8 ms·

The hardware is pretty good. Utterly unmaintainable, unserviceable and unapgradeable, extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM which you have to

by sofixa 4y ago

The hardware is pretty good. Utterly unmaintainable, unserviceable and unapgradeable, extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM which you have to do at purchase time), with limited options (e.g. i cannot stand glossy screens with shitty reflections everywhere causing eye strain), but still very good. However the software (macOS) is pretty shit and IMO hard to adapt to coming from any other OS. Raw performance per watt, and per weight/dimensions is best in class. For pure performance (e.g. an Asus ROG Zephyrus) or lightness (e.g. LG Gram) there are better options, but if you want all three it's hard to beat. I personally think the hardware is so good, even with the caveats, but the software so bad that I'm honestly tempted to get an Air for portability or a Pro as a daily driver when Asahi Linux is good enough for me and the prices are right (so some sale or something, sticker prices are ridiculous if you max everything, and you kind of have to due to the impossibility of upgrades).

kitsunesoba 4y ago
Serviceability is improved (though still not amazing) in all the machines with chassises redesigned during the "M" era — the "notched" MBP 14/16 and Air have easily accessible bottom screws (no need to remove rubber feet first) and don't have batteries glued in. Keyboards can be changed independently from the top case too. Notably, many Windows laptops fail on both of those counts (like the LG Gram which hides screws under adhesive-attached feet). But yes, it's difficult to find laptops as well-rounded as MacBooks are. Generally laptops will require you to make significant sacrifices in multiple categories to be good at one or two things, which is less true of MacBooks (particularly the 14"/16" Pro models), especially if you want good performance without the laptop being huge and bulky and/or have horrible battery life with constantly-screaming fans. The 14"/16" models get you performance in the ballpark of a desktop Ryzen 5800X while unplugged and still getting great battery life while also being silent and still reasonably portable, along with a killer screen, great speakers, decent keyboard and great trackpad.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though. The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately. The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.
    - pram 4y ago
      They do: https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/ https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/
      - tambourine_man 4y ago
        You’re correct! How could I forget. Thanks. Shows I haven’t been shopping for Macs in a long time.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      > Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.
      - musicale 4y ago
        The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.
musicale 4y ago
> extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM As I understand it, Apple uses a "system in a package" multi chip module that mounts RAM inside the same package as the main M1/M2 SoC. Seems to work well in terms of memory bandwidth, unified memory architecture, and physical size, but it's hard to crack that SIP/MCM open to add more RAM. And it's even harder to add RAM to an SoC die itself. And the GPU is integrated as well (although in theory one could connect an eGPU over Thunderbolt - assuming the driver issues could be sorted out somehow.) Some old Macs from the 1990s included an external L2 cache SRAM slot. But cache RAM upgrades became impossible once the L2 cache was integrated on the CPU die.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Even on the remaining Intel models having Apple upgrade the RAM is a bad deal. The Intel Mac Mini has socketed RAM and they want $1000 for 64GB of DDR4 2666. You can get 64GB DDR4 3200 sodimms for less than $200 right now. Even in 2018 it was a bad deal. I put 32GB in the one I had for less than a third the price Apple was asking. And for storage that isn't on the SoC, it's just flash chips on the board so it shouldn't be much different cost wise to what the M.2 drive manufacturers are paying. Yet it costs considerably more.
astrange 4y ago
Glossy screens have better picture quality (black levels) in any situation where you can control the lighting. That’s usually true for laptops because you can just put it on your lap and swing around to avoid sunshine.
- bernawil 4y ago
  it's true for everything. You can even more so control the lighting and orientation of a desktop. Matte screens are the industry's worst mistake and I just can't understand why everybody hadn't ditched them already.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > That’s usually true for laptops because you can just put it on your lap and swing around to avoid sunshine. So the options are extreme eye strain due to lights/sun/my own reflection, or extreme back pain due to having to sit like a prawn to hide the light from the laptop? I'd take slightly lower visual quality (doesn't matter in the slightest for what i do on a screen) over either of those.
  - astrange 4y ago
    The glossy screens' higher contrast should lead to less eye strain in the end. That's a big reason for better visual quality, like HiDPI displays and OLEDs.

by sofixa 4y ago

kitsunesoba 4y ago

Serviceability is improved (though still not amazing) in all the machines with chassises redesigned during the "M" era — the "notched" MBP 14/16 and Air have easily accessible bottom screws (no need to remove rubber feet first) and don't have batteries glued in. Keyboards can be changed independently from the top case too. Notably, many Windows laptops fail on both of those counts (like the LG Gram which hides screws under adhesive-attached feet). But yes, it's difficult to find laptops as well-rounded as MacBooks are. Generally laptops will require you to make significant sacrifices in multiple categories to be good at one or two things, which is less true of MacBooks (particularly the 14"/16" Pro models), especially if you want good performance without the laptop being huge and bulky and/or have horrible battery life with constantly-screaming fans. The 14"/16" models get you performance in the ballpark of a desktop Ryzen 5800X while unplugged and still getting great battery life while also being silent and still reasonably portable, along with a killer screen, great speakers, decent keyboard and great trackpad.

tambourine_man 4y ago
Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though. The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately. The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.
  - pram 4y ago
    They do: https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/ https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      You’re correct! How could I forget. Thanks. Shows I haven’t been shopping for Macs in a long time.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    > Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully first-party one, which is very similar.
    - musicale 4y ago
      The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.

musicale 4y ago

> extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM As I understand it, Apple uses a "system in a package" multi chip module that mounts RAM inside the same package as the main M1/M2 SoC. Seems to work well in terms of memory bandwidth, unified memory architecture, and physical size, but it's hard to crack that SIP/MCM open to add more RAM. And it's even harder to add RAM to an SoC die itself. And the GPU is integrated as well (although in theory one could connect an eGPU over Thunderbolt - assuming the driver issues could be sorted out somehow.) Some old Macs from the 1990s included an external L2 cache SRAM slot. But cache RAM upgrades became impossible once the L2 cache was integrated on the CPU die.

goosedragons 4y ago
Even on the remaining Intel models having Apple upgrade the RAM is a bad deal. The Intel Mac Mini has socketed RAM and they want $1000 for 64GB of DDR4 2666. You can get 64GB DDR4 3200 sodimms for less than $200 right now. Even in 2018 it was a bad deal. I put 32GB in the one I had for less than a third the price Apple was asking. And for storage that isn't on the SoC, it's just flash chips on the board so it shouldn't be much different cost wise to what the M.2 drive manufacturers are paying. Yet it costs considerably more.

astrange 4y ago

Glossy screens have better picture quality (black levels) in any situation where you can control the lighting. That’s usually true for laptops because you can just put it on your lap and swing around to avoid sunshine.

bernawil 4y ago
it's true for everything. You can even more so control the lighting and orientation of a desktop. Matte screens are the industry's worst mistake and I just can't understand why everybody hadn't ditched them already.
sofixa 4y ago
> That’s usually true for laptops because you can just put it on your lap and swing around to avoid sunshine. So the options are extreme eye strain due to lights/sun/my own reflection, or extreme back pain due to having to sit like a prawn to hide the light from the laptop? I'd take slightly lower visual quality (doesn't matter in the slightest for what i do on a screen) over either of those.
- astrange 4y ago
  The glossy screens' higher contrast should lead to less eye strain in the end. That's a big reason for better visual quality, like HiDPI displays and OLEDs.