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Apple MacBook Air 15-Inch M3 Review
- s1k3s 3y agoThat notch looks ugly. Is it really needed?
- gumby 3y agoI'm staring at it right now on my new MBA and indeed it is ugly. Fortunately I don't use the menu bar all that much.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoYou'll stop noticing it within a week, few weeks tops.
- alfiedotwtf 3y agoWhen you change the menubar to black, it’s completely hidden and you totally forget it’s there … especially when your mouse hides behind it and it takes a few milliseconds to remember the notch
- Aaron2222 3y agoBetterDisplay[0] can even change the display mode to just use the display area below the notch (which is the same 16:10 that older MacBooks had). Probably noticeable on a MacBook Air, but on a MacBook Pro, the local dimming makes the unused area look exactly like the bezel. [0]: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay
- KennyBlanken 3y agoReducing your total vertical usable screen space just because you don't like that a small area of your menubar isn't screen...is ridiculous.
- Aaron2222 3y agoI don't use it myself (I don't mind the notch personally), though it would give more space for menu bar items.
- kalleboo 3y agoYou don't even need third-party software to do that. In Settings/Displays, under advanced you can enable the full resolution list. In there, choose the resolution with just slightly less vertical resolution than the current selection, boom that is your 16:10 resolution without the notch area.
- Tagbert 3y agoSure, if you want a smaller display, just to avoid having the menu be in the bezel area.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoIt's not really a notch, think of it as two extra tabs instead. They are extra above the 16:10 screen and move the menu and clock off it.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoIt makes more sense when you think of it "the monitor's top bezel was shrunk to about an inch wide, which allows for the menubar to be pushed up to where the bezel would be, creating more usable vertical screen space." On my old MBP, the menubar starts below where the camera module is. That area rarely gets used, so why not put the camera there? It is weird how large the area is, however. The camera is a fraction of the tab's size and there aren't any sensors on either side, I don't think. You pretty much forget about it after a week or so. The only people who make a giant fuss about it are people who haven't used a system with it for very long, if at all.
- amanzi 3y agoNo, it's not needed. My theory is that they picked that shape intentionally to match the notch on the iPhones. They could have gone with a much tinier notch, since that notch is only hiding a single web-cam lens. The notch on the iPhones also holds the FaceID cameras and tech, but for some reason Apple refuses to put FaceID on their laptops where it would be much more useful. I suspect they'll make it much smaller in the future or change it to a "dynamic island" notch instead.
- gumby 3y agoI don't think FaceID is a good idea on the computer. On the phone it unlocks when the device is quite close to you, but I suspect someone could sit down at your computer and watch it unlock if you are behind them. Touching the keyboard or just using your watch is more secure. Of course if you were in the kind of environment where it might be a problem if your computer unlocked as you walked by, you probably wouldn't enable the feature anyway. As it is I am annoyed by iphone and ipad apps that require faceid or other login each time as I'm the only one who uses those devices anyway. Nevertheless I think faceid on the laptop or imac is an insecure idea.
- hnbear 3y agoHello on Windows is fantastic. I’m logged in before my monitor has woken up. It’s never unlocked when I’m further away than seated distance. I wish I had it on my Mac.
- Tagbert 3y agoNot really ugly. It is a clever design solution to allow the screen space to be larger without making the case larger. Pushing the display up into the bezel space. the only limitation is leaving space for the camera and two different sensors plus mounting hardware in an area of the screen that is not often used. Once you’ve used it for a few days, it tends to fade out of awareness. If you really don’t want to see it, there are utilities that make the menubar black so it blends in.
- cebert 3y ago> Apple lets customers configure the 15-inch MacBook Air with 8, 16, or 24 GB of integrated RAM I wish Apple wasn’t as stingy with RAM upgrade options considering this can’t be upgraded later. For all the talk on the part of Apple of being more sustainable and green, allowing more competitive memory options would help extend the useful life of these products.
- martinbaun 3y agoYes, yes, and yes. Unfortunately it is all talk, they don't care a hat about environmental concerns. All is about the bottom line, and that's why they're stingy with the ram as well.
- woleium 3y agoimagine if there was an official or aftermarket main board upgrade. If framework becomes popular amongst the masses it may happen… a boy can dream :)
- martinbaun 3y agoIt would be amazing, I hope this happens as well :)
- woleium 2y agoThis is the sort of thing right to repair will bring us.
- huytersd 3y agoAh give up the hysterics. Sure they care about the environment. They do a lot based on the materials they use, packaging, power for their factories and campuses etc. but they also care about their bottom line like a successful company does. This sort of hyperbolic comment falls flat because it’s reactionary and lazy.
