What is so special about Macbooks?

[Zangmonkey]

Right, but it's less to do with specific modern features. As you pointed out at the end, Jobs repeated over and over how Apple designed for the customer's user experience. That's why Apple came out with one of the earliest GUI with a mouse, the ipod was not the best mp3 player in many respects but it felt the nicest to look at and was the easiest to use. And so on...

It took like 7 years for other mp3 players to have UI as intuitive as the first generation ipod.


What you get with apple is a walled garden and a curated user experience. I am going to switch my dad to a Mac because all he needs is a browser and excel, but those two things are the most common vectors for malware and bloat on a PC.
Yeah he won't have as much flexibility, but he doesn't need that. And if I have to spend a couple hundred bucks extra so that he doesn't need a PC triage and fix every few months it's well worth it.

 

[Aurelius]

It took like 7 years for other mp3 players to have UI as intuitive as the first generation ipod.


What you get with apple is a walled garden and a curated user experience. I am going to switch my dad to a Mac because all he needs is a browser and excel, but those two things are the most common vectors for malware and bloat on a PC.
Yeah he won't have as much flexibility, but he doesn't need that. And if I have to spend a couple hundred bucks extra so that he doesn't need a PC triage and fix every few months it's well worth it.

Maybe not seven years, but certainly too long. One of Apple's greatest successes was realizing that an MP3 player had to be almost as easy to use as a Walkman for people to embrace it... in that light, I find it funny that you still see people moaning about Apple's lack of drag-and-drop media support (it'd be helpful for general files, to be clear) when Apple arguably wouldn't be as huge as it is if it hadn't shied away from drag-and-drop.

Yeah, the walled garden and curation aren't for everyone, but they're not as painful as some claim (especially not on Macs) and may well be better for some people who are more interested in getting things done than fighting their machines. My folks have generally had fewer tech troubles since they switched to Macs. Windows has admittedly gotten better since then, but I'd still rather plunk many inexperienced people in front of an iMac or MacBook Air than a comparable Windows PC.

 

[Mad Maxx]

Best way to learn is to buy and use something like a Dell XPS. I went through 4 XPS 13/15 in less than 5 years. Hardware and customer service problems chased me away and I ain't never buying anything but an MBP again.

 

[bananas1]

Best way to learn is to buy and use something like a Dell XPS. I went through 4 XPS 13/15 in less than 5 years. Hardware and customer service problems chased me away and I ain't never buying anything but an MBP again.

Don't have one personally, but I have a friend with a 2016/2017 MBP and her keyboard switches are always breaking. She spent something like $500 to get it replaced twice. Maybe she types too aggressively, those butterfly switches are known to be terrible, but any laptop has its issues. Also Dell has fantastic customer support in my experience.

 

[Mad Maxx]

Don't have one personally, but I have a friend with a 2016/2017 MBP and her keyboard switches are always breaking. She spent something like $500 to get it replaced twice. Maybe she types too aggressively, those butterfly switches are known to be terrible, but any laptop has its issues. Also Dell has fantastic customer support in my experience.

Apple had a lot of trouble with their butterfly keyboards during those years. They switched back to scissor switches and now have one of the best laptop keyboards you can buy.

You're among the lucky who've dealt with Dell customer service. I had nothing but trouble from exchanges to repair service to refunds. Took them nearly 11 months to refund the last XPS 15 I returned.

 

[bananas1]

Apple had a lot of trouble with their butterfly keyboards during those years. They switched back to scissor switches and now have one of the best laptop keyboards you can buy.

You're among the lucky who've dealt with Dell customer service. I had nothing but trouble from exchanges to repair service to refunds. Took them nearly 11 months to refund the last XPS 15 I returned.

That's surprising, I know one other person who used Dell's warranty and had a good experience. Even their "supportassist" software isn't so bad, I can definitely see how valuable it is to get drivers up to date for the average user. I sent my laptop for repair and while it takes a week or so, it certainly didn't take 11 months. I wonder if that's related to the chip shortage and/or the new XPS line?

 

[Mad Maxx]

That's surprising, I know one other person who used Dell's warranty and had a good experience. Even their "supportassist" software isn't so bad, I can definitely see how valuable it is to get drivers up to date for the average user. I sent my laptop for repair and while it takes a week or so, it certainly didn't take 11 months. I wonder if that's related to the chip shortage and/or the new XPS line?

