Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
std_move
mikae1
> You can maybe get a cheaper Windows laptop but it will be terrible in almost everything
It will be worse at almost everything, except running my preferred OS (Linux). Being able to upgrade/repair RAM, storage and battery at home is quite a perk too.
3abiton
I totally get it. I have the M4 Air, grabbed it for 700$ on sale. I also have a MSI Creator with Linux (wayland). Performance wise the base Air crunches through everything up until lots of things are open and gpu is roaring (encoding or streaming), and with colima, I have few incus linux containers up and running. Battery life is formidable. Nothing comes close.
My linux laptop (32GB ram / beefy gpu) barely withstand 40 min on battery, but can handle very daunting tasks, and obviously gaming.
These are 2 different use cases, but right now, for the ultra portable laptop, Air is the king, until x64 brings back the efficiency per watt. Even qcom can't compete. That being said, I am a big fan of the apple hardware and not the apple software, so whenever Asahi linux is ready enough (with good battery life), I am definitely jumping ship.
zdragnar
That beefy GPU is the killer for battery life. There's quite a few PC laptops floating about that get in the 10-16 hour range battery life on lighter workloads (text editors, fast compilers, streaming video, browsing internet). I'm typing this on one right now. I wish it was running linux, but I need windows for work up until we get the last of our antiquated .net platform on core.
Sure, it's got integrated graphics so it won't win any gaming awards, but that's what the laptop with the beefy GPU sitting in the corner is for :) That thing pumps out enough heat to not be too pleasant sitting on a lap anyway.
benbayard
Many newer Windows laptops are now having their ability to update ram and storage removed as well. I believe the newest intel architecture introduced this, but my information might be out of date.
my123
LPCAMM2 is more present on business/high end machines unfortunately. It's not an Intel restriction.
fiedzia
> Being able to upgrade/repair RAM
Most upcoming laptops now have soldered RAM and soldered wifi becomes common too.
adrian_b
Soldered RAM is not necessarily bad, because it is usually more reliable than SODIMMs, so it is less likely to require replacements before other parts fail and it is less likely to suffer from transient hardware errors that are not caught due to the lack of ECC memory in most laptops and mini-PCs.
However I consider soldered SSDs and/or soldered batteries as completely unacceptable, as they limit the lifetime of a computer to low values.
mikae1
At least you have the choice to pick one that does not.
jruz
Not on the latest but I’m happily running Asahi NixOS
mikae1
Even for the M1 generation feature support is not complete. Also, this a thread about current models. Asahi is still awesome though!
SXX
On M1 there are still issues with wifi not recovering after sleep and for me its just disappear sometimes.
Something like Framework is more expensive thanks to RAM abd SSD shortage, but Linux support is so much better.
IshKebab
Honestly for the price you'd have to pay to get an equivalent Windows laptop you can buy two Macbook Airs. I think Apple's higher end machines are overpriced but their entry level laptops are a bargain, for what you get. Unless you need Linux (and the resulting bugginess/short battery life), it's really a no-brainer.
(Don't tell my Linux isn't buggy. I use it, but I regularly run into nonsense like this: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=512297 that doesn't happen on Windows or Mac. I still haven't figured out why VSCode freezes for half a second every few minutes on Linux.)
fatata123
[dead]
wisplike
> I wish it was different
Amen to that, my keyboard on my m1 air recently failed. I was horrified to find out it is literally riveted to the frame. I got this close to buying a new one. Something annoyed me about this perfectly good laptop being rendered compltely useless and I ended up buying a replacement keyboard, ripping out the old one and shimming this one with paper. Its not perfect but here I am typing from it.
But you are 100% right, there is just nothing better on the market. The gap is so big.
sonofhans
The riveting sounds, as you say, horrifying. Congrats on making it your own again.
It’s still remarkable to me that it’s even possible to do it at all. The amount of tech and miniaturization crammed into that thing — it would be easier for them to rivet, weld, and glue every part, and cheaper. And if the build quality weren’t so high to begin with, it wouldn’t have withstood the repair at all.
