buy a MacBook Pro with a broken screen. Probably some of those around. Even better (and cheaper) if the keyboard&trackpad don't work either.
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FWIW technically the MBA starts lower, walmart sells the M1 new supplied from Apple for $699
Because the monitors are hooked up the Liberty, not laptop.
Only if you wanted to carry them all around. I’d hardly ever bring the Liberty with me to coffee shop. But I could bring them both if I wanted to. And I could bring the Liberty to the studio and leave my Air at home.
I can’t decide which compromise to make. Portability or price? Pro or regular or Max? 8 or 16 or more?
Sorry I didn’t respond to every objection or put down.
A desktop that meets that super narrow niche already exists. It’s called Khadas Mind. It’s way too small of a niche for a larger OEM to bother with, but you can put your money where your mouth is and buy the thing.
You should hurry before it disappears like all of the other similar concepts. (Remember Kangaroo PC?)
You should hurry before it disappears like all of the other similar concepts. (Remember Kangaroo PC?)
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At this point, I think the OP could get a relatively modest Mac Mini to replace their iMac and a base M1 Air (or almost any modern iPad) and their needs would be completely met. Why they want some convoluted remote access setup to a machine that's within arm's reach is beyond me, but what's abundantly clear is that they have no idea how powerful and cool Apple Silicon Macs are, and have concocted a wildly complicated nightmare computer concept rather than just listen to people's advice.
Yeah I can, I can unplug it and take it to the couch or wherever else I want to go. I can't be in two places at once anyway, so what's your point?
Why would I want to own and leave a desktop computer at home when I could just own a MacBook Pro and take it with me? What is the benefit of buying a desktop computer just to leave it at home?
As others have pointed out, only you seem to have this hangup about only taking cheap laptops to coffee shops. It's not something that exists for the rest of us.
There is no reason to do this though. You could do backflips all the way to a coffee shop if you wanted to, but you wouldn't. I promise you though that this device you're trying to describe is not going to weigh less than a pound. It's amazing how the weight and size of this device completely changes depending on what point you're trying to avoid.
It won't be, as we've pointed out repeatedly.
My laptop is already cool even though it is doing everything I need it to. This problem has been solved by Apple silicon.
Again, I can't be in two places at once. My laptop is only connected to a thunderbolt dock that stays connected to all these other cables you seem to hate. There is no benefit to me to leave a desktop connected at the desk while I am elsewhere with a laptop. I am really struggling to understand why this is so important to you when you can't simultaneously mix and record music at the desk while doing lighter tasks on a laptop in another room. You can't simultaneously exist in two places.
Apple solved this partially in 2020 with the MacBook Air, and fully in 2021 with the M1 Pro MacBook Pros. . You're three years late.
My MacBook Pro doesn't throttle. Nor does it get loud. I use it for "heavy processing" including multi hour sessions of gaming, and it's totally fine. This problem is already solved.
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Wow, thanks for finding that and posting it here. This reviewer makes a great enthusiastic case for the concept, please watch it.
It’s more for PC gamers that want to leave the GPU at home and bring the computer to the office.
Man, they really ripped off Apple's packaging. Anyway, I watched the video and am left asking "why not just get a laptop?"
You need a bunch of extra stuff to use it on the go, and it doesn't seem to offer much in the way of performance that a decently specced MacBook Pro can't match or even beat.
This has all the drawbacks of a laptop combined with the drawbacks of a heavily proprietary small form factor desktop, making it the worst of both worlds.
So, again, why not just get a beefy laptop, or a light laptop and a moderately powerful desktop, and stop inventing worse computers?
EDIT: "❀ disclosure ❀ This video is sponsored by Khadas."
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Yup, it’s a typical solution in search of a problem type product, and not a very original one at that.
And for that reason it fails each and every time they go out to the market. One of those bad ideas that refuse to die.
So OP should go buy one right away while the company’s still around. Then he can understand first hand *why* it’s a bad idea.
But it’s too bad the Mini is still in large case, and has no battery.
Well, it shouldn’t be convoluted. Apple should do their thing and make it just work. The USB drives and HDMI cables and the CPU heat and fans are an arms length away at the back of the desk, and the laptop in front of you is quiet and light and is wirelessly connected to the CPU. Apple should figure out how to make wireless two piece laptops just work.
It’s not wildly complicated, it’s just a Mini with a battery, a MacBook without a screen or keyboard. The cool AS chips are why I speculate it could run in a pocket or bag.
OP has this extraordinary ability to raise a point, ignore the argument that decimates that point, wait a while, and raise the same point again.
No wonder you've been at this for 6 years.
No wonder you've been at this for 6 years.