That last one was just a return for refund (bad trackpad), so chip shortages weren't an issue. They just dragged out the process. Sometimes my calls and emails weren't returned for months at a time.

 

[Aurelius]

That's surprising, I know one other person who used Dell's warranty and had a good experience. Even their "supportassist" software isn't so bad, I can definitely see how valuable it is to get drivers up to date for the average user. I sent my laptop for repair and while it takes a week or so, it certainly didn't take 11 months. I wonder if that's related to the chip shortage and/or the new XPS line?

It seems like Dell support can be very hit or miss. A friend of mine went through several weeks of troubleshooting and replacements before she finally had a reliable laptop (an Inspiron gaming model).

 

[paradoxical]

I have a 16" M1 Max for home use and a 16" M1 Pro for work. It's hard not to love this hardware - hands down my favorite mobile computing device going all the way back to a Compaq Portable 386. It's the first laptop I've used that truly feels like it has no weaknesses. Best keyboard and trackpad I've ever used, the best display I've ever used on a mobile device, the best sound I've heard, and the unique combination of utterly blistering performance + stupendous battery life. Some of the crap of recent years (Touch Bar, limited ports, no MagSafe) have all been undone. Really, the only thing I dislike is that I can't Bootcamp and dual-install Windows to access my Steam games.

I love PCs and admit x86 laptops have gotten much better in the last decade, but the current MBPs represent, I think, the current pinnacle of overall well-rounded mobile performance computing.

Well, I know this is crazy but try Parallels. I have a maxed out Macbook Pro 14 and can run Titanfall 2 at max settings 3440x1440 and maintain between 60-100FPS. Not every game works (Halo Infinite I am having issues), but all Steam engine games do, Supreme Commander, Age of Empires DEfinitive Edition, Titanfall 2, Fallout series, and basically every other game I've tried. And when they work the GPU is absolutely good enough to give an enjoyable desktop gaming experience on a 3440x1440 monitor. 4k would probably be pushing it unless you want to drop settings.

Also, Ubuntu in a VM so far works faster than bare metal on my Intel laptops. Parallels has done a really, really good job with stuff like PCI-E pass through and USB and disk IO. I can write to the SSD at several gigabytes per second in the VM, get 700MBPS over wifi in Ubuntu, and perhaps most surprisingly, sustain high speed USB sample streaming (which is kind of shocking, high throughput USB usually sucks via VM).

The performance of these machines is simply ridiculous.

 

[pendragon1]

after using an intel/T2 macbook for the last three week, NOTHING is special. everything i do for work is microsoft based anyways.
im getting switched to an M1 tomorrow so ill see how those are. the m1 airs ive touched (teacher devices) were underwhelming after all the hype...

 

[Aurelius]

after using an intel/T2 macbook for the last three week, NOTHING is special. everything i do for work is microsoft based anyways.
im getting switched to an M1 tomorrow so ill see how those are. the m1 airs ive touched (teacher devices) were underwhelming after all the hype...

The M1-based Air mostly impresses by being ruthlessly competent at almost everything without even needing a fan. I do agree Apple needs a new model soon, but it sounds like that's coming this year. It should be a nice upgrade as the current Air is based on the Intel model's chassis.

And I wouldn't base too much of your experience on an Intel-based MacBook, especially if it's a butterfly keyboard model. You could tell Apple's design goals were butting up against the realities of Intel's CPUs at the time.

 

[Vermillion]

We recently hired a person who uses a Macbook Pro. And has been using Apple products since the late '90s. So we purchased a Macbook Pro for him for business use back in February. $$$$. Supposed to arrive this month, but we got a notice that it's on backorder till June. Why are Macbooks so much more expensive than Windows-based laptops with the same or similar specs. What is so special about them? Do they accel in certain uses? Plus, so much harder to acquire?