A good friend has a Framework, and it’s cool as hell, but incredibly primitive compared with your M1.
ktallett
Primitive in what sense though? As I have had one for longer than my Macbook lasted in the same situation, plus it is upgradeable as and when I choose. I loved apple of old, and the classic apple that was the framework of it's time regarding upgradeability, has long gone.
ksec
You do get a new battery with Keyboard replacement. So it is not that bad although it may still be better to buy a new MacBook considering the cost.
kintamanimatt
How did it fail?
wisplike
no idea, space started typing a "}" followed by a space. Few other keys started doing wonky things aswell.
odiroot
If this one is anything like the previous ones, ThinkPad is still beating it in the keyboard department.
Plus you get x86_64 and vendor support for Linux.
X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.
junga
There's not much difference between the keyboard of the X13 Gen 6 and the keyboard of the MacBook Pro M1. I own both devices. The keyboard of my T14s Gen 1 on the other hand is noticeably better.
alfiedotwtf
How’s ACPI and real suspend (not that “fake” soft suspend) these days? I’m still burned after running Linux on a laptop since 2002 and not having proper power management for suspend :(
… if it’s not the power layer, it’s the network, video, Bluetooth that won’t power up anymore after a nap
JoshTriplett
> How’s ACPI and real suspend
On a current ThinkPad? Essentially perfect. Zero problems suspending and resuming, no matter what's going on, including weird cases like suspending while docked and resuming while undocked or vice versa.
winrid
It's a toss up. Works great on my 2017 X1 Extreme. Doesn't work on old 4th Gen i3/i5 E550 thinkpads I refurbish, etc.
JoshTriplett
> X13 is probably the best equivalent in Lenovo's line.
I think the X1 Carbon line is the best direct competitor.
twodave
Not in terms of heat management it’s not.
Findecanor
Not just low key travel. Here in Europe, Mac keyboards have an anemic vertical Return key. Its widest point is as wide as the `\` key on a US keyboard. No such issues on ThinkPads.
dzhiurgis
I always get UK keyboard, not because of enter, but tilde and ` placement. CMD+` for window switching is so much easier on UK keyboard.
I was pretty pissed off when warranty accidentally replaced it with US layout (battery went under 80% which means top case replacement which basically feels like brand new laptop).
epiecs
I had the same issue. The fix for this is to order directly from Apple and then to choose the “English (US)” keyboard layout. That way you get the ANSI layout :)
cromka
> very good speakers
All of the above is true but this, actually, is not entirely: they use a lot of DSP. If you try the same speakers with regular Fedora Asahi with no DSP profile (i.e. vanilla sound), they're very mediocre and do not handle bass well. So, like with many aspects of Apple hardware, this is an example of their software/firmware complimenting the hardware.
duskwuff
It's part DSP, part thermal modeling. The speakers can be driven pretty hard, but will overheat and fail if too much energy is put into them in too short a time. macOS has a thermal model to keep the speakers within safe limits; a major component of Asahi's DSP profile is a similar model. (Without that model in place, Asahi reduces the peak power level to avoid damage.)
TiredOfLife
Windows laptops also do, but unfortunately the DSP is not hidden in OS and are part of preinstalled software and usually not active by default.
lurking_swe
you forgot to mention the trackpad. MUCH nicer than the competitor trackpads. especially if you use some of the advanced gestures (some are hidden in accessibility settings).
lotsofpulp
You can also close the lid and trust it to stay off and open it up even a week later and resume at the same place you left off with very little battery usage. How no one else can figure out how to do this in almost 15 years or more is beyond me.
zonkerdonker
Its absolutley mind boggling. My work machine (lenovo) regualry roasts itself to 0% battery in my backpack during my commute
throwaway290
it does two things, normal power sleep + writes a memory snapshot to disk. So even if it runs out and powers down completely it still puts you back where you were when you plug it in and open lid, just a bit slower and you need to auth
TiredOfLife
> you forgot to mention the trackpad.
I have occasionally used MacBooks and the trackpad is the same as windows laptops. Or rather it becomes as good when I enable tap to click
2III7
- thermal throttling under sustained heavy load, though apparently there is the possibility to add thermal pads to get rid of throttling, probably at the expense of comfort
- no Linux support
Otherwise I agree, it is a wonderful machine. I'd replace my crappy thinkpad if I could.
My 2014 Air is still going strong for light web browsing and terminal use.
mholm
> thermal throttling under sustained heavy load
This gets mentioned a lot, but I do quite a bit of dev work on my M4 MBA and have never even felt it get warm. Sustained heavy loads are extremely rare with how quick this thing is.
std_move
And the fact that there is no annoying fan noise ever is just priceless.
