4 ms·

Nice machines, but $600 for an extra 16GB of ram and an extra 512GB of storage is theft. My new AMD linux laptop compiles my projects faster than my old M1, an

by brink 2y ago

Nice machines, but $600 for an extra 16GB of ram and an extra 512GB of storage is theft. My new AMD linux laptop compiles my projects faster than my old M1, and that's good enough for me. It has 32GB of ram, 4tb of storage, and was half the price of the equivalent Macbook. Apple may make the best laptops right now, but other manufacturers are closing the gap.

porphyra 2y ago
Yeah that is just insane. I saw some videos from China [1] where people were upgrading the storage in the new M4 Mac Minis. The Mac Mini's SSD is on a removable pcb but it is raw nand flash as opposed to, say, typical m2 2230 SSDs that have a built-in controller. So they had to desolder it. But getting someone in China to desolder and upgrade the SSD to 2 TB is like 90% cheaper than buying it from Apple. [1] http://xhslink.com/a/o0tLp4thqsDZ http://xhslink.com/a/o0tLp4thqsDZ
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Is there really much point though? With thunderbolt 5 external storage seems really viable.
  - wdb 2y ago
    I haven't found any Thunderbolt 5 enclosures for sale yet, though.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      Even thunderbolt 4 hubs are few and far between, and mostly dissapointing
    - spwa4 2y ago
      The speed difference between doesn't matter for disk speeds though. Absolute top speed is 3 Gbps per chip, so even Thunderbolt 1 should max out 2 chips, with it's 10 Gbps transfer speed. Thunderbolt 4 should max out more than 10 NAND storage chips.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    External storage is technically viable, but then it's yet another device and yet another cable contributing to the unholy mess on your desk. If there are no functional reasons to have an external device, it's just better to have an internal one.
- pantalaimon 2y ago
  There is nothing stopping a third party vendor from making a compatible PCB with a larger NAND flash - since it doesn’t need a controller it could even be cheaper than a classic SSD
samatman 2y ago
How much realistic battery life do you get? Can you hear the fans spin in a typical week?
- brink 2y ago
  About 8 hours. That is the biggest sacrifice I make by not going with a Macbook. But fwiw I'm on Arch, I haven't spent any time on battery optimization config. I'm sure I could get a few extra hours if I played with the configs.
  - nullpoint420 2y ago
    If time is money, how much would it cost you to play with those configs vs getting the MacBook? Every time I've done the math, I end up leaning towards the MacBook.
    - brink 2y ago
      Eh, if I was always on an airplane I might get it, but I'm almost always near an outlet when I work.
      - nullpoint420 2y ago
        Totally, we all have different tradeoffs. I'm glad you're enjoying your laptop!
    - joe5150 2y ago
      I'm on Fedora and it took essentially no time for me to apply FW's recommended battery life configs[1]. (I think on Fedora they just recommend default settings.) I don't feel the need to play around with anything at all; I get more than adequate battery life and no drain while suspended. It's not exactly comparable to my MBP, but neither is the cost! The FW cost me about $1,100 all-in and the MBP was $2,900 (both 32GB/1TB). 1: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/optimizing-fedora-battery-life-r1baXZh https://knowledgebase.frame.work/optimizing-fedora-battery-l...
nakovet 2y ago
It’s expensive and it’s good that other options are available, it’s not insanely expensive though, the people that need the upgrade often make 6 figure salaries and can afford the upgrade although they might not like the idea of paying it, I personally hate it but I know when I buy the machine will last me at least 5 years, which is good enough for me.
- Kudos 2y ago
  I took a different route and went with a Framework laptop. I'll be interested to see how long it takes for it to fully ship of Theseus.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  my M1 Max cost $7500 three years ago, was looking forward to the M4 Max..... last year. As in, wish the M3 had these specs, specifically 128gb RAM and this memory bandwidth. This is unfortunately too late, to justify recouping costs and buying a new M4 Max. Primarily because I would be using it for large language model inference at higher parameters. What's happened in just one year is that LLM's have gotten muuuch smaller. Llama 3.2 3B only takes 3GB of RAM at 8 bit quantizing. And in addition to that, cost per token in the cloud has subsequently plummuted 99.9% too. Its just not economical. But yes, I could afford it but no longer a justification. My 64GB RAM M1 Max is going to be future proof for a while.
brailsafe 2y ago
I'm always interested in what else is out there on the market and how people evaluate them, which did you get? I'm personally looking at the middle tier M4 Pro 16" 14/20 with 48gb of ram to replace my 2019 13" i5 with 16gb and 256gb ssd. It's somewhat frustrating, but although technically I can get by with my current machine, it's starting to feel foolish and needlessly frustrating to hang onto it longer, it's just so sluggish these days. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had got a more higher-end one 5 years ago. Windows remains as my old gaming PCs OS, idk that I'd want to contend with it daily for work or anything unless the software required it, but then I'd probably just upgrade the bits in my PC and stick with my older mac laptop for basic personal use. Even though I did buy it, I can't say I can get past the cost of upgrading the various bits, but just decided that I should pick a reasonable option and not stress about it too hard, it'll be a nice change, I might even return it within the window if I feel sufficiently robbed. I couldn't wrap my head around the even more comical Max versions. Maybe they're just trying to capture missing revenue from us never-iPhone people. It's the only part of the Apple ecosystem I participate in aside from an ancient iPad.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
I want to buy a MacBook Pro but the problem I have fundamentally is the increasingly locked down experience they seem to be drifting towards, like the walled gardens on the phone. I feel like I am supporting an ecosystem not aligned to my needs. At the same time, Microsoft isn’t much better with user hostile dark patterns, ands, and things like Recall. It would be nice to have laptops that have the physical build quality and battery life of MacBook Pros but with a Windows 7-10 era OS without all this new anti customer stuff.
- brink 2y ago
  I miss old Windows too.

