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Reactions to new MBA?!
- Thread starter Saturn007
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It’s a non-issue. You can get a portable dongle that outperforms the SD card reader in the Mac. It’s not a dealbreaker. It’s something that easily slips into the bag. Does every top of the line Mac come with a free camera? I don’t even get that statement. The bottom of the barrel M1 can tear through photography workloads. You act like the low end model is useless or something.
I think I’ll keep my 16” M1 Pro. Briefly and emotionally considered replacing it with the new M2 MBA, but the lack of multiple external support and likely resolution limitations are sadly deal breakers.
they can't suffer more than what they already do lol,blak levels on mba m1 are the worst i've ever seen in my life
Does Apple really provide slower SSD's in its MacBook Air computers than what it puts in the 14/16 Pro models?
If so, why would Apple charge the same amount of money for upgrading storage capacity whether it be Air or Pro?
If so, why would Apple charge the same amount of money for upgrading storage capacity whether it be Air or Pro?
They're absolutely beating Intel in historical year-over-year performance improvements, though. I mentioned this in another thread, but in the 7 years between my Late 2013 iMac (i7-4771) and the fastest Intel iMac ever produced (Mid 2020 w/ i7-10700K), single-core performance per Geekbench 5 only increased 37% (913 for my i7-4771, 1250 for the i7-10700K), which averages out to ~5.3% year-over-year improvements. Apple just managed an 18% increase in single-core in 20 months (10.8% year-over-year), without increasing the TDP or having a node shrink.
Unless the assumption is that Intel is going to continue to make Alder Lake-level generational improvements every year now after almost a decade of lacklustre gains and struggles with node shrinks, I'd say Apple is doing pretty well on its current trajectory.
This is a "personal desires vs laws of physics" situation. Do you want a thin and light laptop? If so, the built-in webcam is going to need to be very thin to fit within the width of the screen, making it hard to put in a large sensor and good optics (hence why iPads and iPhones can fit better front-facing webcams than MacBooks). Apple's new iPhone-as-webcam feature is a great workaround, letting you easily use the much larger sensor and much better optics of a full-size camera lens that's far too large and thick to ever fit in a ultraportable's display.
That said, as the owner of a 14" MBP with presumably the same new webcam as the M2 MBA, the webcam is pretty good as long as I'm not in low light (that's when the weird DSP kicks in). I have an LED lamp at my desk I turn on for meetings and the picture and colour are nice and clear.
Well, I did use a friend's 14" and while I did see the difference. I can live without the nonPro motion.
I have the 16” M1 Pro and can definitely live without Pro Motion. I would gladly swap my machine with a 15 inch M2 MBA so long as it can support multiple external monitors.
That makes me sad ... and mad!
Maybe I'll skip the Air then, and wait until the new M2 Pro 14 release.
You'll be stuck with an M1 Pro then, cause I highly doubt Apple will allow more than one external for M3. M4? Perhaps.
I am sure everyone can that doesn't have it lol
I think the difference on the 14" MacBook is you are using a track pad to do everything, pro motion isn't as noticeable for me with my 13 max, just going between it and my iMac.
The screen on the 14" makes my 24" iMac seem average. The air 2 will be no better. Coming from a M1 12.9 the 14" was the right decision for me, screen and pro motion alone.
It's over twice as fast to as my 8/512 24" iMac.
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I'm actually excited about it. I've always loved the airs even though I'm in the use case of the pro, but this air really has me tempted. I wanted something smaller/lighter than my 16 inch MBP for travel and while traveling I'd primarily only be using Xcode.
I think I've decided to get a MacBook Air M2 bumped to 16GB in midnight.
My current non-work Mac is a MacBook Pro (Retina 13", Late 2013) also with 16GB. Funny to think nearly 10 years ago and the RAM is the broadly the same (albeit it faster).
I know this is going to be a substantial improvement from my current Mac, but I'm slightly concerned about the thermal performance and throttling, and the lack of higher display refresh rate, compared to my iPhone which I'm glued to most days.
I use my Mac casually, with some Xcode and web dev thrown in. I'm hoping I'll manage without the sustained performance on offer with active cooling and a fan!
I think I'd rather have an Air with new design language, than the new 13" MacBook Pro which effectively has the same design as my 2013 model, or the 14"+ which are pretty chunky and expensive.
Disappointed they aren't slightly cheaper, and will be massively disappointed if the wait is months for a custom configuration.
My current non-work Mac is a MacBook Pro (Retina 13", Late 2013) also with 16GB. Funny to think nearly 10 years ago and the RAM is the broadly the same (albeit it faster).
I know this is going to be a substantial improvement from my current Mac, but I'm slightly concerned about the thermal performance and throttling, and the lack of higher display refresh rate, compared to my iPhone which I'm glued to most days.
I use my Mac casually, with some Xcode and web dev thrown in. I'm hoping I'll manage without the sustained performance on offer with active cooling and a fan!
I think I'd rather have an Air with new design language, than the new 13" MacBook Pro which effectively has the same design as my 2013 model, or the 14"+ which are pretty chunky and expensive.
Disappointed they aren't slightly cheaper, and will be massively disappointed if the wait is months for a custom configuration.
I have faith it will be fine. The mechancial CAD program I use is cloud based. It uses the CPU on Amazon servers that host it. The ram and GPU resources are local. I have a mid spec Ultra with 64GB ram, and two lowest spec M1's with 8GB ram. They all run the CAD about the same, except until the system RAM runs out.
I would not describe it as "insanely great". You may even think it is great, but not in an insanely way. It is pretty much a redesign, with nothing too exciting about it. And a higher price tag. Nothing insane about it.
I expect clean compiles and simulator cold start to be noticeably slower than the M1 Pro/Max just like M1 is, but other than that it should be great. Which spec are you getting?
the base M2 Air only has 8gb RAM so if you upgrade to 16gb the cost difference with M1 14 is narrowed a lot
If I bite I'll probably get the M2, 24 gigs ram (for $200 more I'd rather have too much than not enough), and a 1TB drive. It clocks in at $2099 and for something that should be fine for me for the next 4 years I'm good with that.
Also going from 16GB RAM to 24GB RAM on MBA costs same as going from 16GB RAM to 32GB on MBP. Makes no sense.