With the way most consumer laptops have their fan curves set, you open a new web page and get an annoying ramp up. It is not just a hardware thing, but mostly a self inflicted wound of having a fan curve that is way too aggressive.
hnra
How long are your compile times?
undefined
undefined
lurking_swe
> for the general consumer
linux does not apply here. General consumer doesn’t even know what linux is.
fundad
Are the think pads at $1000 crappy?
overfeed
Why the restriction to laptops? I don't get why prosumers would marry themselves 24/7 to a single portable device, when their conflicting requirements vary by task and circumstances: portability, high performance, low energy usage, and low noise aren't permanent requirements.
Sure, there's no single device that has Apple's blend of attributes, but who need that in this age of VMs and broadband Internet? My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded. I have a Chromebook when I need to be unplugged (<10% or the time)
freeone3000
> but who needs that?
I’m really happy with bringing my local workstation with me to a cafe, a coworking space, or on a trip. I love conveniently having one device for nearly everything, from AI fine-tuning to general development to gaming. And I love having a 12-hour battery life under normal use and USB-C charging. The screen is beautiful and great for watching movies on, too.
If you want one computing device, in total, a MacBook is a great choice. It’s overkill in most areas for most people, but it’s not deficient for anyone, and that matters a lot.
overfeed
> I’m really happy with bringing my local workstation with me to a cafe, a coworking space, or on a trip
You can, with Tailscale! I had edited my original comment to remove how I occasionally[1] remote to the workstation, but I found out empirically that I typically don't do anything that needs more than 2 cores at a cafe - a $300 Chromebook or $100 second-hand laptop will do.
By all means, if the Macbook hits your sweet-spot of trade-offs, more power to you. Car brand A may have the quickest, most-fuel-efficient, all-wheel drive, convertible coupé, but there are other vehicle types. Perhaps a bicycle and an SUV is a better combination for some other people.
1. I'd say abuut once per year.
anakaine
> My 32-core HEDT workstation outperforms anything Apple branded
Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks.
The market segment that exists for Macbook Pro is one where competitors battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial. Its one where they have acceptable performance vs a dedicated desktop but remain portable and a good expected lifespan, as a portable.
overfeed
> Your high end hardware is not their target market / competition until you get into very purposeful tasks.
Here's the kicker: it cost about the same as the highest end Macbook pro before the RAM madness.
> The market segment that exists one where battery life sucks, windows isnt the preferred OS, and some high performance on a portable device on battery is beneficial.
I agree the market exists, but think it's much smaller than it appears: most people do not work under these constraints most of the time; a cheap laptop + beefy desktop could do a better job in aggregate, wirh greater flexibility, especially for people who spend most of their time at the desk with their computer plugged in - which is most people.
I suspect the portability requirement is sometimes aspirational, similar to the people who buy trucks overestimating the number of times they'll need to cary stuff on the truck bed.
wink
> Why the restriction to laptops?
The last company that was willing to give me a non-laptop desktop... I left in 2005. (with one exception where I simply did not ask)
Not even if "1k EUR desktop + 200 EUR netbook" would have cost less than a beefy laptop.
No, I don't know why.
netsec_burn
I prefer the Dell Rugged line or Thinkpads, since a single water droplet on the keyboard is enough to kill this laptop.
kristjansson
???
I do dishes with an MBP next to the sink. I wouldn't put it under the faucet, but it's ~fine so far.
skullone
I wouldn't if I were you. Indeed there's a membrane that can keep drops away from electronics, but one big drop will find a way eventually. Doesn't even have to be a spill. Macs are infinitely fragile actually, there is zero effort spent on moisture or even dust intrusion.
apparent
Did this happen to you? I was under the impression that a tiny spill was no longer fatal for Mac laptop keyboards. I've seen it happen a few times and be fine, but maybe the people I knew were just lucky?
hyperhello
The new Apple keyboard seems to fix itself. Once my command key had fallen down. It actually fixed itself somehow. I think it’s got whatever miracle metal snaps back into shape in there. And my kid has been using my old laptop and leaving crumbs; when a crumb gets under the key you feel it, but just press it in and destroy the crumb and the key is fine.
I remember the old keyboard because I got so sick of it I snapped the laptop in half in a rare fit of disgust (I was under a lot of stress at the time).
