. I’m not sure if that is due to the new architecture, or if it’s just due to Mac running docker in a VM.
- immutology 5y agoIt depends on what you're doing with Docker... Docker runs an arm64 Linux VM on an M1 Mac. My experience is that it works well for anything that has arm64 images available. It can also run x64 containers via QEMU emulation. I found this to be hit-or-miss. I need the full version of MS SQL Server for one of the projects I work on. MS only supports x64 and the image won't start because of what looks like some kind of memory mapping/translation problem with the QEMU emulation.
- bob332 5y agoLol 16gb not enough for dev? Get real
- smichael 5y ago"...You can install a blank disk in your Mac..." Wat ?
- Apocryphon 5y agoBut have the MBA M1's been superseded by the M1 Pro and M1 Maxes?
- BearOso 5y agoThe M1 Pro and Max just have more CPU and GPU cores and more RAM modules. The architecture and single-thread performance are the same. So, no, if you don’t need more cores or GPU performance, it’s just as good.
- Apocryphon 5y agoThe larger form factor and the improved hardware design choices (no Touch Bar, et al) are just so sadly lacking from the M1, though.
- footlose_3815 5y agoid never get a device thats intentionally not designed to handle its own thermal output FFS it’s the same thing minus s fan
- lincpa 5y agoApple M1 unified memory architecture(published on November 11, 2020.) is my "warehouse/workshop model"(hardware architecture section published on February 06, 2019), It is an architecture supported by mathematical models, unlike "von Neumann architecture". Reference 1. The Math-based Grand Unified Programming Theory: The Pure Function Pipeline Data Flow with Principle-based Warehouse/Workshop Model: Its mathematical prototype is the simple, classic, vivid, and widely used in social production practice, elementary school mathematics "water input/output of the pool". My theory rebuilt the theoretical foundation of the IT industry, It makes the computer theory system fully & perfectly related to mathematics in a simple and unified way: from hardware integrated circuits and computer architecture, to software programming methodology, architecture, programming language and so on. It solve the most fundamental and core major problems in the IT industry: The foundation and core of the IT theory lack mathematical support. https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow 2. Why my "warehouse/workshop model" can achieve high performance and low power consumption (take Apple M1 chip, Intel AVX-512, Qualcomm as examples) https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow/blob/master/doc/why_wwmodel_fast_en.md https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow...
- joeman1000 5y agoThe M1 air is absolutely the best computer (not just laptop) I have ever used. I’ve used laptops since about the year 2000, and custom desktops throughout this time too. I built a Ryzen 3600 desktop computer in 2020 and a year later this ultra-thin just laptop blew it away. It was cheaper too and didn’t make noise OR heat! All tasks were quicker to accomplish: transcoding video, compiling programs, opening programs, the lot BESIDES gaming. The battery life was the cherry on top… I mostly use emacs in my day and I can get 20 hours from a charge. It was unbelievable to finally have a nearly perfect machine which I could slip into my backpack and hardly notice. The press on the Apple ARM processors is well deserved and I’ve also been throughly enjoying my new M1 Pro processor this week.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y agoOn a Mac you can click the trackpad anywhere, which is great. But all Windows trackpads have a hinge at the top, so you can’t click near the top. Why don’t any Windows laptops use a Mac-like design? Is there a patent?
- taylodl 5y agoI only have Vivaldi, MS Outlook and MS Teams open at the moment. Memory consumed? 7.49 Gb. What does that tell you? 8 Gb is good for web browsing, reading emails, and attending online meetings. If that's your typical workload then you're good to go. The HN crowd knows the developer toolsets very well, so you all know 16 Gb is the minimum you would allocate for a developer. The HN crowd may be less familiar with the toolsets of the so-called creatives, such as music production, video production or photography. Long story short, the advice in those communities is to not even think about running less than 16 Gb and seriously consider 32 Gb - especially if you're a professional. The video producers recommend getting as much RAM as you possibly can. The MacBook Air M1 wasn't designed for those heavy-duty use cases, which is okay. That's why Apple has brought out the MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro and M1 Max. If you don't need it then don't buy it. Otherwise it's nice to have those options available.
- bowenjin 5y agoHave all the compatibility issues for the M1 chip been solved? I've been holding out on buying one of these machines because I'm afraid I will have to waste tons of time hacking together work arounds to get my development setup working.