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M2 MacBook Air or M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14” dilemma
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i didn't notice any performance degradation at 3gb, but after 6-8gb yeah some of my apps start acting funny. team won't detect my external camera at all, slack would get me a beachball when i switch between messages. theres obvious more quirks but afaik these two were the major ones.
Just my observation from the sidelines, but the amount of personal ”attacks” and defensiveness on this particular thread (and others like it) for something so subjective is asinine. But hey, that’s just my own take. I hope you all have a great start to your week otherwise. Happy Monday!
No, I don’t think MBP 14 and 16 are the ones getting 3nm chip first. Simply because at first they are able to get decent yield for small chips, then much later for Pro variants.
I don’t think Apple would disclose such information this way. Even now MBP 14” is often in backorder, so they likely do not have them s**tloads ready in stock they would need to sell before new model.
Why not release so soon. I’m pretty sure they had to make M2 now because 3nm chip was delayed. But once it is out, there is no reason not to put it in MBA right away.
BTW, what you mean by MBP (non-Pro)? There is non Pro Macbook Pro, even MBP 13 is Pro if that was what you were referring to.
What makes you think this is nothing but a wild guess what you see in so many clickbait sites and videos.
It is not what they can put but what they want to put in Air. If they wanted we would already have Mini LED and ProMotion in MBA, as well as many other Pro features. But that is not what they want. Sure, likely Air gets one day some of these features but by that time Pro has Hypersmoothproscrolling at 694Hz with supporting colors no one did not know even exists. So it goes like s**t rolls down hill kind of way how Air gets these features eventually.
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So any thoughts on a16 bionic? Supposedly going to be the third chip on 5nm? What does that mean for all these predictions on spring release of 3nm for M2 MBP? Wouldn't M3 be based on a16? If so M3 might be 5nm. It might be just another overclocked M1?
I mean it is all rumors at that point but what would so many people on here complaining about M2 being an overclocked M1 do if M3 was the same?
www.trustedreviews.com
www.news18.com
www.tomsguide.com
I mean it is all rumors at that point but what would so many people on here complaining about M2 being an overclocked M1 do if M3 was the same?
Apple A16 Bionic: All you need to know about the mobile chip
The Apple A16 Bionic is the processor designed for the iPhone, and debuted in the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max.
www.trustedreviews.com
Apple A16 Bionic: Here’s What The New Chipset Could Offer For iPhone 14 Pro Series This Year
Apple is going to have four models of the iPhone 14 this year, and reports say the new A16 chipset will be exclusive to the Pros.
www.news18.com
A16 Bionic vs A15 Bionic — what it means for the new iPhone 14
Here's everything we know about the A16 Bionic chipsets coming to the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max
Personally I'd not buy a Pro now. It's a whole year old and new ones are expected. But also, I can't stand the thickness of it. It looks like the old Pros and most people who had those now have an Air and love it.
Separately, I've been on MS Teams video calls all morning, screensharing/presenting, whilst working on a website editor. 4 hours in and the battery is at 93%.
Unbelievable. The Air is also cold to touch. No heat whatsoever. Just constantly blown away by this beast.
Separately, I've been on MS Teams video calls all morning, screensharing/presenting, whilst working on a website editor. 4 hours in and the battery is at 93%.
Unbelievable. The Air is also cold to touch. No heat whatsoever. Just constantly blown away by this beast.
Totally agree, I had the 16/1TB MBP in SG but my M2 Air in 16/1TB is absolutely stunning. The battery is better and the portability is priceless. I'm happy with the screen. it's form over function.
The MBP is noticeable thicker and heavier. I've been using the MBA on my lap and it's been great.
the thickness is probably here to stay, its a rather new form factor and i doubt apple is going to deviate from this for the next mbp if not the next 2 models as well.
The $2499 14: is about the best MBP I've ever owned, and close to the best laptop I've owned, with only the Thinkpad X1Nano in the running. The Nano is the Macbook Air I wish Apple would build. I had originally bought the Max/64/2TB 14" but returned it in favor of the lesser one (once again my instinct that the PC you want is always $2500). Now I am thinking that I wish I had done the 64GB and 2TB option, though I see no benefit in the Max for me.
Some of my software did not run under Parallels 17 on the M1Pro, I need to try again under P18 and see if that has improved. If it does , then maybe I could retire the Nano, but if not I can live with a dedicated 2lb Win10 machine for a long time.
Some of my software did not run under Parallels 17 on the M1Pro, I need to try again under P18 and see if that has improved. If it does , then maybe I could retire the Nano, but if not I can live with a dedicated 2lb Win10 machine for a long time.