Overall, Apple blew it out of the park, and I happily forgive the earlier problems. Now I hope that Tahoe is just some kind of planned demolition phase before they introduce a totally new unsurpassable stable OS.
llbbdd
In a moment of brain fog I forgot laptops have a hinge, and I imagined you to be the strongest person in the world.
dgxyz
The last 3 dells at work, all high end precision/pro max machines, have lasted 9 months before failing completely. No thanks.
zelda420
I hate thinkpads. I was a traveling consultant for nearly a decade. I had three thinkpads and two completely broke within 2 years. The third was ok but when replaced with a MacBook pro I became an apple convert.
Xeoncross
I'm glad the air now comes standard with 16GB of RAM and 512GB disk space.
It's not that the M1 with 8/256GB was slow at all, but even browsing the web gets into 12GB of usage and exhausting the 256GB is fairly easy if you backup your 256GB phone, try to edit a few videos, download enough Gradle/Go/Cargo/Node packages, or install enough 20GB office apps.
Any apple silicon with 16GB / 512GB of stage (even the M1 series) should have a much longer useful life and avoid disk/storage aging as rapidly from the constant swapping.
sonofhans
Can I just lean on my cane for a second, and say that the first machine I connected to a network had 256KB RAM, and I considered myself lucky to have so much. My 150 baud modem downloaded text slower than I could read it.
I know how we got to these large numbers. Shit, I helped build the road. It still blows my brains out.
Doctor_Fegg
Luxury. I dialled into FidoNet with my 64k Amstrad CPC (contd. p94. Mein gott I’m old)
sonofhans
A whole 64k, huh? IIRC those things presented the most costly spilled drink opportunity of any computer at the time.
themadturk
Yup. I ran UUCP on a 64K Kaypro with a 1200 baud modem.
sonofhans
1200 baud? It was like science fiction come to life the first time I saw text downloading faster than I could read :D
dijit
Lets be real, the fact that the Air is good for developers is.. honestly, great.
But these devices are meant for home users.
Not a tremendous amount of home users having huge gradle/go/cargo/node packages in my experience.
The backup problem is real, I'm surprised Apple doesn't come out with a new time capsule (edit: for phones/tablets)- but I guess they want that sweet iCloud services dollar.
Forgeties79
maybe I’m forgetting all the benefits of time capsule but you can plug any old storage device into a Mac now and turn it into a “Time Machine.“ It’s pretty turnkey at this point. What would a modern time capsule offer besides maybe remote back ups?
dijit
oh no, absolutely- apologies for the confusion.
Time "Machine" on MacOS continues to work (though it's clearly not as important to Apple as it once was).
The issue is: if you want to back up a phone: it will take space from your laptop and it must be tethered to do the backup. This means that if you have a 1TiB phone, like I do, you need at least 1TiB of local disk on your laptop to be able to do a single backup if the phone is anywhere near full.
This is in contrast to how Time Capsule works right now for MacOS, whereby you have an SMB share (like, a 100+TiB NAS) and your laptop will just back itself up when it can.
Such a feature would be pretty killer on iPhones/iPads, or having a "photo server" to offload your photos... idk, but Apple won't do it.
cj
I'm excited about this. The previous generation base model 15" Air was good enough for our company to make it the default computer for everyone. Previously we were giving out base model MBP's. And they're $1000 cheaper.
Today, the MBP is just way too powerful for anything other than specific use cases that need it.
giwook
Out of curiosity, what are some good use cases for a MBP now with the MBAs being so powerful?
I can think of things like 4K video editing or 3D rendering but as a software engineer is there anything we really need to spend the extra money on an MBP for?
I'm currently on a M1 Max but am seriously considering switching to an MBA in the next year or two.
giobox
The Apple Silicon fanless MBAs are great until you end up in a workload that causes the machine to thermal throttle. I tried to use an M4 MBA as primary development machine for a few months.
A lot of software dev workflows often require running some number of VMs and containers, if this is you the chances of hitting that thermal throttle are not insignificant. When throttling under load occurs it’s like the machine suddenly halves in performance. I was working with a mess of micro services in 10-12 containers and eventually it just got too frustrating.
