5 ms·

The M1 is great, but I really dislike the limitation to 2 external displays unless you get the ultra model CPU. I've just gotten really used to my portrait lan

The M1 is great, but I really dislike the limitation to 2 external displays unless you get the ultra model CPU. I've just gotten really used to my portrait landscape landscape setup! And of course I'm an outlier so corporate IT won't buy me an ultra CPU version. I guess that it's to force people to pay more, but it feels like such an arbitrary decision. Sure, restrict it to 2x6K displays, but I'm using 3x4K displays that the Intel MacBook Pro handles just fine. Also, it's a real hassle trying to explain to angry developers about why their 4 year old ancient x86_64 arch docker containers won't work natively. (The containers crash under Rosetta emulation) Compiling Emacs in 5 minutes vs 10 on Intel is really nice though!

tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
> I know it’s to force people… I’ve seen the longstanding understood technical explanation for this limitation. I can’t recall what it is now, but it seemed more than plausible at the time. Of course, ‘Apple bad’ is always going to be more viral. And, of course, you can take any hardware component and “just add…” it to max spec.
- bloopernova 3y ago
  I'll edit "I know" to "I guess". Sorry, I just woke up and saw this thread while making coffee.
bombcar 3y ago
M1 Pro and greater break that one monitor limit. There is also a trick with external docks that can get an M1 to use two external monitors but I just got a Max.
- bloopernova 3y ago
  EDIT: I think we misunderstood each other, sorry about that! You were referring to 1 external display, I was referring to 2 being the limit of the Pro Apple CPUs. ---- This says otherwise: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US M1 Pro: 2 external displays. M1 Ultra: 3 external displays. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213503 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213503
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Yeah, the M1 can do one external + the built in (so two) The M1 Pro can do two external, the M1 Max can do four (three at a higher resolution, one at a lower). I have a Max with five displays total (including the internal). I suspect with some trickery I could get more than five (some external adapters allow two displays to appear as one larger/higher resolution one. But 34,216,704 pixels should be enough for anyone ;)
paulmd 3y ago
The 15” MBA not getting a Pro variant like Mac mini is a bummer. I hope they do that at some point because I agree, a 1-monitor limit makes it a toy. The base M1/M2 only getting 1 display does make sense from apples perspective though. M1 is fundamentally a tablet chip, just a fast enough one that it crosses the line to ultraportable laptop as well (and it’s quite fast for a tablet chip as a result). Tablets don’t need 2-3 external displays. Nor does the average user of a MacBook air. Remember this is a product that’s essentially coming from a netbook heritage, 1 display is fine in that segment. What doesn’t make sense is not offering a M2 Pro option especially on the 15” Air which could obviously handle it. Because other people do need it, and the MacBook Pro isn’t the same product, it’s got fans and a different display and chassis etc. There is a segment who is just using the MBA as a fanless ultrabook and the Pro cpu is necessary to support the needs of this segment. I really hope 15” MBA gets an M3 Pro option at some point. And please for the love of god put the 13” touchbar model out of its misery. It looks like it’s getting refreshed again with the M3 line. The new chassis on the 14” and the 16” is just lightyears better.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> Compiling Emacs in 5 minutes vs 10 on Intel is really nice though! I know the thread is one day old but in case you read this comment... That's really weird though: on my 7700X the latest version of Emacs compiles in 1m36s (and 1m39s, only 3s more, when it's in "eco mode", thermally throttled at 85 C). On the 3700X it was already only 2m25s. I think there's something wrong if a M1 needs 5 minutes to compile Emacs where an AMD 7700X desktop only takes 1m36s.

tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago

> I know it’s to force people… I’ve seen the longstanding understood technical explanation for this limitation. I can’t recall what it is now, but it seemed more than plausible at the time. Of course, ‘Apple bad’ is always going to be more viral. And, of course, you can take any hardware component and “just add…” it to max spec.

bloopernova 3y ago
I'll edit "I know" to "I guess". Sorry, I just woke up and saw this thread while making coffee.

bombcar 3y ago

M1 Pro and greater break that one monitor limit. There is also a trick with external docks that can get an M1 to use two external monitors but I just got a Max.

bloopernova 3y ago
EDIT: I think we misunderstood each other, sorry about that! You were referring to 1 external display, I was referring to 2 being the limit of the Pro Apple CPUs. ---- This says otherwise: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US M1 Pro: 2 external displays. M1 Ultra: 3 external displays. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213503 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213503
- bombcar 3y ago
  Yeah, the M1 can do one external + the built in (so two) The M1 Pro can do two external, the M1 Max can do four (three at a higher resolution, one at a lower). I have a Max with five displays total (including the internal). I suspect with some trickery I could get more than five (some external adapters allow two displays to appear as one larger/higher resolution one. But 34,216,704 pixels should be enough for anyone ;)

paulmd 3y ago

The 15” MBA not getting a Pro variant like Mac mini is a bummer. I hope they do that at some point because I agree, a 1-monitor limit makes it a toy. The base M1/M2 only getting 1 display does make sense from apples perspective though. M1 is fundamentally a tablet chip, just a fast enough one that it crosses the line to ultraportable laptop as well (and it’s quite fast for a tablet chip as a result). Tablets don’t need 2-3 external displays. Nor does the average user of a MacBook air. Remember this is a product that’s essentially coming from a netbook heritage, 1 display is fine in that segment. What doesn’t make sense is not offering a M2 Pro option especially on the 15” Air which could obviously handle it. Because other people do need it, and the MacBook Pro isn’t the same product, it’s got fans and a different display and chassis etc. There is a segment who is just using the MBA as a fanless ultrabook and the Pro cpu is necessary to support the needs of this segment. I really hope 15” MBA gets an M3 Pro option at some point. And please for the love of god put the 13” touchbar model out of its misery. It looks like it’s getting refreshed again with the M3 line. The new chassis on the 14” and the 16” is just lightyears better.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> Compiling Emacs in 5 minutes vs 10 on Intel is really nice though! I know the thread is one day old but in case you read this comment... That's really weird though: on my 7700X the latest version of Emacs compiles in 1m36s (and 1m39s, only 3s more, when it's in "eco mode", thermally throttled at 85 C). On the 3700X it was already only 2m25s. I think there's something wrong if a M1 needs 5 minutes to compile Emacs where an AMD 7700X desktop only takes 1m36s.