In my opinion absolutely nothing makes them special. They're far more trouble than they're worth if you ask me. In fact having had to interact with them more at my job has made me hate them and macOS even more than I could ever imagine. They've been such a royal pain in the ass I'm quickly getting rid of each and every Macbook in the company. I'm down to 5 and one of those is being replaced next week. 4 to go. :happy dance:

Their integration into a work environment via Intune is complete and utter garbage (JAMF is just as shitty). Non-admin users can still install apps from the App Store by default (this puzzles me greatly). I had to write a custom settings profile to stop that issue. Oh and doing that breaks automatic updates for the OS. It makes it ask for the admin name/pwd twice to install the OS update. Once to actually start the update and once to reboot the system to complete the update. So I need to remote into each and every one of them twice to enter the admin credentials to update the OS. Need to update the OS? That'll be 45 minutes minimum to download/install. Honestly macOS updates almost make Windows updates look good. Need to rebuild macOS and make it a clean install? Better have a fresh pot of coffee because it takes so long.

Every major macOS release breaks something. Either Adobe software suddenly doesn't work correctly or Apple makes some stupid change to the kernel hooks for cloud storage apps like OneDrive which completely remaps where the cloud storage sits on the system. This was a real change in Monterey. Previously your cloud storage account would simply be under your username and it's respective folder. So for example /username/onedrive/. Now it's /username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive. Here's the kicker though. Library is a hidden folder. Yes folks your very own cloud storage data is stored in a hidden folder that 99% of the macOS using population doesn't know about. Much less do those same people know that Command + Shift + . (period) shows the hidden folders. No warning from Apple on this change after the upgrade to Monterey. They simply moved shit around and didn't say a word. Royally confused me and our mac users (and based on forum complaints many of their other users as well) until we figured out wtf was going on.

You used to be able to simply add your OneDrive folder to the Favorites list in Finder as well. Not anymore. Now they all appear in Finder under "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - SharePoint - blah blah blah". Name is so long you can't even read it properly unless you expand Finder so much you're just wasting pixels. When you sync a SharePoint site you actually have two identical names in Finder (one being your O365 account OneDrive storage) unless you expand it and waste pixels. Just an absolutely pathetic user experience.

Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - user name
Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - SharePoint - Site name
All you see by default is "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Co..."

Good luck figuring which folder is which when you have fifteen SharePoint sites syncing to your system.

Price/Performance ratio? Abysmal. Period. The 15 inch Macbook pros (x86 based, fastest CPU you could get, 32GB RAM, 1TV NVME, and whatever AMD GPU they stick in there) we deployed were minimum $2800 systems. The Dell Precision 5000 series I replaced them with for $1800 absolutely blow them away performance wise. Our illustrators and app designers can make the last Intel based Macbook Pro crawl but not those Dell Precision's.

 

[pendragon1]

The M1-based Air mostly impresses by being ruthlessly competent at almost everything without even needing a fan. I do agree Apple needs a new model soon, but it sounds like that's coming this year. It should be a nice upgrade as the current Air is based on the Intel model's chassis.

And I wouldn't base too much of your experience on an Intel-based MacBook, especially if it's a butterfly keyboard model. You could tell Apple's design goals were butting up against the realities of Intel's CPUs at the time.

got my m1 (air, both were) today, its no faster than the intel and i had to charge it by the afternoon, same as the intel. the chassis seems fine to me.
it was a 2019 intel with that stupid low profile keyboard, the same as the new m1.
i honestly do no see what the hype was about. yes there is no fan, i never heard the intel one spin up with what i do. my sig system feels faster...

 

[pendragon1]

In my opinion absolutely nothing makes them special. They're far more trouble than they're worth if you ask me. In fact having had to interact with them more at my job has made me hate them and macOS even more than I could ever imagine. They've been such a royal pain in the ass I'm quickly getting rid of each and every Macbook in the company. I'm down to 5 and one of those is being replaced next week. 4 to go. :happy dance:

Their integration into a work environment via Intune is complete and utter garbage (JAMF is just as shitty). Non-admin users can still install apps from the App Store by default (this puzzles me greatly). I had to write a custom settings profile to stop that issue. Oh and doing that breaks automatic updates for the OS. It makes it ask for the admin name/pwd twice to install the OS update. Once to actually start the update and once to reboot the system to complete the update. So I need to remote into each and every one of them twice to enter the admin credentials to update the OS. Need to update the OS? That'll be 45 minutes minimum to download/install. Honestly macOS updates almost make Windows updates look good. Need to rebuild macOS and make it a clean install? Better have a fresh pot of coffee because it takes so long.