I still think these MBAs are superb for most people. As much as I love a solid state fanless design, I will for now continue to buy Macs with active cooling for development work. It’s my default recommendation anytime friends or relatives ask me which computer to buy and I still have one for light personal use.
philistine
It's all related to things outside the CPU and GPU that made me choose a base model M5 Macbook Pro. I prefer the larger 14-inch screen for its 120hz capability and much better brightness and colour capability. I adore that there are USB-C ports on both sides for charging. The battery's bigger. That's about it.
studmuffin650
I’ve hit limitations of M1 Max pros all the time (generally memory and cpu speeds while compiling large c++ projects)
Airs are good for the general use case but some development (rust, C++) really eat cores and memory like nothing else.
criemen
> Out of curiosity, what are some good use cases for a MBP now with the MBAs being so powerful?
Local software development (node/TS). When opus-4.6-fast launched, it felt like some of the limiting factor in turnaround time moved from inference to the validation steps, i.e. execute tests, run linter, etc. Granted, that's with endpoint management slowing down I/O, and hopefully tsgo and some eslint replacement will speed things up significantly over there.
schrijver
The Macbook Pro has a HDMI port and a Micro SD slot, it’s great to not have to look for a dongle. Steep price difference though.
aembleton
Running a LLM locally on LM Studio. I find that that can tax my M4 Pro pretty well.
robotresearcher
It's a personal thing how much you care, but the speakers on the MBPs are pretty amazing. The Air sounds fine, even good for a notebook, but the MBPs are the best laptop speakers I have ever heard.
jug
Yes, back 10-15 years ago MBP felt more prosumer to me but they have monstrous performance and price points nowadays, like true luxury items or enterprise devices, that I'm happy to see good base specs on the MBA. The base spec on that device matters a lot. Also, Apple will probably release a cheaper MacBook this week and if the rumor holds, it'll be good enough for most consumers.
windowsrookie
The base 15" MacBook Pro was $2,399 10 years ago ($3,251.07 adjusted for Inflation) today it is $2,699.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook...
boutell
Because you can buy it with 32GB of unified RAM, the MBP is now actually the cheapest device for something... useful local AI models!
drob518
Have you used local AI models on a 32 GB MBP? I ask because I'm looking to finally upgrade my M1 Air, which I love, but which only has 16 GB RAM. I'm trying to figure out if I just want to bump to 32 GB with the M5 MBAir or make the jump all the way to 64 GB with the low-end M5 MBP. I love my M1 Air and I don't typically tax the CPU much, but I'm starting to look at running local models and for that I'd like faster and bigger. But that said, I don't want to overpay. Memory is my main issue right now. Anyway, if you have experience, I'd love to hear it. Which MBP, stats of the system, which AI model, how fast did it go, etc?
dev_l1x_be
MPS is okish, is this is what you mean. ANE and CoreML is kind of meh for most use cases, great for some very specific tasks.
https://github.com/hollance/neural-engine/blob/master/docs/a...
dillydogg
I have noticed something similar. With the computer science undergrads and grad students I work with, Air is much more common than with the premeds and med students, many of whom have MBPs (who I am presuming do not need that much power).
rocketvole
I think its because compsci people know what they need to a greater degree than other majors. It's easier to upsell a computer to someone who doesn't really know about computers.
It could also be possible that compsci kids have a powerful desktop at home, or are more savvy with university cloud computing, for any edge cases or computationally expensive tasks.
smelendez
It’s possible that their departments give them computer recommendations that exceed what they actually need.
I’m not sure why this happens or who formulates these recommendations, but I’ve seen it before with students in fields that just don’t do much heavy duty computation or video editing being told to buy laptops with top-of-the-line specs.
undefined
btown
This is also just the direction that AI is taking us, even for people who wouldn't describe themselves as traditional developers.
Setting aside on-device LLMs, one needs RAM and disk space just for the multiple isolated Claude Cowork etc. VMs that will increasingly become part of people's everyday lives.
And when it's easier than ever to create an Electron app, everything's going to have an Electron app, with all the RAM/disk overhead that entails. And of course, nobody's asking their agents "optimize the resource usage of the app I made last week" - they're moving on to the next feature or project.
I suppose the demoscene will always be there, for those of us who increasingly need a refuge from ram-flation.
prmph
Where does it stop? Of course having a bit more room does not hurt, but my view is that if 256GB was not enough for you, 512GB wouldn't be either.