- 3y ago
- gnabgib 3y agoIf the title includes the name of the site, please take it out https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- voisin 3y agoDone
- sashk 3y ago> macOS can be inconsistent and lacks some obvious multitasking features I bet you don't have to use old windows 10 which is not capable to restore windows on proper displays after I reconnect monitors... perhaps it's something disabled by my organization, but in macOS, at least I don't have to do this once twice a day.
- WheatMillington 3y agoWeird to compare a brand new Apple computer with an obsolete version of Windows, as if it's some kind of victory lap.
- imbnwa 3y agoI have an up to date Win11 gaming pc hooked up to my TV and and my monitor, can confirm this behavior is still prevalent and massively frustrating no matter how much you play with the multiple display settings
- doublepg23 3y agoWindows display hotplugging is pretty dire. I'm sure there's a good explanation (x86 legacy?) but Windows (Win11, current patch, Thinkpad T14) seemingly having a stroke any time I plug in a new display then having to do the "Advanced Display Settings" rigamarole, is always ugly and frustrating.
- ggm 3y agoI have read in a thread about display ID and CEC that some display manufacturers burnt the same "unique" identity into their monitors. Should this be true, it would admit into the room at least one other player in this space who may be responsible for bad behaviour recognising and dealing with plug-unplug and other issues: If they can mis-understand the spec this badly, imagine what else they got wrong?
- wishfish 3y agoMacOS makes it easy to remap modifier keys. Command can be mapped to Control, with Control put elsewhere. I mention this because this review (and many like it) mention the mental disconnect when frequently switching between Macs and Windows or Linux. I'm one of those people. Putting Command on Control means that's one less thing I have to think about. Keyboard shortcuts become mostly the same between the different systems.
- noveltyaccount 3y agoI remap caps lock to backspace and (as far as I know) need Karabiner to do it. Is there a built-in way?
- wishfish 3y agoKeyboard under System Settings should give you options for changing all the modifier keys. I've got Caps Lock modified to be Escape on mine. Though the jokes on me as I just hit ESC all the time and forget about my remapped Caps. There's similar options on iOS if you use an external keyboard there.
- woleium 3y agokarabiner allows you to make caps lock escape when pressed alone and ctrl when pressed with a letter key (caps lock is where ctrl was on the keyboards vi was designed for)
- Hamuko 3y agoNo because Backspace is not considered a modifier key. The available options for Caps Lock are Control, Option, Command, fn, Escape or just disabling the key entirely.
- Marsymars 3y agoIf you have a workflow that involves RDP to Windows, you also basically have to use Karabiner to swap command and control for RDP only in order to maintain sanity of shortcuts between macOS/Windows.
- imbnwa 3y agoThought I would dislike my iPad Pro and eventually would trade it in for this M3 Air but ended up keeping it. Covers the consumption cases the Air would’ve facilitated and Terminus is a pretty good app for SSH’ing into my main machine and working on projects. Downside is how many apps surprisingly lack iPadOS versions
- doublepg23 3y agoI quite like BlinkSSH as well.
- ethanholt1 3y agoApple’s silicon is really, really, really powerful. Enough to run Death Stranding on a laptop without a fan. Sucks it runs macOS though. There is an experimental distro of Linux for Apple silicon, but it’s still in development and doesn’t run very much software.
- andreygrehov 3y agoI just recently got MBP M3 Max (16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 64Gb). This is by far the best purchase I've ever made.
- jononomo 3y ago$4800?
- andreygrehov 3y ago$4,599.00 + tax = $4,920 The price is insane, but I needed a solid dev machine, so that I could run multiple IDEs (GoLand, IntelliJ) + Figma. Additionally, I wanted to dive deeper into AI/ML. Apple's MLX easily competes with Nvidia RTX 4090 [1]. Everything is just instant, and I'm extremely happy with the purchase. [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/12/13/apple-silicon-m3-pro-blows-away-nvidia-rtx-4090-gpu-in-ai-benchmark https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/12/13/apple-silicon-m3-...
- ein0p 3y agoNah man. A 4090 is way faster, especially per dollar spent. I have nothing against Apple and own an M3 Max MBP as well, but lets be real here.
- enceladus06 3y agoFor today’s ai-accelerated workloads, will you use a 14th gen intel + 4090 or Apple M3? The software tooling is not available for Apple, there is no CUDA support basically. This is not an emotional judgment, if an Apple supported cuda on Apple Silicon I’d use it, but it doesn’t.
- ein0p 3y agoI use both. Apple’s higher end hardware works well for local LLM inference thanks to its unusually high memory bandwidth and frugal energy consumption. But for serious work you need CUDA, no ifs or buts.
- xyst 3y agoIt’s a nice looking product and apple silicon is arguably very powerful and light on power consumption. But the massive anti-repair propaganda put out by this company, abusive business practices that prevent most people from truly accessing their hardware (unless it’s the Apple way); and soft locking devices via disabling features when parts are replaced/repaired by third party shop.
