5 ms·

The M2 seems incredible. It is the first thing in a long time that has tempted me to try out a Mac. The price is high, but is the performance worth it? 32GB of

by _ea1k 3y ago

The M2 seems incredible. It is the first thing in a long time that has tempted me to try out a Mac. The price is high, but is the performance worth it? 32GB of unified memory would be nice.

catchnear4321 3y ago
take a look at apple’s return policy. you’re invited to take it for a test drive, just don’t treat it like a rental car.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Or if you're near an Apple Store, go in and ask if you can play around - if they'r not busy they'll often let you download stuff onto the demo machines, etc. They can easily reset them. And then buy a refurbished one on the Apple Card to save a bit of cheddar™. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FNWE3LL/A/refurbished-16-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m2-max-chip-with-12%E2%80%91core-cpu-and-38%E2%80%91core-gpu-silver?fnode=5f411fe84e6a0be22d7a37c33df1d6bf43ba6c58bf356f22b2cec46df060f65a54d80a50bbe3d7826667dfd9fa327623a6c8940492d389cd107a144d00f8ce2c37af95a649ebba8567348b8f7812a68a https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FNWE3LL/A/refurbished-16-...
root_axis 3y ago
I bought the 13inch m2 air a few months back and it's awesome. Super sleek design and feel, awesome keyboard, no touchbar, and also magsafe. It's really good. I actually hate MacOS and use a framework for 60% of my day (my work machine), but I have to admit the m2 is just a pleasure. I've used Macs extensively for years because that's what most companies provide for software hires, but the m2 air was the first Mac I've ever purchased with my own money, and I don't regret it.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  > no touchbar I actually liked it. Too bad it’s an evolutionary dead end and never made it to the desktop keyboards. And I even liked the one without an ESC key.
riatin 3y ago
I think it is, definitely. Have recently upgraded and it's immediately noticeable from the old Intel-based Macs. Much improved compute speed + battery life, barely noticeable battery drain. I'm a very happy customer.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  It’s impressive moving from an x86 Mac. From an x86 Windows, it’s mind-blowing.
schmookeeg 3y ago
I'm a career-long PC guy and had an excellent watercooled "Battlestation". I dipped my toe in with the M1 Mini, then an M1 Max MBP... and my battlestation now has like 1/4" of dust on it. It helps that most of my work anymore is AWS Console or VSCode, which does just fine on either. There are a few games that it won't play, and..... that's about it. I'm still surprised at how quickly that happened. Worth a try, the M2 mini is cheap and easy, and the 8gb/256gb config was "enough" for me. I honestly didn't even notice the bump moving to the max 64gb/2tb. Doing it over, I'd probably do an Air with 16 or 24gb and be happy as a clam. $0.02 :)
- jakear 3y ago
  I'm happy as a clam on my 16gb M1 air. One hidden nice feature is how cheap and easy DIY repairs are. To date I've replaced my battery, monitor, and speakers (my lifestyle involves very rough handling of the machine), and everything about it was downright trivial, with cheap parts readily accessible and iFixit's walkthroughs very comprehensive.
  - IndySun 3y ago
    > I've replaced my battery, monitor, and speakers... I have many 2015 MacBook Pro's. All tour. All are almost permanently on. I replaced the battery on two machines last year. Speakers fine. Screen fine. Are you implying the relatively young M1 Air is so badly made, the speakers, monitors, AND battery have already needed to be replaced?
    - swores 3y ago
      Read the sentence after the one you quoted in their comment and you'll see they clearly weren't blaming the laptop.
    - piva00 3y ago
      > Are you implying the relatively young M1 Air is so badly made, the speakers, monitors, AND battery have already needed to be replaced? > my lifestyle involves very rough handling of the machine No, it's not badly made, GP seems to be a huge exception. Please, read the full comment... My M1 Air has been around since launch, have traveled with it just throwing inside bags, dropped a few times, sat on, etc., it still works 100% fine without any part swap, and looks almost pristine with just a tiny scratch on one of the edges from a drop.
karaterobot 3y ago
I'm about due to upgrade my 2017 Air, and it'll be to a 13" M2 Air. I would have done it already, but every time I price it out and see that they want to charge me $300 for 256 gigs of storage, I get a little offended and close the tab. As with every Apple purchase I make, it'll just come down to necessity, after the old one finally breaks. I'll hold my nose and pay the Apple tax, knowing that they think of me as a sucker, and they're probably right.
- Retric 3y ago
  Yep you get an extra 25% GPU and an extra 256 gigs of storage for 300$. Dammit price discrimination. I realize buying the cheaper option frequently is the better option with Apple prices but they really know how to price in storage anxiety.
- aetherspawn 3y ago
  One caveat! You must buy the M2 Pro (14" or larger, non-air) model to get 2 external screens. We bought the wrong model to start with (13" M2 regular) and spent a week messing around with ours trying to get it to work with our 2 external displays when we rang Apple and they explained the difference between M2 Regular and M2 Pro. If you were buying one for yourself and budget was of no value, note the 13" and 14" are virtually the same physical size, and yet the design and technical capabilities of the 14" model are far and beyond ... I wrote off the 13" as a loss and paid the difference myself, and now use it as a laptop at home :) Old design, yes, but it was such a nice piece of kit, no way I was gonna send it back to Apple!
  - chi_features 3y ago
    I believe multiple screens are possible, even on the M1 MBA, you just need a docking station. Officially some don't support multiple screens, but there are mainstream solutions to this in the form of docking stations, just not sure why Apple doesn't even so much as hint that it's possible. It's a really unclear process!
    - aetherspawn 3y ago
throwaway106382 3y ago
I’m on an M1 Max Mac Studio with 64gb of ram, it’s absolutey wonderful. Best workstation I’ve ever owned, bar none.
- nextos 3y ago
  My understanding from benchmarks is that M1 and M2 have an excellent performance / energy consumption ratio. But in terms of raw performance, many Intel and AMD options can still deliver more. Another very interesting aspect of Apple's CPUs is that they offer a lot more performance than the competition for entry models. I cannot find anything that matches a Mac Mini M2. Sadly, Asahi does not support the M2 yet. Regarding the Mac Studio, I had heard complaints about noisy fans. Can you comment on that?
  - phyrex 3y ago
    I have never once heard the fans in my Mac Studio
  - throwaway106382 3y ago
    Personally, I've never heard them. It's dead silent and i'm constantly running CPU intensive build pipelines and heavy CPU bound sql queries on it.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I love mine too
metaphor 3y ago
> The price is high, but is the performance worth it? The numbers reflect Mac revenue down -24.2% YoY to date; if it's worth it, the market certainly hasn't voted with their wallets yet.

