4 ms·

I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread. The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper. This is a solid product, tha

I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread. The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper. This is a solid product, that continually receives incremental improvements and delivered at a lower price point (when spec'd out).

joe_mamba 8mo ago
>I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread. Which negative tone? 90% the mainline comments I see are positive.
r0fl 8mo ago
This laptop should be good enough for 90%+ of all users out there for 5-10 years
- kibwen 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - lghh 8mo ago
    Mine shipped with one. It's not perfect, but it's always been more than capable for me. Did yours not boot into anything on startup?
  - wasting_time 8mo ago
    I wonder how many more sales Apple would get if they published enough specs to make Asahi et.al. first-class.
    - askonomm 8mo ago
      The amount of people that know how to and also want to replace their operating system is effectively a rounding error in the consumer electronic market in general.
      - brabel 8mo ago
        I like Linux and had Linux laptops before, but can’t comprehend why anyone would go as far as replacing MacOS on an Apple laptop. The OS is just fine, there is nothing superior about Linux Desktop environments. And you can easily run Docker containers for work that needs Linux.
    - cguess 8mo ago
      Like 5. Literally 5, total.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8mo ago
    Why is the finder the way it is? Is it actually easier to use than (whatever the normal file browser windows and linux uses is called) if all you ever use is macs? Most of the other quirks I can work around (though the default alt tab behavior not picking up windows of the same app is an insane default) but the finder is just unusable.
    - jon-wood 8mo ago
      As much as this saddens me I think its because most computer users these days never think about files. Everything we do on a day to day basis exists as database records, either in sqlite databases hidden away in application data directories, or in the databases behind a million SaaS products. Music is done in Apple Music, photos are managed in iPhoto, and so and so forth.
    - golem14 8mo ago
      In which way are other GUI “finder-equivalents” better? I’m not invested either way, but I’m quite curious. It would be a great biz opportunity to make an aftermarket replacement if there is huge gap.
  - georgeburdell 8mo ago
    Snarky but I agree. I dislike how much MacOS changes with each version. My kids have a Linux box (NUC). I wish we could have Linux on a late model Mac Mini
- gib444 8mo ago
  Until they release an update that slows it down
  - allthetime 8mo ago
    Which one is that? My M1 MBA absolutely rips still.
    - gib444 8mo ago
      Running Tahoe?
      - themadturk 8mo ago
        I went back to Sequoia on my M3 MBA not because of speed (which was fine) but aesthetics. Hated the look of Liquid Glass.
        allthetime 8mo ago
        Tahoe looks so gross. Hanging onto Sequoia as long as possible or until they undo this.
        themadturk 8mo ago
        Oddly, except for font sizing, it's OK on the iPhone, and fine on the iPad, too, but it just bothers me endlessly on MacOS. I'm glad Sequoia still works well.
bhouston 8mo ago
The MBA is an absolutely solid product that is actually sufficient for the large majority of full stack devs. I use it (MBA 15" M3) with a large complex TypeScript code base, and it is fast and amazing at 24GB of ram or more. PS. The biggest speedup I got this past year (10x) was switching to native TypeScript (tsgo) and native linting (biome or oxlint).
- packetlost 8mo ago
  It's a bit slow, but still workable for Rust too. I prefer doing my daily work on a much more powerful 9955HX though.
  - LoganDark 8mo ago
    Makes sense; according to Geekbench, 9955XX has about a 25% lead in multi-core over the base M4, and about a 5% lead in multi-core over the base M5. And more cores, so better for parallel Rust compilation.
    - packetlost 8mo ago
      I'm comparing it to my M2 laptop, but in practice the 9955HX is substantially faster than even the M4 Pro I have in my Mac Mini, about 30%~ or so in wall clock time for Rust compilation.
      - LoganDark 8mo ago
        Yep, Pro only has 12 cores, and a third of those are efficiency cores. Even the Max loses some of its performance to efficiency cores. This is why I was so upset to see Intel replace a bunch of performance cores with efficiency cores. (Remember how Intel used to offer enthusiast chips with up to 18 full fucking cores? Now they think 8 full cores + 16 small useless cores is the answer? I am appalled. Even aside from HEDT they used to offer up to 10 full cores.) More, and more performant, hardware threads is almost always the path to faster Rust compilation. Lose a few of those to efficiency cores and even Apple can fall behind.
ajross 8mo ago
> The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper. Looks to me like the base model went up by $100, no? The whining is just whining. It's a fine laptop, but it's not significantly improved from the one they shipped a year ago. Add to that the fact that laptops as a whole are well on the way down their commoditization slope and the general HN desire to cheer about Great New Apple Devices, this is for sure a backwards step.
- c-hendricks 8mo ago
  Base price went up, as did storage and the new price is cheaper than the previous price + equivalent storage I think
jstummbillig 8mo ago
The MB Air M line is a personal contender for best product of all time: Fantastic performance without fans, amazing battery life, high res display and build quality at that price point. When the M1 came out it was quite frankly unbelievable. And, even after all these years, I still don't see who would beat it across those dimensions.
- allthetime 8mo ago
  My M1 Air is going strong as my travel & about-town laptop. It can do everything I do on my vastly more powerful M4 mbp, aside from compile multiple mobile apps simultaneously in less than a minute. Absolutely insane value and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.
- ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
  >fantastic performance without fans I have an MBA15M3 that is lovely. With 1mm thermal heat pads (internal, CPU|case), I was able to increase the run-time before throttling significantly. Among my favorite evening companions. Much more durable than initially conceivable.
havaloc 8mo ago
I don't get it either. I've rolled out well over a hundred of these in a higher education setting and I have never had one have a hardware issue or needed to retire it other than wanton damage. I still have a ton of M1s in circulation and they are great still. I had to just replace a Dell with only 2.5 years of service, they tend to fall apart.
- ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
  Twenty years ago, I worked at a Dell laptop repair facility, which primarily supported education customers. >other than wanton damage Some fairly clever students read their warranties closely and figured out how to get annual upgrades without violating warranty exclusion clauses. Very clever. Very annoying.
Robdel12 8mo ago
I retired my M1 MacBook Air last year, really out of power greed. I wanted to play with local LLMs (lol). I seriously never had issues with my m1 in my workloads. Dev stuff, docker, etc. editing 30min 4k GoPro videos. I probably would these days with rust dev stacked in there but yeah. Can’t agree more, they’re an amazing value.
a456463 8mo ago
Because Apple is ripping everyone off in the name of design when things apples to apples are much better elsewhere

