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This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k. - it has no annoying fans, it is completely silent - a high res display with no PWM flickering
by std_move 7mo ago
This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k.
- it has no annoying fans, it is completely silent
- a high res display with no PWM flickering and reasonable response times, no burn-in issues, enough brightness for outdoor use
- best-in-class hardware, very very efficient, amazing single thread performance, good multi thread, very good GPU
- no Microsoft Windows annoyances, ads, bloatware, broken stuff all the time
- much better real world performance on battery than x64 processors (!). you can get reasonable perf by setting Intel/AMD CPUs to high perf, but then goodbye battery life and get ready for very loud fans. this is simply a point not emphasized enough, the real world battery perf of Intel/AMD laptops is very sluggish on default power modes and despite that, they consume more battery than the M5
- amazing battery life
- good workmanship, no creaking, good hardware overall (mics, webcam, keyboard, touchpad!)
- very good speakers
There is simply nothing comparable in the Windows laptop world. You can maybe get a cheaper Windows laptop but it will be terrible in almost everything - the new Apple budget MacBooks will probably be a much better choice. And around $1000, there is no comparison. I wish it was different.
- orthoxerox 7mo agoIf only it didn't have to run OSX.
- std_move 7mo agoYeah, I am not a huge fan either. I would much prefer Linux or a very customized Windows. For instance, the inability to write to NTFS filesystems without addons is annoying. But I believe that for most users, the default MacOS experience is now much better than what Windows is with default settings.
- PaulHoule 7mo agoOn my Mac is is beachball… beachball… beachball… reboot… beachball… beachball… beachball.. you’d have thought somebody gets paid to make me watch the beachball for how much it happens. And this is a top of the line M4 mini with maxed out RAM and everything.
- dgxyz 7mo agoWTF are you doing with it? Mine doesn't do that (M4 Pro MBP / 24Gb)
- PaulHoule 7mo agoTry to browse the web. Try to listen to music with Plexamp. Ordinary boring stuff but I think it is looking all over Slovakia for my AirPods or something so it can take them away from whatever machine I really want to use them on. The feeling is exactly like the way it was with Windows circa 2005 when you expected your machine to go bad like cheese in a few months.
- dgxyz 7mo agoAre you sure yours isn't broken? My daughter has an M4 and she does hefty biochem stuff on it. No beachballing or anything. Same with my M4 Pro. Also airpods move instantly here. No issues.
- K0balt 7mo agoSomething is seriously wrong with your machine or one of the persistent apps you are running. Backup, reset to factory. Try using it, if it’s fixed, try restoring. If it’s not fixed it’s defective in some way. If it’s broken only after you restore, manually import your data and install apps one at a time making sure nothing breaks before installing the next.
- eknkc 7mo agoI had forgotten that mac has a beachball cursor. Something’s wrong on your macbook. (M4 max here)
- PaulHoule 7mo agoWhat am I supposed to do, drive 300 miles to the nearest Genius Bar?
- 7mo ago
- PaulHoule 7mo agoI’ll add that MacOS is crammed with spammy ads for Apple Music and other services I don’t want. To be fair somebody wants Apple Music whereas the Microsoft versions of those things are completely unwanted. Ads and nags in the Windows World are drawn using the same HTML-based technology that has replaced Windows native apps since Windows 8, the ads and nags in MacOS are the 2025 anti-antialiased retreads of the 1999 MacOS X imitations of the modal dialogs from 1984 MacOS classic. It’s sad. When I set up a new Mac for my wife she was furious at how ad infested it was, especially to browse the web with Safari and if you want to add an ad blocked you need an Apple Account which is something she’s done without using macs for 20+ years.
- timothyduong 7mo agoJust wait til she jumps on a windows 11 device! But I do agree with you. Thankfully it is minimal relative to windows.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- PaulHoule 7mo agoFirst thing I do with a Win 11 install is ask Copilot how to turn all the crap off. ;-)
- jamespo 7mo ago2nd thing to do is install and dual boot linux :D
- IshKebab 7mo agoJust install Windows IoT LTSC. Zero ads.
