Apple Unveils the New 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air with the Powerful M3 Chip

[R0H1T]

Or what do you think?

We have Android phones with up to 24GB higher speed LPPDR5x RAM with only a marginally higher price as compared to their 16-18 GB variants! So unless you meant Apple is sourcing it from a parallel universe or something, it should not cost 2-5x their competition.

Nor is it news that out of all the OS options out there for desktops/laptops Windows utterly blows at memory management and resource utilization compared to MacOS or any flavor of linux or Unix.

It's new to me, I know linux probably does the best resource utilization but that also depends on the application & their developers! Memory management under Windows has come a long way & with mem compression usually on by default unless you have actual data I'd call that BS wrt Apple being better than MS.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Only the cpu is new, everything else about these is ancient spec. Not a chance in hell I'd upgrade my M1 MBA for this new one.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

dell xps same specs better build and only 600 bucks starting price
and for the a lil cheaper than the macbook you can get twice the specs
View attachment 337683View attachment 337684

and can even run osx w hackintoshing... so it can TRIPLE BOOT ALL 3 OSes as well!! Hell some ppl on dell subreddit has said mac os runs better on the xps than windows 11 and better than mac os does... on thier macbooks!

But if you don't want a thin apple form factor the dell precisions and latitudes are nice too!

Not convinced on the "better build." I tried an XPS 17, I think early last year. Beautiful machine, but the trackpad was absolute garbage. It was so bad that I returned it. It felt like mush, kept registering false clicks, and wouldn't hold a click and drag. My research on the matter showed it to be a common symptom of the model I bought--a big turn off for a $1300 laptop! I hope Dell has sorted it out since then.

My HP work laptop has that CPU. It's okay, the fan pretty much roars constantly when Power BI is open, all with just 2 measly P-Cores. Copy and Paste a few thousand rows in Excel can be a wait-n-see moment, too. There have been times when it appears Excel has hung, but I just go get coffee and come back later. It will finish the job, eventually.

Apple at least gives you a more balanced approach of 4P+4E, and multithreaded situations show it. Also, my photo editor makes good use of the Neural Engine, which ends up meaning less demand on the GPU.

 

[enb141]

Saying that here can also get you banned. That term is less and less accepted.

Nah, here is way safer, this is not an apple biased forum.

I'm an Apple fanboy - sans shame - but even I find any mac with an 8gb-ram offering is beyond ridiculous in 2024. Not everyone agrees with me though.

Yep, 8/256 should be banned in 2024 at least for the computers that can't upgrade those parts.

I dunno, as an active participant at MacRumors, one of the most common complaints I see is that Apple charges way too much for upgrades. Maybe 8/256 is fine for some, and if that's what they want to make the base config, fine, but don't rob us blind to upgrade to 16/512, Apple. Should be maybe a $100-200 up-charge, but Apple asks $400.

Yep, that's why I don't buy macs.

My main PC has 64 GB / 800 TB SSD for boot / apps, 1 TB SSD for files and 4 TB SSD for games, plus one 8 TB Hard Drive for music, etc.

If I wanted those specs on a mac, I had to pay two arms and two legs.

 

[R0H1T]

What's the issue in calling someone a fanboy/girl or something long the lines? As long as you can point out some of their inane unadulterated devotion towards the brand that term still holds true

I know I'm kinda AMD fan & would admit to that but when it comes to my wallet or seeking better VFM products in general I have no brand loyalty. I buy Intel/Nvidia regularly when they're cheap & have no problems recommending them to others as well. Apple on the other hand, if you take their "magical" OS experience out, are hard to recommend. Basically IMO buy them only if you really really want to move away from Android/Windows or try something new otherwise their hardware is matched in many places & easily exceeded in smartphones!

 

[remixedcat]

What's the issue in calling someone a fanboy/girl or something long the lines? As long as you can point out some of their inane unadulterated devotion towards the brand that term still holds true

I know I'm kinda AMD fan & would admit to that but when it comes to my wallet or seeking better VFM products in general I have no brand loyalty. I buy Intel/Nvidia regularly when they're cheap & have no problems recommending them to others as well. Apple on the other hand, if you take their "magical" OS experience out, are hard to recommend. Basically IMO buy them only if you really really want to move away from Android/Windows or try something new otherwise their hardware is matched in many places & easily exceeded in smartphones!

Some PCs can even run Mac os too

 

[atomek]

I use an MBA M1 as my workstation (connected to a Gigabyte M28U with built-in KVM - absolutely love it). PC is only for gaming / Linux. I don't see any reason to upgrade as the performance is great, and it gives me two screens (4K 144hz monitor gives butter smooth experience), I use it as developer. Maybe I would just for a refresh or to go from 16GB to 24GB, but Apple's policy of charging so much for memory/ssd upgrades is outrageous. I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by doing this, I think it is seriously affecting sales.

 

[kondamin]

I wonder is they will be cutting support for the m1 lineup next year of the year after that.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Windows vs Mac discussion is pointless. Key advantage of Windows is not speed or price or whatever... It is support - decades old applications works on latest Windows, and almost anything built in last ten years in PC world also works flawlessly.
On Apple, after random number of years decided by Apple, you are on your own.
Ones who are not bothered by that, can buy Apple and even get decent value for money when we are talking about M1/M2/M3 products - sure, they are expensive, but quality is indeed second to none.

 

[SkullFox]

I have FINALLY bought an Apple Laptop and opted for the 15-inch 1TB Midnight black. I won't see it for a couple weeks tho... /sigh


Because it is... However, I'm in the 1%'ers and went with the 15" where the baseline is 16GB RAM with 512GB SSD (but I upgraded that to 1TB)

I have the 15" MBA with 8gb/512gb, which I bought to replace an iPad. Using Spotify or Plex, Outlook and Chrome with some tabs open and its already reaching for red on the memory pressure...

 

[Aleksandar_038]

I have the 15" MBA with 8gb/512gb, which I bought to replace an iPad. Using Spotify or Plex, Outlook and Chrome with some tabs open and its already reaching for red on the memory pressure...

As long as you are using Chrome, it does not matter how much RAM you have It will take ALL available RAM whatsoever... On any platform

 

[NC37]

Surprise surprise, brushed metal and the same boring colors they always are...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I wonder is they will be cutting support for the m1 lineup next year of the year after that.

I'd be surprised, since the M2 and M3 aren't that significant of a departure from M1--they are largely just faster versions of the same architecture, at least as far as we know.

 

[SkullFox]

I wish they would bring back the lit Apple Logo on the back of the screen it looked very good.

 

[wNotyarD]

I wish they would bring back the lit Apple Logo on the back of the screen it looked very good.

Didn't the lit logo cause issues on the screen in many Macbooks, though?

 

[unwind-protect]

I wonder is they will be cutting support for the m1 lineup next year of the year after that.

They still didn't cut off some Intel CPU models, so M1 will last another while.

 

[SkullFox]

Didn't the lit logo cause issues on the screen in many Macbooks, though?

have no clue. Using Macbooks for the first time with my M2 Air

 

[star-affinity]

We have Android phones with up to 24GB higher speed LPPDR5x RAM with only a marginally higher price as compared to their 16-18 GB variants! So unless you meant Apple is sourcing it from a parallel universe or something, it should not cost 2-5x their competition.

If that memory is directly comparable to what's in the MacBooks I agree it's pretty crazy.