joe_mamba 8mo ago

>I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread. Which negative tone? 90% the mainline comments I see are positive.

r0fl 8mo ago

This laptop should be good enough for 90%+ of all users out there for 5-10 years

kibwen 8mo ago
[flagged]
- lghh 8mo ago
  Mine shipped with one. It's not perfect, but it's always been more than capable for me. Did yours not boot into anything on startup?
- wasting_time 8mo ago
  I wonder how many more sales Apple would get if they published enough specs to make Asahi et.al. first-class.
  - askonomm 8mo ago
    The amount of people that know how to and also want to replace their operating system is effectively a rounding error in the consumer electronic market in general.
    - brabel 8mo ago
      I like Linux and had Linux laptops before, but can’t comprehend why anyone would go as far as replacing MacOS on an Apple laptop. The OS is just fine, there is nothing superior about Linux Desktop environments. And you can easily run Docker containers for work that needs Linux.
  - cguess 8mo ago
    Like 5. Literally 5, total.
- ApolloFortyNine 8mo ago
  Why is the finder the way it is? Is it actually easier to use than (whatever the normal file browser windows and linux uses is called) if all you ever use is macs? Most of the other quirks I can work around (though the default alt tab behavior not picking up windows of the same app is an insane default) but the finder is just unusable.
  - jon-wood 8mo ago
    As much as this saddens me I think its because most computer users these days never think about files. Everything we do on a day to day basis exists as database records, either in sqlite databases hidden away in application data directories, or in the databases behind a million SaaS products. Music is done in Apple Music, photos are managed in iPhoto, and so and so forth.
  - golem14 8mo ago
    In which way are other GUI “finder-equivalents” better? I’m not invested either way, but I’m quite curious. It would be a great biz opportunity to make an aftermarket replacement if there is huge gap.
- georgeburdell 8mo ago
  Snarky but I agree. I dislike how much MacOS changes with each version. My kids have a Linux box (NUC). I wish we could have Linux on a late model Mac Mini
gib444 8mo ago
Until they release an update that slows it down
- allthetime 8mo ago
  Which one is that? My M1 MBA absolutely rips still.
  - gib444 8mo ago
    Running Tahoe?
    - themadturk 8mo ago
      I went back to Sequoia on my M3 MBA not because of speed (which was fine) but aesthetics. Hated the look of Liquid Glass.
      - allthetime 8mo ago
        Tahoe looks so gross. Hanging onto Sequoia as long as possible or until they undo this.
        themadturk 8mo ago
        Oddly, except for font sizing, it's OK on the iPhone, and fine on the iPad, too, but it just bothers me endlessly on MacOS. I'm glad Sequoia still works well.