- underlogic 3y agoI have the 15 inch Macbook Air M2 and would agree it may in fact be the perfect laptop, and I have had hundreds. Trouble is... I don't use it. In fact I just bought a used Thinkpad off ebay to replace it for 99% of my work. People generally don't think cheap and expendable are features but I would argue that they are. I need a product I'm not concerned to drop or scratch or have stolen or spill a drink on. I need something I can replace without tears that I can sleep next to and use while in the bathroom. That's not an $1800 Mac
- corobo 3y agoDibs
- copperx 3y agoOld laptops are great, but it's hard to find a non-Apple laptop with a >= 220 PPI display. I can't stand seeing pixels; it feels like I'm in 1995.
- faeriechangling 3y agoNot really? HP, Dell, and Lenovo all offer QHD or even 4K screens on the premium business models I usually buy and have done so for awhile. They’re just less common on the used market since they’re not the default spec, 1080p is practically good enough for Windows/Linux, and QHD incurs a minor battery penalty. but an aftermarket QHD panel can go for as low as a hundred. You can even find panels on new computers that smoke Apples like the 3k 120hz OLED on the Zephyrus g14. Apple’s screens typically lag behind the competition which is natural given they don’t make their own screens, don’t want to sole source, they are anal about QA, and it’s logistically faster & easier to ship a bleeding edge screen on some premium computer that sees a few hundred thousand in sales than the MacBook that sells millions.
- rowanG077 3y agoI have never gotten this mindset. A macbook is meant to be used, no matter what you paid for it. It's not some piece of jewelry you have to do touch with velvet gloves. At least from my experience with (modern) thinkpads, the mac last way longer anyway.
- Cadwhisker 3y ago"It’s also worth pointing out that Apple offers terrific trade-in values for its old products" Every time I look up what Apple's trade-in will be, I have to compare it to eBay to make sure I've not gone crazy.
- copperx 3y agoI'm glad to hear that they have gone up. They were criminally low for the longest time.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoMy 2019 iPad Pro is worth...they said they would recycle it for free for me. It is weird, because I still get a lot of value from it, so I'm not bothering to upgrade, but might have been tempted if they offered one or two hundred bucks for it.
- sircastor 3y agoI’m probably not going to be replacing my personal machine soon, but I’ve really been considering ditching my plans for an MBP and just going with the air. It’s thinner, smaller (I don’t like big laptops) and frankly does everything I need it to. In years past, the common recommendation was save as much as you can and buy the top-of-the-line you can. But now the Air seems reasonable.
- tiku 3y agoJust be carefull if you use triple monitor etc because the air doesn't support that out of the box..very annoying. Perhaps they have fixed it on this version (but probably not).
- rsynnott 3y agoI'm thinking this, as my 8 year old MBP is getting slightly long in the tooth. The one thing that gives me pause is the 60hz screen. I have a 120hz one on my work MBP, and once you've tried it it's hard to give up. Unfortunately, Apple seems to be treating it as very much a pro feature...
- eviks 3y ago> on Windows, I can type Alt + F > But on the Mac, I have to type Cmd + Option + Shift + S, which is … yikes. I feel like a Cirque du Soleil performer every time I try it. Indeed, keyboard shortcut design as well as physical keyboard design is such a forgotten moulded corner of personal computing (especially bad with Apple given they own both the OS and the device)... But there are apps for that! (at least the former) You can have Alt-F open your File menu on your Mac as well, the press E with Karabiner+KeyboardMaestro combination > But I found it problematic to go back and forth between the MacBook Air and my PCs, as I would constantly reach for the wrong keyboard shortcuts. The biggest issue is the Ctrl + C (Windows)/Cmd + C (Mac) divide: Those modifier keys are in very different places. Well, put then in the same place! (and Mac's place is better since it's a more ergonomic thumb key) This is one of the few benefits of different designs - they might force you to reevaluate your common routines
- semi-extrinsic 3y agoWhat's the best software for remapping keys on a Mac these days? I'm currently using Ukelele, but it's not ideal. And I would really really like to remap Right Alt different to Left Alt, to get a proper ISO layout!
- eviks 3y agoKE+KM combo is close to the best, KE allows you working around yet another dumb limitation of the OS of treating left and right the same (otherwise Ukelele is nice), KM gives you a more friendly GUI and integration with other apps (like Alt+F) (the only missing low-level part in KE is stuff like home row mods where you'll need another utility like kanata/kmonad, but not sure how well they integrate with KE)
- kspyy 3y agoI have the m2 air and it's the best laptop I've ever owned. Perfect for travel as well, battery is amazing