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It seems like everything must be modified to make it news. The Air (like all the previous Airs including that Intel era short-lived Core M3 model) was always de

It seems like everything must be modified to make it news. The Air (like all the previous Airs including that Intel era short-lived Core M3 model) was always designed with burst capacity in mind, and midrange performance overall. Edit: midrange being midrange web and productivity, not midrange gaming, midrange CAD, midrange 3D modelling or midrange video production. (but you could always do those for at bit.. or in bursts) You buy it if you want to get something in the ecosystem, but don't need much, and that is okay. Not everything has to be maximum all the time.

wslh 3y ago
And the battery duration is virtually "infinite", that is a key selling point if you are in the road.
ant6n 3y ago
But then these laptops are really expensive, if they’re basically just meant to be chrome books. The other day there was a thread about some pc laptop review with some commenter mentioning how they find it odd that all non Mac hardware is full of weird compromises. But the MacBook Air with 16g of ram and 500gig hdd costs like 1500$, but is apparently still only „meant“ for light browsing, lacks ports, only comes with a mirror (glossy) screen, and the OS is missing a bunch of basic functionality. The MacBook seems expensive and full of compromises.
- mjhagen 3y ago
  > but is apparently still only „meant“ for light browsing Where do you get that idea? The M1 Air was already more than enough for all my web dev needs. I have lots of docker containers running all the time and I don't notice anything.
- verticalscaler 3y ago
  It seems The Macbook is not for you.
- alemanek 3y ago
  Depending on your domain they can make decent developer machines at the 16+GB config. I have been researching this lately. At the 24GB config it is looking like the M3 air puts down about the same real world CPU performance as my 2019 16” i9 MacBook Pro. For light docker and development use cases these look really compelling to me.
  - oneplane 3y ago
    That is what we have been rolling out to cloud-native developers as well, they get to choose etc, but when you don't need to run a local Kubernetes cluster with heavy tools, but instead can do something with a container, some FaaS simulation etc. you're pretty much golden with the 24GB configuration. Even 16GB used to be plenty, but with the GPU zero-copy sharing and the runtimes eating a bit more memory, the extra couple of GB do really make a difference. The amazing thing is that with this iteration, you're really leaving practically all Intels behind (at least Alder Lake and earlier) as you're either just as productive, or more productive, but without the heat, power draw or constant charging.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- oneplane 3y ago
  If you look closely, you might have noticed that I wrote that you might get this type of device when you want something in the ecosystem but don't need much. To pre-empt people who want to qualify "much" as something else, I even included an edit so you don't get people with a different idea on what "much" might mean in this specific context (as it has for over 10 years, none of this is really new). It appears that did not reach you in time. You specifically probably don't want something in the ecosystem, and you do need much. As such, you should probably not buy this. Other people do exist, and they might buy it if it fits them. It doesn't matter if the numbers on paper tickle you the wrong way.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  My first ARM Mac was an M1 mini with 8 GB of RAM and it worked great, I just wouldn’t want to run VMs on it. You’d be surprised by the performance.
  - ant6n 3y ago
    The whole argument of the GP is that you shouldn’t expect much of these machines, meaning the kind of tests the article made are moot. So which one is it? Is it a device with great performance, or not? It’slike people say „these things have great performance“, then somebody comes along to run some test saying „these machines throttle like crazy if you tax them, they have poor performance“, and then the the first group comes along saying „you expect too much“. I guess they have great performance, as long as you don’t need it?
    - oneplane 3y ago
      Performance in a vacuum doesn't mean much. How something performs depends on the task. If you take all the laptops in the world and ask them to dive to the bottom of the ocean, they all perform badly (because they will not reach the bottom and they also won't survive, double failure). This is also why a lot of 'tests' doen't really tell you much on the actual use of the machine. Even if we can profile all users, and bucket their tasks in terms of system load you don't get a perfect testing system to compare machines. How 'good' something is, is almost a quality factor where the only real thing you can describe is "to what degree did the device do what you expected it to do". Good quality would be "meets expectation", bad quality would be "did not do what was expected" (and you can extrapolate from there). This is also where consumer satisfaction is generally measured, people get satisfied with their stuff if they can do what they wanted to do, not because of numbers on paper or tests on a website. Ironically, this is also where building your own PC with some cool GPU, Ryzen, and a bunch of M.2 SSDs tends to be satisfying, not because those component's numbers enabled your day to be better, but because you built something and you can use it, you feel ownership and accomplishment, and that's a quality you can be satisfied about. For an Air, the best you could probably do is describe what a user wants ("I would like to create some content, consume some media, play the odd game here and there, do some software engineering, some 2D work") and then after a while ask them how close the machine performed to their expectation. And even that will simply vary from user to user. Even work fleets have this problem, IT departments love to standardise, but unless the work all employees perform is specified to the degree where it could be completely automated you won't be able to construct a homogeneous fleet that covers everyone's needs. So you'll always end up with cases where it's an expensive solution, a cheap solution, a bad fit, a good fit, and that just gets averaged out on a quarterly report so we can call it 'good enough'.
calf 3y ago
I'm helping my mom pick an M2 or M3 MacBook Air, and your comment keeps me on the fence. If it's just burst capacity for web browsing and simple home office activities, then why not save $100 and get the 2022 M2 machine? Whereas most compelling reason I've seen so far for M3 over M2 is Ars Technica's review yesterday--get the M3 for the extra 2 years of supported macOS updates. Well, except that shouldn't be a compelling reason.
- oneplane 3y ago
  I think that long-term included manufacturer support is always neat. If you have a machine that is supported for 7 years or 9 years (or 5 years) that is all a factor that a general user might be interested in.