Any fact to prove that claim?
All Pro's doing pro work did go with Air now and do their pro work with it? I mean that's what it sounds like from what you claim.
That is pretty nice battery life. Do you think Apple was conservative saying 15 hour battery life for web surfing, when users obviously get +50 hours easily? Maybe we should make petition to ask them to recheck their battery life figures.
Looks like my MBP is even better. I've been using my MBP since last week about 3 to 8 hours a day and battery is still at 76% (it was 78% last week when I check the last time).
Well, IMHO that only makes MBP 14" with the current prices bargain. Even MBP 14" would get soon M2 Pro or what ever name another 5nm CPU will get, I don't think it makes as big difference in performance what it did in M1 to M2 (and even that is very small in real life). That is because M1 Pro CPU already has the same fast LPDDR5 memory used in M2 but also M1 Pro already has TWICE as fast memory than M2. So I assume difference would be smaller. And likely that comes with increased heat, especially if they bump up clock speed as they did in M2 or add more cores. Also as for the price especially outside USA where inflation is very high but also currency value in a free fall, I'm pretty sure we will see hefty price increase, so I don't personally see worth paying 0.5k or more extra for another 5nm.
Also if MBP 14" and 16" gets 5nm based new CPU it is likely (I assume) called M2 something and not M3.
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I said M2 and M3. M2 is based on a15. M3 would be based on a16. M4 on a17 3nm.
It just means that an overclocked M1 as a lot of people said might be in the future for a while but Apple could also add more cores. M2 Pro could have higher clocks, better gpu cores, and more cores on both gpu and cpu. That would give it a more substantial lift than the regular M2.
Inflation is bad everywhere but I am sure the costs in other countries could be even worse.
Also there is more to chip than just die size.
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I have been using the 14” for the last two months, and through a cross-country move. When I first bought it I was using it mostly docked as a secondary screen to my monitor, but in moving I have spent more hours using it as a primary screen with the monitor packed away.
It appears I fall into the group that gets headaches and some nausea from the new ProMotion screen. It took a while to notice, but there’s an aggressiveness to the white point (I think) that doesn’t work for me. Compared to my previous 2017 Pro and my wife’s M1 Air, it is very apparent after noticing it. It may be PWM-related, but that has not been a noticeable issue for me previously.
All to say, I have ordered an M2 Air to try as an alternative. The 14” Pro is the best fit for my needs, but if the screen burns my eyeballs I will try the next closest Apple product to it.
It appears I fall into the group that gets headaches and some nausea from the new ProMotion screen. It took a while to notice, but there’s an aggressiveness to the white point (I think) that doesn’t work for me. Compared to my previous 2017 Pro and my wife’s M1 Air, it is very apparent after noticing it. It may be PWM-related, but that has not been a noticeable issue for me previously.
All to say, I have ordered an M2 Air to try as an alternative. The 14” Pro is the best fit for my needs, but if the screen burns my eyeballs I will try the next closest Apple product to it.
Semantics, for me it does not matter what name they give it if it is still based on 5nm. However I don' t think 5nm produced in A16 based core would result Mx Pro chip be the first computer CPUs, since they normally start production with smaller CPUs.
Sure but then also more heat and power consumption. I see that as a big tradeoff to current M1 Pro!
That is what I meant. I know inflation is high in USA but USD is extremely strong against other currencies at the same time, so that causes less pressure to increase prices there , just as we saw recently with M2 release. Here in Europe even MBA M1 price went up after that. So I would not be surprised if MBP 14" gets 200-300 price increase when it gets a new CPU.
If you are prone to flickering even at that high frequency, you might wanna check this (see the link). https://ledstrain.org/d/1782-videos-of-macbook-air-m2-flickering
Well, that is disappointing. Was this also an issue with the M1 Air? I don't notice any problems with that, but I also have not sat in front of it for hours working.
It was very mild in my M1, pretty much as it is in the MBP in that video next to M2. Something that I caught looking from the corner of my eye in certain conditions but I'm a master for finding all kinds of issues with displays. However PWM in my MBP 14" never bothered me since it is extremely high frequency and practically invisible even in "hand waving test" (simple test to see if there is obvious PWM).
I just tried this test with the iPhone 13 camera at 240fps on the MBA M1 and the MBP 16" M1Pro.
The MBP M1P shows strong flicker at low screen brightness (1-4 bars) and imperceptible/no flicker at higher brightness.