To me it's mostly about learning to mange RAM and storage space on your machine. A lot of stuff does not need to be hoarded on the machine. Move infrequently accessed data to an external drive. Be ruthless about purging stuff you no longer really need. Refuse to run apps that consume tens of GBs of RAM on a whim (looking at you Firefox, I've been impressed with how efficient and stable the Helium browser has been for me). If you are a developer, engineer for efficient use of RAM and storage.
Like I said, 16gb RAM and 512GB storage minimum is nice, but if the fundamental issues that contribute to massive and wasteful use of resources on our machines are not addressed, nothing will be enough.
ProfessorLayton
>Where does it stop?
I don't know but macOS is making it ever more difficult to manage storage, with lots of random things under "macOS" pushing ~40GB or "System Data" that gets a crapload of unrelated things like podcast [1] downloads, with no easy way to purge.
[1] I spent too much time hunting down ~250GB of missing disk space, and it turns out it was the Podcasts app's cache, while the app itself reported no downloads. I fully expected this to be managed automatically, but was getting out of disk space warnings. It's a mess.
matthewkayin
I think 512GB is a fair minimum for a computer these days, but I agree with your "Where does it stop?" sentiment when it comes to RAM.
If browsing the web takes 12GB of RAM, at what point do we stop chasing after more RAM and instead start demanding better performance and resource usage out of the web?
themadturk
My first Apple Silicon machine was an 8GB/512GB M1 MacBook Air. I rarely bumped up against the RAM, but I was pretty happy using between 300-400GB on the SSD, so I really think the 512GB was plenty. I have a 1TB machine now, and typically still use less than 512GB...but now and then I've found a good use for nearly all of that terabyte.
You're right, learning to manage storage space is important, but you need to have some storage space to manage first. 256GB is the bottom of the barrel.
1123581321
From observing family members, 256GB is usually fine, but small enough that normal computer use can accidentally fill it up. 512GB provides plenty of headroom for them. 512GB is tight for more involved usage that’s not serious media creation, and 1TB is comfortable. 1TB seems like the realistic minimum for heavier media creation.
drob518
I agree with the sentiment, but in general it's not worth my time to try to purge. I used to do that back in 2005. Heck, in the 1990s, I'd buy a new hard drive every year. But these days, I find that a hard drive lasts me for 5 years if I plan well.
Xeoncross
It doesn't stop, it's just where we are in this rolling window of time.
16GB of RAM (currently) works for 90% of professions daily needs.
jug
Even with the $100 price bump, I think this is a win. 16/512 is a very nice base spec on Mac.
drob518
That works for a LOT of people. Not me, but the everybody else in my family.
reactordev
I have a 16GB/512GB Air M1 (2020) because I knew I would need the extra space but this really makes me happy. A new Air, higher headroom, M5, is awesome. It’s not a MBP but it’s good enough for 95% of the daily stuff. If you aren’t running local agents this would be amazing.
dubeye
I have an M3 8gb air and it' mostly fine, unless I have a node server running or similar. Otherwise it's not very different to my M4 16gb iMac
I've no idea what the storage is on either of them, I've never looked. The days of needing storage are behind me, personally
mg
The one thing that interests me most when it comes to laptops these days is weight. So I jumped right into the tech specs section and looked it up. Since this is the "Air" laptop of the company that is popular for thin and lightweight devices, my hopes were high.
But ...
The 13 inch version is heavier than a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Which has a 14 inch screen and can run Linux.
caymanjim
I bought a ThinkPad X1. Had to send it back for repairs three times in the first year, including a complete motherboard replacement, and it died again immediately after the warranty expired. Been a $2800 door stop since then. The case is flimsy plastic that gets beat to crap easily. The trackpad is over-sensitive in all the wrong ways which makes it hard to use as an actual laptop. Plus it's weaker and slower than an Air. Also unbearably loud and unbearably hot.
I don't like Apple as a company and I don't particularly like MacOS, but no one except Apple makes a laptop worth a damn.
Liftyee
Was it a Gen 1 device? I bought a Thinkpad X13 Gen 1 many years ago and it kept having blue screens from RAM errors and other problems. Eventually after many warranty attempts and motherboard replacements they sent me a new X13 Gen 4. This has been running Ubuntu with no problems for 4 years now, it might be more a "lemons" phenomenon than a general rule. Also, AFAIK, the case is metal with a "soft-touch" coating.
The Apple ARM processors are still in a league of their own but personally I'm not willing to give up my OS freedom of choice for that advantage.
boomskats
Not my experience in the slightest, after two decades of personal thinkpads and around 20 issued to my team.