Every major macOS release breaks something. Either Adobe software suddenly doesn't work correctly or Apple makes some stupid change to the kernel hooks for cloud storage apps like OneDrive which completely remaps where the cloud storage sits on the system. This was a real change in Monterey. Previously your cloud storage account would simply be under your username and it's respective folder. So for example /username/onedrive/. Now it's /username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive. Here's the kicker though. Library is a hidden folder. Yes folks your very own cloud storage data is stored in a hidden folder that 99% of the macOS using population doesn't know about. Much less do those same people know that Command + Shift + . (period) shows the hidden folders. No warning from Apple on this change after the upgrade to Monterey. They simply moved shit around and didn't say a word. Royally confused me and our mac users (and based on forum complaints many of their other users as well) until we figured out wtf was going on.

You used to be able to simply add your OneDrive folder to the Favorites list in Finder as well. Not anymore. Now they all appear in Finder under "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - SharePoint - blah blah blah". Name is so long you can't even read it properly unless you expand Finder so much you're just wasting pixels. When you sync a SharePoint site you actually have two identical names in Finder (one being your O365 account OneDrive storage) unless you expand it and waste pixels. Just an absolutely pathetic user experience.

Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - user name
Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - SharePoint - Site name
All you see by default is "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Co..."

Good luck figuring which folder is which when you have fifteen SharePoint sites syncing to your system.

Price/Performance ratio? Abysmal. Period. The 15 inch Macbook pros (x86 based, fastest CPU you could get, 32GB RAM, 1TV NVME, and whatever AMD GPU they stick in there) we deployed were minimum $2800 systems. The Dell Precision 5000 series I replaced them with for $1800 absolutely blow them away performance wise. Our illustrators and app designers can make the last Intel based Macbook Pro crawl but not those Dell Precision's.

agree, agree and more agreement.
one principal said "never again" today when i told him about the cost to repair a 2019 intel based air.

 

[Aurelius]

got my m1 (air, both were) today, its no faster than the intel and i had to charge it by the afternoon, same as the intel. the chassis seems fine to me.
it was a 2019 intel with that stupid low profile keyboard, the same as the new m1.
i honestly do no see what the hype was about. yes there is no fan, i never heard the intel one spin up with what i do. my sig system feels faster...

That's... just not in sync with reality.

The M1 Air isn't using the same keyboard; it's back to a more conventional design that should feel a bit better. At the least, you shouldn't see your keys wrecked just because a crumb or speck of dust got inside.

As for performance and battery life... well, benchmarks would have the M1 Air absolutely thrashing the 2019 version, although I wouldn't be surprised if you can't see much difference with specific apps. And it definitely lasts longer in some circumstances, although I'm sure some heavy-duty workloads will shrink the advantage. And I would hope your overclocked Ryzen 5000-series desktop PC with (presumably) more RAM and a recent dedicated GPU would outperform a laptop with a 10W fanless chip... if it didn't, Microsoft would be in a full-on panic as Apple grabbed massive chunks of market share.

The hype is that the Air outperformed many contemporary Windows laptops (even those released up to a year later) in common tasks while lasting longer on battery, eschewing a fan and generally offering a well-rounded package. Apple went from struggling to keep up to striding ahead, at least for a while.

 

[pendragon1]

That's... just not in sync with reality.

The M1 Air isn't using the same keyboard; it's back to a more conventional design that should feel a bit better. At the least, you shouldn't see your keys wrecked just because a crumb or speck of dust got inside.

As for performance and battery life... well, benchmarks would have the M1 Air absolutely thrashing the 2019 version, although I wouldn't be surprised if you can't see much difference with specific apps. And it definitely lasts longer in some circumstances, although I'm sure some heavy-duty workloads will shrink the advantage. And I would hope your overclocked Ryzen 5000-series desktop PC with (presumably) more RAM and a recent dedicated GPU would outperform a laptop with a 10W fanless chip... if it didn't, Microsoft would be in a full-on panic as Apple grabbed massive chunks of market share.