by _ea1k 3y ago

The M2 seems incredible. It is the first thing in a long time that has tempted me to try out a Mac. The price is high, but is the performance worth it? 32GB of unified memory would be nice.

catchnear4321 3y ago

take a look at apple’s return policy. you’re invited to take it for a test drive, just don’t treat it like a rental car.

bombcar 3y ago
Or if you're near an Apple Store, go in and ask if you can play around - if they'r not busy they'll often let you download stuff onto the demo machines, etc. They can easily reset them. And then buy a refurbished one on the Apple Card to save a bit of cheddar™. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FNWE3LL/A/refurbished-16-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m2-max-chip-with-12%E2%80%91core-cpu-and-38%E2%80%91core-gpu-silver?fnode=5f411fe84e6a0be22d7a37c33df1d6bf43ba6c58bf356f22b2cec46df060f65a54d80a50bbe3d7826667dfd9fa327623a6c8940492d389cd107a144d00f8ce2c37af95a649ebba8567348b8f7812a68a https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FNWE3LL/A/refurbished-16-...

root_axis 3y ago

I bought the 13inch m2 air a few months back and it's awesome. Super sleek design and feel, awesome keyboard, no touchbar, and also magsafe. It's really good. I actually hate MacOS and use a framework for 60% of my day (my work machine), but I have to admit the m2 is just a pleasure. I've used Macs extensively for years because that's what most companies provide for software hires, but the m2 air was the first Mac I've ever purchased with my own money, and I don't regret it.

rbanffy 3y ago
> no touchbar I actually liked it. Too bad it’s an evolutionary dead end and never made it to the desktop keyboards. And I even liked the one without an ESC key.

riatin 3y ago

I think it is, definitely. Have recently upgraded and it's immediately noticeable from the old Intel-based Macs. Much improved compute speed + battery life, barely noticeable battery drain. I'm a very happy customer.

rbanffy 3y ago
It’s impressive moving from an x86 Mac. From an x86 Windows, it’s mind-blowing.