- timothyduong 7mo agoTell that to your mum /. Family member who’s remote. Let me know how that goes
- bilegeek 7mo agoEventually Asahi will catch up... if Apple doesn't turn around and purposely make it harder, hopefully we didn't just get lucky they were feeling "benevolent" with earlier M-series.
- cromka 7mo agoI believe they'll make it easier, actually. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight.
- 2III7 7mo ago- thermal throttling under sustained heavy load, though apparently there is the possibility to add thermal pads to get rid of throttling, probably at the expense of comfort - no Linux support Otherwise I agree, it is a wonderful machine. I'd replace my crappy thinkpad if I could. My 2014 Air is still going strong for light web browsing and terminal use.
- lurking_swe 7mo ago> for the general consumer linux does not apply here. General consumer doesn’t even know what linux is.
- mholm 7mo ago> thermal throttling under sustained heavy load This gets mentioned a lot, but I do quite a bit of dev work on my M4 MBA and have never even felt it get warm. Sustained heavy loads are extremely rare with how quick this thing is.
- hnra 7mo agoHow long are your compile times?
- matthewkayin 7mo agoI wouldn't call my personal project "heavy load", but I have a cross-platform C++ project that I am developing on both a Windows gaming PC and a 2020 M1 macbook air. I use clang to compile on both machines. The M1 mac has noticeably faster compile times.
- mholm 7mo agoFairly short, I'm a Go developer generally working with terraform and microservices. I'd expect some throttling if you're doing 3+ minute compiles, I think. But I think the problem is overblown by the tech video reviewer population that regularly does extremely intensive workloads.
- std_move 7mo ago
- odiroot 7mo agoIf this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department. Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux. X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.
- alfiedotwtf 7mo agoHow’s ACPI and real suspend (not that “fake” soft suspend) these days? I’m still burned after running Linux on a laptop since 2002 and not having proper power management for suspend :( … if it’s not the power layer, it’s the network, video, Bluetooth that won’t power up anymore after a nap
- winrid 7mo agoIt's a toss up. Works great on my 2017 X1 Extreme. Doesn't work on old 4th Gen i3/i5 E550 thinkpads I refurbish, etc.
- alfiedotwtf 7mo agoDang :( So what’s your opinion on the beefiest laptop money can buy (NVIDIA based for CUDA) that supports Linux the best?
- winrid 7mo agoI'd consider System76 in that case, I don't think their fit and finish is known for being top tier but the specs are pretty good. Also maybe framework? The thinkpads and dells are probably mostly fine, you can always return it if it doesn't work.
- JoshTriplett 7mo ago> How’s ACPI and real suspend On a current ThinkPad? Essentially perfect. Zero problems suspending and resuming, no matter what's going on, including weird cases like suspending while docked and resuming while undocked or vice versa.
- netsec_burn 7mo agoI prefer the Dell Rugged line or Thinkpads, since a single water droplet on the keyboard is enough to kill this laptop.
- dgxyz 7mo agoThe last 3 dells at work, all high end precision/pro max machines, have lasted 9 months before failing completely. No thanks.
- apparent 7mo agoDid this happen to you? I was under the impression that a tiny spill was no longer fatal for Mac laptop keyboards. I've seen it happen a few times and be fine, but maybe the people I knew were just lucky?
- kristjansson 7mo ago??? I do dishes with an MBP next to the sink. I wouldn't put it under the faucet, but it's ~fine so far.
- skullone 7mo agoI wouldn't if I were you. Indeed there's a membrane that can keep drops away from electronics, but one big drop will find a way eventually. Doesn't even have to be a spill. Macs are infinitely fragile actually, there is zero effort spent on moisture or even dust intrusion.
- kristjansson 7mo ago> infinitely fragile At last check my 2008 unibody still boots. It can vote in the fall.