wslh 3y ago

And the battery duration is virtually "infinite", that is a key selling point if you are in the road.

ant6n 3y ago

But then these laptops are really expensive, if they’re basically just meant to be chrome books. The other day there was a thread about some pc laptop review with some commenter mentioning how they find it odd that all non Mac hardware is full of weird compromises. But the MacBook Air with 16g of ram and 500gig hdd costs like 1500$, but is apparently still only „meant“ for light browsing, lacks ports, only comes with a mirror (glossy) screen, and the OS is missing a bunch of basic functionality. The MacBook seems expensive and full of compromises.

mjhagen 3y ago
> but is apparently still only „meant“ for light browsing Where do you get that idea? The M1 Air was already more than enough for all my web dev needs. I have lots of docker containers running all the time and I don't notice anything.
verticalscaler 3y ago
It seems The Macbook is not for you.
alemanek 3y ago
Depending on your domain they can make decent developer machines at the 16+GB config. I have been researching this lately. At the 24GB config it is looking like the M3 air puts down about the same real world CPU performance as my 2019 16” i9 MacBook Pro. For light docker and development use cases these look really compelling to me.
- oneplane 3y ago
  That is what we have been rolling out to cloud-native developers as well, they get to choose etc, but when you don't need to run a local Kubernetes cluster with heavy tools, but instead can do something with a container, some FaaS simulation etc. you're pretty much golden with the 24GB configuration. Even 16GB used to be plenty, but with the GPU zero-copy sharing and the runtimes eating a bit more memory, the extra couple of GB do really make a difference. The amazing thing is that with this iteration, you're really leaving practically all Intels behind (at least Alder Lake and earlier) as you're either just as productive, or more productive, but without the heat, power draw or constant charging.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
oneplane 3y ago
If you look closely, you might have noticed that I wrote that you might get this type of device when you want something in the ecosystem but don't need much. To pre-empt people who want to qualify "much" as something else, I even included an edit so you don't get people with a different idea on what "much" might mean in this specific context (as it has for over 10 years, none of this is really new). It appears that did not reach you in time. You specifically probably don't want something in the ecosystem, and you do need much. As such, you should probably not buy this. Other people do exist, and they might buy it if it fits them. It doesn't matter if the numbers on paper tickle you the wrong way.
wlesieutre 3y ago
My first ARM Mac was an M1 mini with 8 GB of RAM and it worked great, I just wouldn’t want to run VMs on it. You’d be surprised by the performance.
- ant6n 3y ago
  The whole argument of the GP is that you shouldn’t expect much of these machines, meaning the kind of tests the article made are moot. So which one is it? Is it a device with great performance, or not? It’slike people say „these things have great performance“, then somebody comes along to run some test saying „these machines throttle like crazy if you tax them, they have poor performance“, and then the the first group comes along saying „you expect too much“. I guess they have great performance, as long as you don’t need it?
  - oneplane 3y ago
    Performance in a vacuum doesn't mean much. How something performs depends on the task. If you take all the laptops in the world and ask them to dive to the bottom of the ocean, they all perform badly (because they will not reach the bottom and they also won't survive, double failure). This is also why a lot of 'tests' doen't really tell you much on the actual use of the machine. Even if we can profile all users, and bucket their tasks in terms of system load you don't get a perfect testing system to compare machines. How 'good' something is, is almost a quality factor where the only real thing you can describe is "to what degree did the device do what you expected it to do". Good quality would be "meets expectation", bad quality would be "did not do what was expected" (and you can extrapolate from there). This is also where consumer satisfaction is generally measured, people get satisfied with their stuff if they can do what they wanted to do, not because of numbers on paper or tests on a website. Ironically, this is also where building your own PC with some cool GPU, Ryzen, and a bunch of M.2 SSDs tends to be satisfying, not because those component's numbers enabled your day to be better, but because you built something and you can use it, you feel ownership and accomplishment, and that's a quality you can be satisfied about. For an Air, the best you could probably do is describe what a user wants ("I would like to create some content, consume some media, play the odd game here and there, do some software engineering, some 2D work") and then after a while ask them how close the machine performed to their expectation. And even that will simply vary from user to user. Even work fleets have this problem, IT departments love to standardise, but unless the work all employees perform is specified to the degree where it could be completely automated you won't be able to construct a homogeneous fleet that covers everyone's needs. So you'll always end up with cases where it's an expensive solution, a cheap solution, a bad fit, a good fit, and that just gets averaged out on a quarterly report so we can call it 'good enough'.

calf 3y ago

I'm helping my mom pick an M2 or M3 MacBook Air, and your comment keeps me on the fence. If it's just burst capacity for web browsing and simple home office activities, then why not save $100 and get the 2022 M2 machine? Whereas most compelling reason I've seen so far for M3 over M2 is Ars Technica's review yesterday--get the M3 for the extra 2 years of supported macOS updates. Well, except that shouldn't be a compelling reason.

oneplane 3y ago
I think that long-term included manufacturer support is always neat. If you have a machine that is supported for 7 years or 9 years (or 5 years) that is all a factor that a general user might be interested in.