The MBA M1 did not show any signs of flicker at any brightness level.
(I also tested a 13" MBP retina from 2015, and it showed no signs of flicker at any brightness level, but its keyboard backlighting was flickering like crazy. The keyboard light looks stable on the M1 MBA and MBP - no visible flicker).
So after a few days with the M2 from a 14" M1 Pro - I agree. The miniLED is amazing if you want to watch a movie or tv show on your laptop, but I do that maybe once a year if I'm at a hotel and can't get something on the TV. Otherwise, the LCD on the Air is great, as all Apple LCD's are. The 120hz I don't miss at all, I felt like I barely noticed it in normal tasks on the Pro (I notice it very much on my 13 Pro though.) I bought Vivid for my Pro and it was nice to use outside, until you realize it is too hot where I live to work outside for more than 20 minutes in the summer
(Also, 500 nits is "good enough" for outdoors if you swap to light mode.) The main thing for me is the size. The Air feels "solid" compared to the pro, and by that I mean the Pro feels like there is a bunch of empty space inside. To the point where the keyboard on the air feels more solid and the Pro keyboard sounds a bit hollow (Comparing it side to side right now.) Not something that anyone would care about or notice if they weren't side by side though.
The other thing for me is the efficiency cores are incredible, having 4 means it just sips battery life in the "downtime" when doing development (reading docs, searching the web, slack, email, etc.) I can easily get 15 hours of battery whereas the same workload would be about 8 on the pro.
And in single core performance, loading webpages does feel slightly faster, but not anything to write home about.
Fingerprints on midnight are bad, but not that bad.
I'm still quite sensitive to the flickering on the 14" MacBook Pro to the point that I almost dread using it, although I otherwise enjoy the design, display, speakers, and build quality.
I'm not quite as enamored by the MacBook Air, so it's making my decision more difficult since like on iPhone I would keep the superior flickering display if I could.
Adding a 3dB bass boost up to 125Hz made the speakers on the Pro sound significantly better and more impressive, as it's bass-light initially but the use of four woofers makes it more responsive to EQ.
Still not sure what to do, as I'd like to keep the Pro in a perfect world. I've envisioned myself using an iMac for ergonomics, but I'd potentially wait for an iMac Pro with a Mini LED display... hopefully without flicker. As of now I do still want to keep the Pro even if it's currently giving me tension headaches.
I'm not quite as enamored by the MacBook Air, so it's making my decision more difficult since like on iPhone I would keep the superior flickering display if I could.
Adding a 3dB bass boost up to 125Hz made the speakers on the Pro sound significantly better and more impressive, as it's bass-light initially but the use of four woofers makes it more responsive to EQ.
Still not sure what to do, as I'd like to keep the Pro in a perfect world. I've envisioned myself using an iMac for ergonomics, but I'd potentially wait for an iMac Pro with a Mini LED display... hopefully without flicker. As of now I do still want to keep the Pro even if it's currently giving me tension headaches.
Is it PWM you are suffering from or maybe bright very contrasty image?
I guess it may not be easy to tell for sure.
Can you see PWM when you try ”hand waving test”? If you are not familiar with that test, it is made so that you put full screen white image on your display and then wave your hand up/down or left/right with fingers spread apart. Now if it looks like you have much more than 5 fingers, there is obvious PWM you can see, but if your fingers just look blurred it is not PWM what you see. If unsure how to interpret this test, try hand wave test in from the of window during daylight and you see blurred fingers and know how they should look during display test with good display.
That is kind of poor mans instument for rudimentary PWM testing. I succesfully used it to fix PWM eye strain I got with some Zenbook I had before. It had terrible 400Hz PWM but I found third party utility that allowed me to turn PWM Hz higher. I cannot remember how high I tuned it but is was in the range of few thousand Hz when I was not able to detect anymore in hand waving test and I stopped getting eye stain from it. I could have tuned it over 10000Hz but coil whine in Zenbook became intolerable, so I had to find compromise between coil whine and PWM Hz.
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I'm extremely sensitive to the PWM on iPhone, so I'm positive it's PWM even despite the high rate.
I get a relatively strong headache from the test you suggested. I can even sort of see lines on the display.
But iPhone has only 240Hz PWM while MBP 14” around 15k. I added some info edited in my previous message from my own experiences with PWM eye strain.
OK, so you see too many fingers in MBP 14” when you do this hand waving test? Then I think you are definitely sensitive to PWM even at that high rate. You might wanna check also this if you consider MBA M2. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mba-m2-what-to-do-with-frc-dithering.2354001/