- hyperhello 7mo agoThe new Apple keyboard seems to fix itself. Once my command key had fallen down. It actually fixed itself somehow. I think it’s got whatever miracle metal snaps back into shape in there. And my kid has been using my old laptop and leaving crumbs; when a crumb gets under the key you feel it, but just press it in and destroy the crumb and the key is fine. I remember the old keyboard because I got so sick of it I snapped the laptop in half in a rare fit of disgust (I was under a lot of stress at the time). Overall, Apple blew it out of the park, and I happily forgive the earlier problems. Now I hope that Tahoe is just some kind of planned demolition phase before they introduce a totally new unsurpassable stable OS.
- Buttons840 7mo agoPlus a touch pad that uses all available space and allows clicks on any part of the touchpad surface.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- wisplike 7mo ago> I wish it was different Amen to that, my keyboard on my m1 air recently failed. I was horrified to find out it is literally riveted to the frame. I got this close to buying a new one. Something annoyed me about this perfectly good laptop being rendered compltely useless and I ended up buying a replacement keyboard, ripping out the old one and shimming this one with paper. Its not perfect but here I am typing from it. But you are 100% right, there is just nothing better on the market. The gap is so big.
- sonofhans 7mo agoThe riveting sounds, as you say, horrifying. Congrats on making it your own again. It’s still remarkable to me that it’s even possible to do it at all. The amount of tech and miniaturization crammed into that thing — it would be easier for them to rivet, weld, and glue every part, and cheaper. And if the build quality weren’t so high to begin with, it wouldn’t have withstood the repair at all. A good friend has a Framework, and it’s cool as hell, but incredibly primitive compared with your M1.
- ktallett 7mo agoPrimitive in what sense though? As I have had one for longer than my Macbook lasted in the same situation, plus it is upgradeable as and when I choose. I loved apple of old, and the classic apple that was the framework of it's time regarding upgradeability, has long gone.
- cassepipe 7mo agoFramework owner here: The fw just does not feel as sturdy as a Macbook, it does the job and it's ok but not macbook grade. The framework feels like it's been built with just enough whereas the macbook feels strong and self-contained.
- ktallett 7mo agoIt doesn't feel as sturdy, but I have actually had less issues with it in the same amount of time, and each one I have been able to fix myself cheapily and easily. The Macbook does feel sturdy, but it is deceptive as one issue means the whole laptop is almost needing to be replaced which is not strong in reality.
- cromka 7mo ago> very good speakers All of the above is true but this, actually, is not entirely: they use a lot of DSP. If you try the same speakers with regular Fedora Asahi with no DSP profile (i.e. vanilla sound), they're very mediocre and do not handle bass well. So, like with many aspects of Apple hardware, this is an example of their software/firmware complimenting the hardware.
- TiredOfLife 7mo agoWindows laptops also do, but unfortunately the DSP is not hidden in OS and are part of preinstalled software and usually not active by default.
- duskwuff 7mo agoIt's part DSP, part thermal modeling. The speakers can be driven pretty hard, but will overheat and fail if too much energy is put into them in too short a time. macOS has a thermal model to keep the speakers within safe limits; a major component of Asahi's DSP profile is a similar model. (Without that model in place, Asahi reduces the peak power level to avoid damage.)
- noman-land 7mo ago"it has no annoying fans" I beg to differ ;)
- wiremine 7mo agoThat it has no fans or the fans are annoying?
- nekooooo 7mo agowhat is this, slashdot?
- sdfkjasdfo89a7 7mo agowas it ever not?
- drob518 7mo agoWise guy. That said, upvoted for cleverness.
- Robdel12 7mo agoHey!… no yeah you’re right.
- 7thpower 7mo agoShots fired!
- rootnod3 7mo agoCredit where credit is due
- winrid 7mo agoHow do you know there's no PWM flicker? Even my M3 Pro with its supposed 10khz backlight burns my eyes, I had to get rid of it. Is this display not oled?
- std_move 7mo agoMacBook Air has an IPS display with no flickering, see https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-15-M4-review-The-fanless-M4-SoC-is-years-ahead-of-the-competition.976933.0.html#c12935112 https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-15-M4-review... Recent Pros have miniLED with high freq PWM.
- winrid 7mo agoOh damn, that's awesome!