The hype is that the Air outperformed many contemporary Windows laptops (even those released up to a year later) in common tasks while lasting longer on battery, eschewing a fan and generally offering a well-rounded package. Apple went from struggling to keep up to striding ahead, at least for a while.

lol ok...
looks and feels the same to me.
others have said otherwise about performance.
hardly, the new dells we have are faster than these. no fan is the only "advantage", that ive seen do far.

ok, i found something special, the sound on this m1 air is impressive! even at low volume it seems to envelope you like a sim-surround or something.

 

[Aurelius]

hardly, the new dells we have are faster than these. no fan is the only "advantage", that ive seen do far.

Yes, but the M1 Air was released in late 2020. If a brand new, comparable 2022 laptop hadn't pushed ahead in at least some respects, there would be a significant problem for Microsoft, Intel and/or AMD.

I don't have any qualms about noting that newer Windows laptops can be faster. The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a remarkable feat of engineering (albeit one without a headphone jack). I'm just waiting to see if M2-based MacBooks shake things up again.

ok, i found something special, the sound on this m1 air is impressive! even at low volume it seems to envelope you like a sim-surround or something.

Audio is definitely one of Apple's specialties these days. The newer MacBook Pros and iMac in particular sound much better than you'd expect, and the Studio Display is probably the only monitor whose built-in speakers are actually good enough to replace decent stand-alones.

 

[pendragon1]

albeit one without a headphone jack

and who started that "trend"
im so sick of usb-c adapters too, i need an A port dammit.

 

[Aurelius]

and who started that "trend"
im so sick of usb-c adapters too, i need an A port dammit.

The irony is that Apple is actually adding ports back on computers, and hasn't ditched headphone jacks on the Mac since they were added. It even went out of its way to add one to the M1 iMac, since the computer is too thin to put the 3.5mm port on the back (it's now on the side).

I can't see Apple going back to USB-A on laptops at this stage, since USB-C and Thunderbolt are too far along. It is nice that the Mac mini and Mac Studio have both port types, at least.

 

[paradoxical]

In my opinion absolutely nothing makes them special. They're far more trouble than they're worth if you ask me. In fact having had to interact with them more at my job has made me hate them and macOS even more than I could ever imagine. They've been such a royal pain in the ass I'm quickly getting rid of each and every Macbook in the company. I'm down to 5 and one of those is being replaced next week. 4 to go. :happy dance:

Their integration into a work environment via Intune is complete and utter garbage (JAMF is just as shitty). Non-admin users can still install apps from the App Store by default (this puzzles me greatly). I had to write a custom settings profile to stop that issue. Oh and doing that breaks automatic updates for the OS. It makes it ask for the admin name/pwd twice to install the OS update. Once to actually start the update and once to reboot the system to complete the update. So I need to remote into each and every one of them twice to enter the admin credentials to update the OS. Need to update the OS? That'll be 45 minutes minimum to download/install. Honestly macOS updates almost make Windows updates look good. Need to rebuild macOS and make it a clean install? Better have a fresh pot of coffee because it takes so long.

Every major macOS release breaks something. Either Adobe software suddenly doesn't work correctly or Apple makes some stupid change to the kernel hooks for cloud storage apps like OneDrive which completely remaps where the cloud storage sits on the system. This was a real change in Monterey. Previously your cloud storage account would simply be under your username and it's respective folder. So for example /username/onedrive/. Now it's /username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive. Here's the kicker though. Library is a hidden folder. Yes folks your very own cloud storage data is stored in a hidden folder that 99% of the macOS using population doesn't know about. Much less do those same people know that Command + Shift + . (period) shows the hidden folders. No warning from Apple on this change after the upgrade to Monterey. They simply moved shit around and didn't say a word. Royally confused me and our mac users (and based on forum complaints many of their other users as well) until we figured out wtf was going on.

You used to be able to simply add your OneDrive folder to the Favorites list in Finder as well. Not anymore. Now they all appear in Finder under "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - SharePoint - blah blah blah". Name is so long you can't even read it properly unless you expand Finder so much you're just wasting pixels. When you sync a SharePoint site you actually have two identical names in Finder (one being your O365 account OneDrive storage) unless you expand it and waste pixels. Just an absolutely pathetic user experience.

Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - user name
Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Company name - SharePoint - Site name
All you see by default is "Shared Libraries - OneDrive - Co..."

Good luck figuring which folder is which when you have fifteen SharePoint sites syncing to your system.