schmookeeg 3y ago

I'm a career-long PC guy and had an excellent watercooled "Battlestation". I dipped my toe in with the M1 Mini, then an M1 Max MBP... and my battlestation now has like 1/4" of dust on it. It helps that most of my work anymore is AWS Console or VSCode, which does just fine on either. There are a few games that it won't play, and..... that's about it. I'm still surprised at how quickly that happened. Worth a try, the M2 mini is cheap and easy, and the 8gb/256gb config was "enough" for me. I honestly didn't even notice the bump moving to the max 64gb/2tb. Doing it over, I'd probably do an Air with 16 or 24gb and be happy as a clam. $0.02 :)

jakear 3y ago
I'm happy as a clam on my 16gb M1 air. One hidden nice feature is how cheap and easy DIY repairs are. To date I've replaced my battery, monitor, and speakers (my lifestyle involves very rough handling of the machine), and everything about it was downright trivial, with cheap parts readily accessible and iFixit's walkthroughs very comprehensive.
- IndySun 3y ago
  > I've replaced my battery, monitor, and speakers... I have many 2015 MacBook Pro's. All tour. All are almost permanently on. I replaced the battery on two machines last year. Speakers fine. Screen fine. Are you implying the relatively young M1 Air is so badly made, the speakers, monitors, AND battery have already needed to be replaced?
  - swores 3y ago
    Read the sentence after the one you quoted in their comment and you'll see they clearly weren't blaming the laptop.
  - piva00 3y ago
    > Are you implying the relatively young M1 Air is so badly made, the speakers, monitors, AND battery have already needed to be replaced? > my lifestyle involves very rough handling of the machine No, it's not badly made, GP seems to be a huge exception. Please, read the full comment... My M1 Air has been around since launch, have traveled with it just throwing inside bags, dropped a few times, sat on, etc., it still works 100% fine without any part swap, and looks almost pristine with just a tiny scratch on one of the edges from a drop.

karaterobot 3y ago

I'm about due to upgrade my 2017 Air, and it'll be to a 13" M2 Air. I would have done it already, but every time I price it out and see that they want to charge me $300 for 256 gigs of storage, I get a little offended and close the tab. As with every Apple purchase I make, it'll just come down to necessity, after the old one finally breaks. I'll hold my nose and pay the Apple tax, knowing that they think of me as a sucker, and they're probably right.

Retric 3y ago
Yep you get an extra 25% GPU and an extra 256 gigs of storage for 300$. Dammit price discrimination. I realize buying the cheaper option frequently is the better option with Apple prices but they really know how to price in storage anxiety.
aetherspawn 3y ago
One caveat! You must buy the M2 Pro (14" or larger, non-air) model to get 2 external screens. We bought the wrong model to start with (13" M2 regular) and spent a week messing around with ours trying to get it to work with our 2 external displays when we rang Apple and they explained the difference between M2 Regular and M2 Pro. If you were buying one for yourself and budget was of no value, note the 13" and 14" are virtually the same physical size, and yet the design and technical capabilities of the 14" model are far and beyond ... I wrote off the 13" as a loss and paid the difference myself, and now use it as a laptop at home :) Old design, yes, but it was such a nice piece of kit, no way I was gonna send it back to Apple!
- chi_features 3y ago
  I believe multiple screens are possible, even on the M1 MBA, you just need a docking station. Officially some don't support multiple screens, but there are mainstream solutions to this in the form of docking stations, just not sure why Apple doesn't even so much as hint that it's possible. It's a really unclear process!
  - aetherspawn 3y ago

throwaway106382 3y ago

I’m on an M1 Max Mac Studio with 64gb of ram, it’s absolutey wonderful. Best workstation I’ve ever owned, bar none.

nextos 3y ago
My understanding from benchmarks is that M1 and M2 have an excellent performance / energy consumption ratio. But in terms of raw performance, many Intel and AMD options can still deliver more. Another very interesting aspect of Apple's CPUs is that they offer a lot more performance than the competition for entry models. I cannot find anything that matches a Mac Mini M2. Sadly, Asahi does not support the M2 yet. Regarding the Mac Studio, I had heard complaints about noisy fans. Can you comment on that?
- phyrex 3y ago
  I have never once heard the fans in my Mac Studio
- throwaway106382 3y ago
  Personally, I've never heard them. It's dead silent and i'm constantly running CPU intensive build pipelines and heavy CPU bound sql queries on it.
jliptzin 3y ago
I love mine too

metaphor 3y ago

> The price is high, but is the performance worth it? The numbers reflect Mac revenue down -24.2% YoY to date; if it's worth it, the market certainly hasn't voted with their wallets yet.