- manaskarekar 7mo agoThere’s still temporal dithering. It can be disabled but it doesn’t seem to help. https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor
- lurking_swe 7mo agoyou forgot to mention the trackpad. MUCH nicer than the competitor trackpads. especially if you use some of the advanced gestures (some are hidden in accessibility settings).
- lotsofpulp 7mo agoYou can also close the lid and trust it to stay off and open it up even a week later and resume at the same place you left off with very little battery usage. How no one else can figure out how to do this in almost 15 years or more is beyond me.
- zonkerdonker 7mo agoIts absolutley mind boggling. My work machine (lenovo) regualry roasts itself to 0% battery in my backpack during my commute
- twodave 7mo agoThis is likely some monitoring/attendant software your employer is running remotely, not the fault of the hardware directly.
- jibe 7mo agoHappens on my ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, personal laptop frequently enough i do a full power down when not using it. Definitely a hardware/Windows problem.
- beAbU 7mo agoUnplug before closing. I'm not sure where I read this, but this is the cause for the backpack cooking. When plugged in it goes into active sleep or something, not really sleep. When unplugged and it goes to battery mode, and activates the real sleep mode. Something something windows something something shitty power management. Try it for yourself and see if that makes a difference. It worked for me! I remember at some point dell had a warning to not sleep your laptop and put it in a bag, as it can actually cook the lcd panel!
- mikae1 7mo ago> You can maybe get a cheaper Windows laptop but it will be terrible in almost everything It will be worse at almost everything, except running my preferred OS (Linux). Being able to upgrade/repair RAM, storage and battery at home is quite a perk too.
- jruz 7mo agoNot on the latest but I’m happily running Asahi NixOS
- mikae1 7mo agoEven for the M1 generation feature support is not complete. Also, this a thread about current models. Asahi is still awesome though!
- dangus 7mo agoAnd if you are comparing against an M1 or M2 you can find numerous PC laptops that will beat that out in performance and still have a quiet/cool/long battery life operation. Yes, the MacBook Air is unique-ish for having no fan at all, but a slow running fan that you can barely hear is going to get you more performance with basically zero added cost or compromise. And for those users who don’t need top performance and just need an affordable office app machine, I’d argue that Snapdragon laptops have the same primary benefits as the MacBook Air. In terms of competition against x86, Apple is only ahead of competition in their latest two or so generations and only in specific ways. Want to play games sometimes like 936 million other PC gamers in the world? (The fastest growing segment of people who buy computers) You’ll pay a lot less for an Omen Transcend 14 than a MacBook Pro at the same specs and you’ll get a system with a very similar noise and battery life profile, along with far Better graphics performance. I don’t personally think Windows is so bad compared to Mac in terms of annoyances. Mac nags you about all of Apple’s subscription services and you can’t even uninstall their apps like News and Stocks. Microsoft lets you uninstall everything including Notepad. It’s really not that annoying after about 5 minutes changing settings and uninstalling some things. If we are talking about buying a used Mac we are also talking about buying a computer that will lose software support before the Windows equivalent historically. E.g., you buy an M2 MacBook Air and you’ve got about 7 years left or less before you lose major OS versions. Almost guarantee you that won’t be the case with any reasonably recent Windows PC that supports 11 today. My
- overfeed 7mo agoWhy the restriction to laptops? I don't get why prosumers would marry themselves 24/7 to a single portable device, when their conflicting requirements vary by task and circumstances: portability, high performance, low energy usage, and low noise aren't permanent requirements. Sure, there's no single device that has Apple's blend of attributes, but who need that in this age of VMs and broadband Internet? My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded. I have a Chromebook when I need to be unplugged (<10% or the time)
- anakaine 7mo ago> My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks. The market segment that exists for Macbook Pro is one where competitors battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial. Its one where they have acceptable performance vs a dedicated desktop but remain portable and a good expected lifespan, as a portable.