Price/Performance ratio? Abysmal. Period. The 15 inch Macbook pros (x86 based, fastest CPU you could get, 32GB RAM, 1TV NVME, and whatever AMD GPU they stick in there) we deployed were minimum $2800 systems. The Dell Precision 5000 series I replaced them with for $1800 absolutely blow them away performance wise. Our illustrators and app designers can make the last Intel based Macbook Pro crawl but not those Dell Precision's.

Your problem is you are trying to use Microsoft software!

In the old days, there were legitimate performance arguments to use similar class PC laptops vs. Mac. Now, that's objectively not the case in any area. There is no PC laptop in a comparable form factor that has comparable performance or battery life across every metric. Perhaps you can find some edge case where a specific PC laptop performs better than a Mac at a specific task, but objectively there is nothing else that provides even remotely comparable performance across the CPU, GPU, memory, I/O, and storage systems - let alone with similar battery life, trackpad, and screen quality. For example, I can get better storage throughput in a VM in my Macbook then is available in any Dell or Lenovo system running a native OS.

If anyone wants to run some benchmarks it might be fun, I am willing to bet that my maxed out 14 MBP running Ubuntu in a VM will outperform your same-class comparable Dell or Lenovo laptop (13 or 14 inch laptop with similar thickness and weight, not a 10lb desktop replacement) running the same OS natively. Anyone want to nominate some benchmarks to run? We could do cpu, gpu, wifi throughput, thunderbolt throughput, storage speed, whatever!

 

[cjcox]

If anyone wants to run some benchmarks it might be fun, I am willing to bet that my maxed out 14 MBP running Ubuntu in a VM will outperform your same-class comparable Dell or Lenovo laptop (13 or 14 inch laptop with similar thickness and weight, not a 10lb desktop replacement) running the same OS natively. Anyone want to nominate some benchmarks to run? We could do cpu, gpu, wifi throughput, thunderbolt throughput, storage speed, whatever!

Just me, but I'd put out the exacts specs, maybe in your sig? 14 MBP means zero, you know? Also, I think takers should race for pinks (winner takes all).

 

[paradoxical]

Just me, but I'd put out the exacts specs, maybe in your sig? 14 MBP means zero, you know? Also, I think takers should race for pinks (winner takes all).

Well, it's kind of a trick question because there is no comparable PC laptop. But the specs:

14in
3.5lbs
0.61in thick
10 core M1 Max CPU
32 core Apple GPU
16 core Neural Engine
64GB Unified memory
8TB SSD
Three thunderbolt 4 ports
All-day battery life
fan barely spins

But I am genuinely interested in comparing benchmarks of this machine in an Ubuntu VM (or hell, even Windows) through two layers of emulation to native Dell XPS or HP thin and light machines. Just for fun I am also going to do some gaming benchmarks while gaming in a Windows VM. I won't be able to run everything (DX12 support isn't fully implemented in Parallels yet) but DX11 stuff I should be able to do just fine.

 

[D-EJ915]

And I wouldn't base too much of your experience on an Intel-based MacBook, especially if it's a butterfly keyboard model. You could tell Apple's design goals were butting up against the realities of Intel's CPUs at the time.

Coming from my ancient 2012 air model to my 2020 intel 13 pro was a downgrade and the m1 16 is even worse so that butterfly one must be horrendous. I kept reading reviews hyping it up but honestly I was disappointed.

 

[Vermillion]

Your problem is you are trying to use Microsoft software!

I don't see how it's Microsoft's fault that Apple changed the kernel headers and created a new shit API for cloud storage apps and stashed that new data in a hidden folder...

 

[Aurelius]

Coming from my ancient 2012 air model to my 2020 intel 13 pro was a downgrade and the m1 16 is even worse so that butterfly one must be horrendous. I kept reading reviews hyping it up but honestly I was disappointed.

That doesn't jive with my experience. I've used a 2013 MacBook Pro, have a company 2019 MacBook Pro (with butterfly keyboard) and have used my wife's M1 Air... and the M1 machine's keyboard is much closer to the 2013 feel than the 2019 system.

 

[D-EJ915]

That doesn't jive with my experience. I've used a 2013 MacBook Pro, have a company 2019 MacBook Pro (with butterfly keyboard) and have used my wife's M1 Air... and the M1 machine's keyboard is much closer to the 2013 feel than the 2019 system.