That’s still a UPS…I don’t know why for you it MUST be integrated into the computer itself. I don’t know why you’d want it running in your bag or pocket if you can’t use it…
If you want a MacBook without a screen or keyboard…all together now: that’s a MacBook Pro in clamshell mode to a thunderbolt dock.
At this point your lack of acceptance is just entertainment value for everyone here. I can’t even distinguish anymore if you’re in on the joke.
The case of the Mini isn't large.
It's not the connecting that's convoluted. I can wireless mirror my MacBook Air screen to my iPad or remotely access my wife's Air right now, but choosing to do that as my main computing experience would be convoluted.
It's like buying a king bed and then pitching a tent on top of it and sleeping in a sleeping bag in the tent. You're using two things to do one job, when one of those things is already capable of doing the entire job.
But with the chips being cool, why do you need it to run in your pocket? Wasn't your whole thing that you wanted the heat away from the keyboard? If the heat is already gone, why do you need a pocket puck computer? This is the thing you haven't really given a solid reason for.
Why strip away all the things that you need to interface with the computer so that it fits in your pocket (although probably still very poorly, if you want any sort of power with meaningful battery life), only to be left with a bunch of external accessories that now each need to be charged? How "on-the-go" are you that a MacBook Air is too bulky? Are you editing videos while actively running a marathon?
Maybe you feel like you've explained these things clearly but I can assure you you haven't. There's not a single use case I can think of where this cluster of accessories and a puck computer would be better than just having a laptop for when I'm on the go and plugging it into a desk setup when I'm at a desk. Nor would it even save any money, unless you're planning on buying utterly trash accessories to use this thing with.
This whole concept is a way to burn money while ending up with the least convenient experience possible.
I do genuinely want to understand the benefits and uses-cases you see for this type of machine, so if you have any clear uses please share them, but otherwise I think I've made my point pretty clear.
They never will. They have totally ignored any attempt to drill down on that, and will continue to do so.
Yes it is. I’d like to be able to still use that screen and keyboard as a laptop, not have it tied to the dock. Only the CPU needs to be tied to the dock. The screen and keyboard should wirelessly connect to the CPU, so they don’t have to be attached to anything. The screen and keyboard would be a MacBook Air, super light and quiet, and the CPU would be the Liberty, just like a MBP in clamshell mode, but smaller and cheaper than a MBP.
The laptop would be expensive and heavy compared to the light cheap Air and separate Liberty. The Liberty would be cheaper than the MBP by the subtraction of the screen and keyboard and trackpad. So a Liberty plus an Air should be near the same price as a MBP. If you already have an Air you could keep using it as a wireless screen for the new Liberty. When the liberty is plugged into your monitors or accessories, your Air would still be free to use as a laptop.
This makes no sense.
A MacBook Air plus a second computer (even without a display etc) would probably cost more than a decently specced MacBook Pro and probably weight roughly the same, or close enough to not matter.
This also ignores that the Air itself is actually a very capable machine, made redundant by the fact that you’re essentially paying twice for a cpu, storage, ram, etc.
There’s no tangible benefit in this setup. It might seems good to you in theory but it doesn’t hold up to closer inspection.
Wait but you ignored him when he said this:
"But with the chips being cool, why do you need it to run in your pocket? Wasn't your whole thing that you wanted the heat away from the keyboard? If the heat is already gone, why do you need a pocket puck computer? This is the thing you haven't really given a solid reason for."
Why do you keep ignoring that point?
I made the same point:
"My MacBook Pro doesn't throttle. Nor does it get loud. I use it for "heavy processing" including multi hour sessions of gaming, and it's totally fine. This problem is already solved."
Why do you continue ignoring this?
You also completely ignore it every time someone points out that you can't be in two places at once. Why do you need to have the desktop stay connected to the dock SIMULTANEOUSLY as you use a laptop in another room? You can't do both at the same time. It's perfectly fine to unplug a laptop and take it with you.
I've never seen anyone this unwilling to engage with the points people make.
I guess I was wrong, there are at least 556 people interested in such a thing, but probably only one of those is a Mac user.
It’s not redundant, they both get used. Think of it as buying a Mini and an Air, as lots of people do. They use the Mini on their desk, hooked up to monitors and interface, and they use the Air for web browsing. They can even use the Air as the screen for the Mini, wirelessly. The only difference is this Mini doesn’t have a battery.
Maybe it’s just the industry I work in, but the idea of bringing your computer from home to the office just wouldn’t fly. Now a work issued laptop is another story, but presumably it’s a managed device. Things are probably different if you’re a freelancer or self-employed, but wouldn’t you want to be able to work on the go (and not just at home or the office) instead? Also, I doubt that this thing has better cooling than a workstation class x86-64 laptop.