- overfeed 7mo ago> Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks. Here's the kicker: it cost about the same as the highest end Macbook pro before the RAM madness. > The market segment that exists one where battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and some high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial. I agree the market exists, but think it's much smaller than it appears: most people do not work under these constraints most of the time; a cheap laptop + beefy desktop could do a better job in aggregate, wirh greater flexibility, especially for people who spend most of their time at the desk with their computer plugged in - which is most people. I suspect the portability requirement is sometimes aspirational, similar to the people who buy trucks overestimating the number of times they'll need to cary stuff on the truck bed.
- pram 7mo agoThinking no one leaves their house to work is some serious projection dude.
- raffraffraff 7mo agoEven though I'm done with apple, every time I use a non-apple laptop I think "this is a shit trackpad".
- elAhmo 7mo agoFully agree. I used to have a company issued MBP M3 Pro, and when I switched roles I got myself base M4 Air. Can't complain at all in the past year, I do feel throttling at times when running longer tasks, but for 99% of the time I don't feel I need anything better. And I do work as a software developer, so anyone doing lighter usage not in this camp will feel the same. M5 Air should be pretty much the same.
- formvoltron 7mo agoApple makes great hardware. I kind of knew this when I was 12 and I had an Apple IIc. I'm 52 now.
- ant6n 7mo agoI have an M4 air. It’s a nice machine, but I do miss the non-reflective screen of my earlier Asus zenbook (similar size, weight, fanless, decent ergonomics, matte screen, but bog slow). It seems the M5 air still has non non-reflective screen option, which is very unfortunate.
- fastasucan 7mo agoIs it easy to install linux on them?
- throwaway290 7mo agoAsahi only supports M2 I think, so no.
- gigatexal 7mo agoYup. This a 1TB disk (how I’d configure it) and max out the ram is what I’d get.
- angoragoats 7mo ago> no Microsoft Windows annoyances, ads, bloatware, broken stuff all the time MacOS absolutely has annoyances, ads, and broken stuff all the time. When macOS shows an ad, it is sometimes harder to get rid of or disable than the ads built into Windows. For example, the ads to upgrade iCloud to a paid account. I regularly run into bugs in macOS, both visual/cosmetic and functional, some of which have existed for multiple major versions with no fix.
- thebytefairy 7mo agoAgree. I use both windows and mac daily, and I don't think Mac is much better in terms of annoyances and bugs.
- panny 7mo ago-can't boot linux No thanks.
- zenlot 7mo ago[dead]
- applfanboysbgon 7mo agoI got an excellent Windows gaming laptop for $900 USD. It has a beautiful 17" 144hz glare-resistant display, not an awful glossy screen that might as well be a mirror in lit environment. The workmanship is great and the keyboard has a full numpad and utility keys. It came with a 1TB SSD and 16GB ram, both of which I doubled with additional parts after the fact for about $120. It would cost +$600 to reach 2TB SSD and +$400 per 16GB to extend the Macbook Air. Even at the current bullshit 500% inflated RAM prices, it would only cost $200 for +16GB on a Windows laptop. Given that 16GB is a complete non-starter for a $1.1k laptop in the world of programmers who only know how to use Electron, the Macbook Air is actually just garbage for price. If money is no object to you, you can pay a >$1k premium for a 13" 60hz display if you care about fan noise under load or battery life. I personally don't mind either of those things, and will gladly enjoy my laptop with vastly superior specs in all other regards for half the price. Windows has its problems, but they are fixable. You can hack and modify Windows all you want to get rid of the BS. I'll take that over an OS that believes the manufacturer owns the machine rather than the user, any day.
- diffeomorphism 7mo agoHeavier than competing 14in laptops. Just okay res display. Low refresh rate. No oled or mini led. Basically unrepairable. There are reasons the MacBook pro exists. The air is a nice machine but there are definitely trade-off.
- adrian_b 7mo agoI am probably not a "general consumer", so a description like "MacBook Air with M5 now comes standard with 512GB of storage — double that of the previous generation — and can be configured up to 4TB for the first time" for me sounds terrible in a very bad sense for a computer around $1k, so I would have never bought something like this even many years ago. To be fair, due to the huge increase in the price of SSDs and DRAM, a 512 GB SSD @ $1100 no longer sounds so bad as one year ago, but it is still bad.