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Upcoming 15-inch MacBook Air Again Rumored to Feature M2 Chip
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They should deny me the option of buying a m2 15 inch air because you want think they should put a future chip in that I don't need?
Maybe to you it is. But by definition of the term, it's not. You can go to an Apple Store today and pick one up. The fact that other retailers don't carry it doesn't magically make it BTO.
I think they subsidize the base model with these higher upgrade prices.
There is no race you know. How many vendors produce a native ARM based OS such as Darwin UNIX that is used by majority of their laptop/desktop users?
While MS does have their 64 bit Windows 11 for Arm it lacks DirectX 12 or OpenGL3.3 or greater support. The majority of users are using a OS that still supports 32 bit applications. How old it that?
So in a sense Apple is being the aggressive pusher into this ARM platform technology. Intel/AMD is not. As long a Apple shows they are incrementally making more powerful SoCs with 64 bit OS's its never going to a simple comparison.
Where it is? the 15" isn't a replacement and the M2 is still good. The MBA is always supposed to be the entry level, given the surplus of M2 processors apple are rumoured to have, maybe expect a price drop rather than an M3 in the short-medium term.
This.
If people waiting for an M3 haven't used any apple silicon machines and are waiting for M3 to get a performance jump.... for portable devices, even M1 is so far beyond the old intel portables is hilarious.
M2 was an incremental improvement. M3 will also be incrementally better. But the massive leap has already been made.
No, its more likely because of the trash intel was putting out vs. what they promised.
Go and look back at things like the Macbook 12", the Trashcan Mac Pro and similar vintage products - intel's roadmap for 2015-2016 promised functional performant 10nm CPUs with similar expected thermal and power constraints to what we're actually now getting with Apple silicon. Not the hot, noisy garbage we got. Not just Apple - across the PC industry, CPU progress stagnated between 2011 - 2016 or so when AMD woke up and intel scrambled to compete by throwing more electricity and heat at it.
If you consider that those designs would be like with Apple Silicon in them (i.e., essentially what intel were promising, INSTEAD of what they delivered) the designs make a lot more sense.
However what Intel delivered between 2015 and 2020 was crap to be blunt, at least in terms of performance per watt. The writing was on the wall for years, with iPads (or even the CPU inside iPhones) outperforming intel laptop processors in half the power for several years prior to M1.
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M2 is OK. Not a massive difference from the previous M1, but at the same time, I'm sure, not a huge difference from the future M3. But it would be great to have some M2 pro option.
Unfortunately, 8 GB of RAM is not enough anymore. With these specs it's literally an original Air M1 with a bigger screen and higher price.
Unfortunately, 8 GB of RAM is not enough anymore. With these specs it's literally an original Air M1 with a bigger screen and higher price.
It literally says in the first source I provided that TSMC started volume 3nm production on December 29th, 2022.
Also, Q3 2023 production is way too late for A17. It needs to happen in Q2, which is now.
I'm still ok fine with my 2014 mackbook pro 15. I am looking to buy a new macbook in the next year, but waiting to be super excited about a model. I prefer the size of 15, so looking forward to the new air, but I also would be disappointed, if it's the same as the air 13 just bigger, mainly because the loudspeakers sounds bad compared to the pro models. If no big improvement at all on the air 15, I might just buy the pro 14 model or wait.
That's about what anyone could reasonably expect from this MBA additional size.
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Semantics. If you go online to Apple.com you will see they have two configurations, everything else is considered BTO or if you have a preferred term other than calling other than those two configurations. Just because some Apple stores sometimes have other configurations in house doesn’t change that. As I also wrote that you ignored, standard retailers do not carry other than those configurations because that is all Apple offers to them. And that is the issue many of us are referring to. If you want more than a 8GB MBA (or iMac or non-Pro mac mini) you can't get them a typical retailers like Costco, Bestbuy and Amazon (non-3rd party).
Sure you can get higher spec laptops. I’m sure I can find a big box laptop that’s over $4000. I think you missed the point completely.
I was talking about base model laptops that you will see in the big box store compared to the base model laptop that you see at the Apple store. You know like a relevant comparison of base model versus base model, not base model versus high-end model
Say what?!? An HP Inspiron 14 for $550 is about as base model as you can get. Notice it comes with 16GB DDR4 and a 512GB SSD? Let's face facts here. Apple offers sub-baseline configurations for, at best mainstream if not premium prices.
You need to get into the real world and out of the nerd world when it comes to computers. This is a good example of a base model laptop in a big box store. There are cheaper ones, but this is just one example.
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That would be relevant if people cared about the CPU architecture. They don't. MacOS on x86 works just as good as it does on ARM.
Intel did have issues with process development that caused some delays/issues. But this happens to other companies too. TSMC has experienced delays with N3 process so Apple was affected.
I currently daily drive a 16" M1 Pro. Besides a few small complaints (Magsafe is kinda lame, the notch is kinda lame, and it's sorta kinda heavy) I could easily see it lasting me 3 to 5 years. It's a big step up from the original 16" release with that goofy touch bar, terrible battery life, and evil heat. I will probably get the new 15" model ... but it's gonna have to be REALLY good and light to make me switch.
Blasphemy... Just kidding.
MagSafe was outstanding when Intel processors were a thing. I remember it saving my 13" MacBook Pro multiple times from being dragged off a desk by careless people tripping over the cord. When I saw MagSafe coming to the M2 MacBook Air, I was all excited thinking yeah, this is great. There's only one problem. It doesn't need to be plugged in all the time like Intel models did. I remember if I went more than a few hours, the battery would start running low and I would look for a place to plug it in. With my M2 Air I can use for a couple days. Obviously not continuously but off an on when I need to do something. MagSafe is still a little convenient, but not an important feature now that MacBooks aren't tethered to an outlet.
Lol. I have a 2012 Air as my main media server in my house. I'm amazed how long Macs will last in a productive way. It has started occasionally restarting itself every month or so, so its days might be numbered.
TSMC delays at the moment are measured in MONTHS. Intel 10nm was delayed by about 5 years and when it came out it was crap for the first 3 and not used in the majority of their products. intel 10nm was about 6-7 years late to volume production!