No, wait for the M4, or honestly hold out for the M5 if you can.
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Hands-On With the New 15-Inch MacBook Air
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No, wait for the M4, or honestly hold out for the M5 if you can.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I groaned LOUDLY when I saw it upon release.
Now I just find it a nice differentiating design element, and since it doesn't really eat into the usable screen it has become a non-issue.
But yes, I wish it didn't exist.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
For what it's worth, I use my laptop open as a kb, trackpad and primary screen, an then I have a large monitor that fits two-screens-worth of windows.
Two screen setup, one cable, dead simple. Which is what Apple intended.
I either use one from Anker, the 5 port with lan, or when I can just use straight usb-c to the monitor. If it does not work you MBA does not see it as an adapter for hdmi or dp, or maybe not even as any adapter. But to answer you first question, Yes it works.
I'm reasonably hopeful M3 will add an extra display output - M2 was more a re-heated M1 than an all new chip, so M3 should be Apple's first proper rework of the M series that can address the deficiencies from something built on a 1st gen product.
Why? Because it doesn't meet your specifications? or just a general follow-the-crowd statement?
If I didn't already have my 16" M1P MBP, then I probs would have bought this baby instead. I did get 32GB RAM on my MBP, but 24GB would probably be fine.
TBH, looking at Activity Monitor, I find it really difficult to tell how much RAM my MBP is genuinely using at any one point, rather than simply keeping data from recently used apps loaded in RAM, ready for instant access if I fire those apps up again. It often says it is using more than 24GB, but really? Really? Are you really using all that RAM macOS? That's without even firing up Docker or VMWare etc, which is what I actually got the extra RAM for.
Regardless, I do hope they up the MBA's to 32GB or more by the time I do want to upgrade this machine.
It's also a bit annoying and weird you can't get the new sleek, bad ass, Midnight in any of the Pro models.
TBH, looking at Activity Monitor, I find it really difficult to tell how much RAM my MBP is genuinely using at any one point, rather than simply keeping data from recently used apps loaded in RAM, ready for instant access if I fire those apps up again. It often says it is using more than 24GB, but really? Really? Are you really using all that RAM macOS? That's without even firing up Docker or VMWare etc, which is what I actually got the extra RAM for.
Regardless, I do hope they up the MBA's to 32GB or more by the time I do want to upgrade this machine.
It's also a bit annoying and weird you can't get the new sleek, bad ass, Midnight in any of the Pro models.
Instead of worrying about the amount of RAM, pay attention to the memory pressure color. You want it to be usually green for your uses, temporary spikes into yellow are no big deal. If its usually yellow and red, you need more RAM.
Not exactly quantitative data though is it.
I see your point. Without that number it's hard to calculate the CSI (computer sufficiency index):
Ha ha, well with the new AS, my CSI has so far always been infinite (Fan RPM = 0). Yep, my 16" MBP has a fan, but as a software dev, I am never bothering the GPU's all that much.
I do need a lot of RAM though. However, with the Apple requirement of pre-upgrading, plus the 400% Apple Tax applied, I would like to be able to determine EXACTLY how much I am and have been using, so that I can make correct purchasing decisions in the future, rather than throwing cold hard cash at an overestimated guess, or worse, underestimating and ending with an expensive, but inadequate flop.
You have a 15 day return window to put the computer through your most demanding workflow.
How much RAM in your current computer and what is its memory pressure status during a heavy workload?
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It's got 32 GB, and I never remember to check the memory pressure when it's working hard. Is there some way to see historical maximum pressure?
And seriously, memory "pressure", is this some sort of funky term invented by Apple to obfuscate true memory needs and trick people into handing over more cash?