bhouston 8mo ago

The MBA is an absolutely solid product that is actually sufficient for the large majority of full stack devs. I use it (MBA 15" M3) with a large complex TypeScript code base, and it is fast and amazing at 24GB of ram or more. PS. The biggest speedup I got this past year (10x) was switching to native TypeScript (tsgo) and native linting (biome or oxlint).

packetlost 8mo ago
It's a bit slow, but still workable for Rust too. I prefer doing my daily work on a much more powerful 9955HX though.
- LoganDark 8mo ago
  Makes sense; according to Geekbench, 9955XX has about a 25% lead in multi-core over the base M4, and about a 5% lead in multi-core over the base M5. And more cores, so better for parallel Rust compilation.
  - packetlost 8mo ago
    I'm comparing it to my M2 laptop, but in practice the 9955HX is substantially faster than even the M4 Pro I have in my Mac Mini, about 30%~ or so in wall clock time for Rust compilation.
    - LoganDark 8mo ago
      Yep, Pro only has 12 cores, and a third of those are efficiency cores. Even the Max loses some of its performance to efficiency cores. This is why I was so upset to see Intel replace a bunch of performance cores with efficiency cores. (Remember how Intel used to offer enthusiast chips with up to 18 full fucking cores? Now they think 8 full cores + 16 small useless cores is the answer? I am appalled. Even aside from HEDT they used to offer up to 10 full cores.) More, and more performant, hardware threads is almost always the path to faster Rust compilation. Lose a few of those to efficiency cores and even Apple can fall behind.

ajross 8mo ago

> The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper. Looks to me like the base model went up by $100, no? The whining is just whining. It's a fine laptop, but it's not significantly improved from the one they shipped a year ago. Add to that the fact that laptops as a whole are well on the way down their commoditization slope and the general HN desire to cheer about Great New Apple Devices, this is for sure a backwards step.

c-hendricks 8mo ago
Base price went up, as did storage and the new price is cheaper than the previous price + equivalent storage I think

jstummbillig 8mo ago

The MB Air M line is a personal contender for best product of all time: Fantastic performance without fans, amazing battery life, high res display and build quality at that price point. When the M1 came out it was quite frankly unbelievable. And, even after all these years, I still don't see who would beat it across those dimensions.

allthetime 8mo ago
My M1 Air is going strong as my travel & about-town laptop. It can do everything I do on my vastly more powerful M4 mbp, aside from compile multiple mobile apps simultaneously in less than a minute. Absolutely insane value and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.
ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
>fantastic performance without fans I have an MBA15M3 that is lovely. With 1mm thermal heat pads (internal, CPU|case), I was able to increase the run-time before throttling significantly. Among my favorite evening companions. Much more durable than initially conceivable.

havaloc 8mo ago

I don't get it either. I've rolled out well over a hundred of these in a higher education setting and I have never had one have a hardware issue or needed to retire it other than wanton damage. I still have a ton of M1s in circulation and they are great still. I had to just replace a Dell with only 2.5 years of service, they tend to fall apart.

ProllyInfamous 8mo ago
Twenty years ago, I worked at a Dell laptop repair facility, which primarily supported education customers. >other than wanton damage Some fairly clever students read their warranties closely and figured out how to get annual upgrades without violating warranty exclusion clauses. Very clever. Very annoying.

Robdel12 8mo ago

I retired my M1 MacBook Air last year, really out of power greed. I wanted to play with local LLMs (lol). I seriously never had issues with my m1 in my workloads. Dev stuff, docker, etc. editing 30min 4k GoPro videos. I probably would these days with rust dev stacked in there but yeah. Can’t agree more, they’re an amazing value.

a456463 8mo ago

Because Apple is ripping everyone off in the name of design when things apples to apples are much better elsewhere