The Intel 2019 and 2020 models have different keyboards so no idea how the 2019 one compares, we're probably both right lol.

https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020...rd-double-the-storage-and-faster-performance/

I don't see how it's Microsoft's fault that Apple changed the kernel headers and created a new shit API for cloud storage apps and stashed that new data in a hidden folder...

Having to boot into diagnostic mode to enable using a cloud desktop app was interesting for sure.

 

[uOpt]

Audio is definitely one of Apple's specialties these days. The newer MacBook Pros and iMac in particular sound much better than you'd expect, and the Studio Display is probably the only monitor whose built-in speakers are actually good enough to replace decent stand-alones.

You folks should hear the speakers in the 16" models. They are good. Hard to believe they are in a laptop.

A major reason why I do my video conferences on a Mac, not under Linux. And I suspect that 5-microphone array has similar benefit for the other people on the talk.

 

[Jandor]

If you like Windows 7 UI and dislike Windows 8/10/11, you cannot put Windows 7 safe on a PC laptop, but MacOS still has an UI close to Windows 7, much more efficient, and opting for an X86 MacOS laptop will bring you Windows on Bootcamp if you still need Windows.

 

[Mad Maxx]

The new M2 MacBook Air was made available for purchase today. Anyone place an order? $1730 was a lot more than I wanted to spend, especially when the 14" MB Pro is only a couple hundred $$ more and has the XDR miniLED screen, M1 Pro CPU, and extra ports.

 

[drutman]

Their pricing policy is strict any authorized seller cannot charge more than the MSRP and service is second to none. We had a experience with a local reseller (Apple authorized service center) who wanted to charge us for a recalled battery swap. When corporate found out they yanked their service rights. The M CPUs boot like lightning and is quicker than Intel depending on software. No QC issues with dead pixels or weak hinges. The closed ecosystem can be a pain.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

The new M2 MacBook Air was made available for purchase today. Anyone place an order? $1730 was a lot more than I wanted to spend, especially when the 14" MB Pro is only a couple hundred $$ more and has the XDR miniLED screen, M1 Pro CPU, and extra ports.

View attachment 490228

There is a good video that's tongue and cheek from MKBHD about the new M2 13" Pro and Air as well as the 14" Pro.



Basically, skip the 13" Pro (it should've been discontinued honestly, it's a waste of silicon). If you just need basics, get an Air. But if you're going to spend a bunch of money for upgrades and you're a power user, then move up to the 14". I more or less agree with his assessments. The 14" Pro, even in base config, is still faster than the M2. It has a much more robust GPU and an option for many more cores. Nevermind the other upgrades like more ports and better display, etc etc. Let alone upgrading it past base config of course.

 

[Mad Maxx]

There is a good video that's tongue and cheek from MKBHD about the new M2 13" Pro and Air as well as the 14" Pro.



Basically, skip the 13" Pro (it should've been discontinued honestly, it's a waste of silicon). If you just need basics, get an Air. But if you're going to spend a bunch of money for upgrades and you're a power user, then move up to the 14". I more or less agree with his assessments. The 14" Pro, even in base config, is still faster than the M2. It has a much more robust GPU and an option for many more cores. Nevermind the other upgrades like more ports and better display, etc etc. Let alone upgrading it past base config of course.

Yeah, the base model MBP 14 refurbished was only $200 more than the M2 Air I bought. I tried the MBP 14 when it was first released. Everything about it was great except the blocky, heavy build. I might give it another shot if the M2 Air doesn't win me over.

 

[ND40oz]

Yeah, the base model MBP 14 refurbished was only $200 more than the M2 Air I bought. I tried the MBP 14 when it was first released. Everything about it was great except the blocky, heavy build. I might give it another shot if the M2 Air doesn't win me over.

The M1 14" is great, I switch between it and my 2019 16" and the performance differences are noticeable. The screen and battery life differences being huge and the lack of fans ramping up because some chrome tab decides to suck up some processor for no reason at all.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

I have a question that someone here can probably answer for me.