by brink 2y ago

porphyra 2y ago

Yeah that is just insane. I saw some videos from China [1] where people were upgrading the storage in the new M4 Mac Minis. The Mac Mini's SSD is on a removable pcb but it is raw nand flash as opposed to, say, typical m2 2230 SSDs that have a built-in controller. So they had to desolder it. But getting someone in China to desolder and upgrade the SSD to 2 TB is like 90% cheaper than buying it from Apple. [1] http://xhslink.com/a/o0tLp4thqsDZ http://xhslink.com/a/o0tLp4thqsDZ

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Is there really much point though? With thunderbolt 5 external storage seems really viable.
- wdb 2y ago
  I haven't found any Thunderbolt 5 enclosures for sale yet, though.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    Even thunderbolt 4 hubs are few and far between, and mostly dissapointing
  - spwa4 2y ago
    The speed difference between doesn't matter for disk speeds though. Absolute top speed is 3 Gbps per chip, so even Thunderbolt 1 should max out 2 chips, with it's 10 Gbps transfer speed. Thunderbolt 4 should max out more than 10 NAND storage chips.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  External storage is technically viable, but then it's yet another device and yet another cable contributing to the unholy mess on your desk. If there are no functional reasons to have an external device, it's just better to have an internal one.
pantalaimon 2y ago
There is nothing stopping a third party vendor from making a compatible PCB with a larger NAND flash - since it doesn’t need a controller it could even be cheaper than a classic SSD

samatman 2y ago

How much realistic battery life do you get? Can you hear the fans spin in a typical week?

brink 2y ago
About 8 hours. That is the biggest sacrifice I make by not going with a Macbook. But fwiw I'm on Arch, I haven't spent any time on battery optimization config. I'm sure I could get a few extra hours if I played with the configs.
- nullpoint420 2y ago
  If time is money, how much would it cost you to play with those configs vs getting the MacBook? Every time I've done the math, I end up leaning towards the MacBook.
  - brink 2y ago
    Eh, if I was always on an airplane I might get it, but I'm almost always near an outlet when I work.
    - nullpoint420 2y ago
      Totally, we all have different tradeoffs. I'm glad you're enjoying your laptop!
  - joe5150 2y ago
    I'm on Fedora and it took essentially no time for me to apply FW's recommended battery life configs[1]. (I think on Fedora they just recommend default settings.) I don't feel the need to play around with anything at all; I get more than adequate battery life and no drain while suspended. It's not exactly comparable to my MBP, but neither is the cost! The FW cost me about $1,100 all-in and the MBP was $2,900 (both 32GB/1TB). 1: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/optimizing-fedora-battery-life-r1baXZh https://knowledgebase.frame.work/optimizing-fedora-battery-l...

nakovet 2y ago

It’s expensive and it’s good that other options are available, it’s not insanely expensive though, the people that need the upgrade often make 6 figure salaries and can afford the upgrade although they might not like the idea of paying it, I personally hate it but I know when I buy the machine will last me at least 5 years, which is good enough for me.

Kudos 2y ago
I took a different route and went with a Framework laptop. I'll be interested to see how long it takes for it to fully ship of Theseus.
yieldcrv 2y ago
my M1 Max cost $7500 three years ago, was looking forward to the M4 Max..... last year. As in, wish the M3 had these specs, specifically 128gb RAM and this memory bandwidth. This is unfortunately too late, to justify recouping costs and buying a new M4 Max. Primarily because I would be using it for large language model inference at higher parameters. What's happened in just one year is that LLM's have gotten muuuch smaller. Llama 3.2 3B only takes 3GB of RAM at 8 bit quantizing. And in addition to that, cost per token in the cloud has subsequently plummuted 99.9% too. Its just not economical. But yes, I could afford it but no longer a justification. My 64GB RAM M1 Max is going to be future proof for a while.

brailsafe 2y ago

I'm always interested in what else is out there on the market and how people evaluate them, which did you get? I'm personally looking at the middle tier M4 Pro 16" 14/20 with 48gb of ram to replace my 2019 13" i5 with 16gb and 256gb ssd. It's somewhat frustrating, but although technically I can get by with my current machine, it's starting to feel foolish and needlessly frustrating to hang onto it longer, it's just so sluggish these days. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had got a more higher-end one 5 years ago. Windows remains as my old gaming PCs OS, idk that I'd want to contend with it daily for work or anything unless the software required it, but then I'd probably just upgrade the bits in my PC and stick with my older mac laptop for basic personal use. Even though I did buy it, I can't say I can get past the cost of upgrading the various bits, but just decided that I should pick a reasonable option and not stress about it too hard, it'll be a nice change, I might even return it within the window if I feel sufficiently robbed. I couldn't wrap my head around the even more comical Max versions. Maybe they're just trying to capture missing revenue from us never-iPhone people. It's the only part of the Apple ecosystem I participate in aside from an ancient iPad.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

I want to buy a MacBook Pro but the problem I have fundamentally is the increasingly locked down experience they seem to be drifting towards, like the walled gardens on the phone. I feel like I am supporting an ecosystem not aligned to my needs. At the same time, Microsoft isn’t much better with user hostile dark patterns, ands, and things like Recall. It would be nice to have laptops that have the physical build quality and battery life of MacBook Pros but with a Windows 7-10 era OS without all this new anti customer stuff.

brink 2y ago
I miss old Windows too.