The SO is getting into creating/editing videos and pictures and stuff. It's small time for her friends and family so nothing major. I've largely gone to the office so she's going to be using one of my desks to do this over the weekends and nights. The desk has dual LG 4k monitors on a stand, webcam, ring light, studio monitors, external dac/amp, headset, various headphones, various mics, storage, blah blah blah, all hooked up through a thunderbolt 3 dock. This was a home office/work from home station with all the juice and I did some audio work from it so it's suited for what she needs.

She wants a mac and I should probably brush up on those for work related reasons so mac it will be. The issue is looking at all of these she'd want the air with the M2, but the M1 and M2 only support one external monitor, unless we got the mini. I've heard that if you use displaylink you can get dual monitors out of it though. The dock I have is https://www.visiontek.com/products/...ith-60w-power-delivery?variant=40553065808021 which per visiontek the 4000 series supports display link.

Does anybody have any idea if this is going to work?

 

[Algrim]

My understanding is DisplayLink cuts the monitor refresh rate to 30 FPS and introduces noticeable lag. Not much of a problem for editing photos but may become an issue for editing video.

I have a MBP 16" M1 Pro for work so I can't validate this information personally.

 

[Mad Maxx]

Got my new M2 MacBook Air 16GB/1TB today. Feels strange using it after over a year with my M1 iPad Pro 12.9" and magic keyboard. I keep reaching for the Air's screen to touch an icon or scroll through a website. Had no idea how acclimated I became with the iPad's touch screen. Same with the iPad’s Face ID vs. Touch ID on the Air. Face ID easily wins that battle. If I made the decision today, I'd return the Air and stick with my iPad + magic keyboard setup. Gotta give it at least a week, though. Never thought I'd be so comfortable with a tablet.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

So after getting comsically fucked by Valve ((they shot me a pop up for my steam deck, then allowed the charge to go through, then told me I couldn't get my steam deck because I was late, then all of a sudden I had a steam decks worth of steam bucks instead of my card refunded, que much swearing cursing, asking them to kill my steam account (stupid I know but oh well) which they did not do, and four days later after all this someone finally emailed me)) we just pulled the trigger and got the MBP 14 with an upgraded proc 32gb 1tb.

I know apple jerks people around as well and I'm not making much of a statement to valve but christ what a bunch of idiotic assholes.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

So after getting comsically fucked by Valve ((they shot me a pop up for my steam deck, then allowed the charge to go through, then told me I couldn't get my steam deck because I was late, then all of a sudden I had a steam decks worth of steam bucks instead of my card refunded, que much swearing cursing, asking them to kill my steam account (stupid I know but oh well) which they did not do, and four days later after all this someone finally emailed me)) we just pulled the trigger and got the MBP 14 with an upgraded proc 32gb 1tb.

I know apple jerks people around as well and I'm not making much of a statement to valve but christ what a bunch of idiotic assholes.

Just contact the BBB and break it down with all communication sent and received from them.

 

[Aurelius]

So after getting comsically fucked by Valve ((they shot me a pop up for my steam deck, then allowed the charge to go through, then told me I couldn't get my steam deck because I was late, then all of a sudden I had a steam decks worth of steam bucks instead of my card refunded, que much swearing cursing, asking them to kill my steam account (stupid I know but oh well) which they did not do, and four days later after all this someone finally emailed me)) we just pulled the trigger and got the MBP 14 with an upgraded proc 32gb 1tb.

I know apple jerks people around as well and I'm not making much of a statement to valve but christ what a bunch of idiotic assholes.

Egads. I don't think Valve was being malicious, but that's not exactly inspiring confidence in the company's approach to hardware sales. Apple is a bastion of consistency and fairness in comparison to what you went through.

I suspect your MacBook Pro experience will be much better. Goodness knows I'd trip over myself to get one with those specs.

 

[Algrim]

Got my new M2 MacBook Air 16GB/1TB today. Feels strange using it after over a year with my M1 iPad Pro 12.9" and magic keyboard. I keep reaching for the Air's screen to touch an icon or scroll through a website. Had no idea how acclimated I became with the iPad's touch screen. Same with the iPad’s Face ID vs. Touch ID on the Air. Face ID easily wins that battle. If I made the decision today, I'd return the Air and stick with my iPad + magic keyboard setup. Gotta give it at least a week, though. Never thought I'd be so comfortable with a tablet.

<<snipped image>>

Have you tried Universal Control between the two?