Also if you'd just spent that extra 120 bucks for the 3 year onsite warranty, you'd have a lenovo technician replacing your motherboard at a location of your choice the next working day.
dask
Very different experience here. I have an X1 Extreme Gen 4 since 2022 (running Linux), and have had zero hardware issues so far. The only thing that's annoying is that it gets quite warm on the hand rest.
BunsanSpace
I have an X1 Carbon 2023. It's pretty solid, the only complaint I have is once the CPU usage is over 10% the fan starts running full blast.
a456463
Eh. Just simply on stability and life, beyond CMOS battery and laptop battery changes, my 5x 2015-2018 lenovos are working like a charm. I love the plastic case, it flexes and catches falls better than the mac. The MBPs have fallen down and dent like crazy, leak electricity through the metal body, weight like crazy and still no OS freedom and no free app store and you got to rely on "homebrew"? It is wild that we are relying on "home" brew for making a machine from on the richest companies in the world palatable.
g947o
Since when do we use crowdsourced anecdotes to represent product quality?
JCattheATM
> but no one except Apple makes a laptop worth a damn.
That's pure nonsense. I'm a fan of the Asus ExpertBooks myself which seem to be largely ignored in these discussions. They weigh about 2 pounds, 15mm thick, they don't overheat, about 15 hours of battery, and pretty damn durable.
throw393234
I also bought a ThinkPad X1 back in 2015. Used it for 9 years with no issues at all. I installed Linux on it last year and still use it.
whalesalad
why did you create a throwaway account for this
bearjaws
The Air is going to run laps around the X1, in literally every benchmark you can come up with besides "its not open source". I have that same processor in a much bulkier thinkpad and it thermal throttles instantly doing basic office multi-tasking, with the fan running constantly.
Also its made out of metal.
bryanlarsen
The X1 Carbon is getting updated to Panther Lake, and Panther Lake is getting competitive with the M5.
> in literally every benchmark you can come up
Nope, Panther Lake will win most gaming benchmarks. The M5 will win most others but not by "running laps around" levels.
mjamesaustin
At what power envelope? Intel chips can compete with M series chips, but usually at way higher power, which means fans running like a jet engine.
nosioptar
Thinkpads have track points, macs don't.
That benchmark is really important to me due to RSI. Track points save me a buttload of hand pain.
zem
interesting, I had to stop using my trackpoint because it was giving me rsi in my index finger. the track pad hasn't given me any issues.
BunsanSpace
Ever since the T450 the trackpoint has been awful.
Can't replace the nob anymore either, as the convex knob was arguably the best
acchow
I had the opposite issue. Trackpoints stated hurting my hand because it requires significantly more force than the Mac's touchpad.
mg
What basic office tasks are that?
The last time I was excited about the performance of local computers was in the 90s I think.
Modern laptops are so insanely fast. Not sure if they are 2x, 10x or 100x faster than I need them to be. But I never hear fans. I never have to wait for the machine these days.
esprehn
Have you used a MacBook as a daily driver since the M chips came out?
gozzoo
It has always been like this. Apple's signature for their laptops is their aluminium body and people seem to like it.
jermaustin1
I like the aluminum body a lot. I'm not particularly clumsy, but each of my macbooks ends up with some fall damage at some point over the 5+ years that I have it.
When I used to be assigned a plastic Dell work laptop, I dropped one onto the carpeted floor of my office because I thought it was going into my padded sleeve of backpack and that cracked the case, and broke the screen. I've accidentally yoinked my MBA (last intel one they made) off my desk, and while it dented the body of it, nothing broke. That is now my drum computer, and it gets regularly pelted with drumsticks when my grip tires.
Imustaskforhelp
My father recently dropped my macbook air from the car essentially on concrete bricks.
It has just gotten a single dent for something less than 0.5 cm and its on the side (although this damage was done when the laptop was closed so some damage is just above the laptop's display aluminium shell.
To be honest, its barely visible and everything is working and there was no damage on display or anything else for what its worth.
I usually don't like apple but damn the macbook air is tiny and can take some damage.
Although I am still just a little sad about the damage because the laptop was perfect condition beforehand now that we talked about it but its incredibly better than any other laptop atleast with that thing in mind. Gonna use this laptop for a long time (M1 Air)
cadamsdotcom
Unfortunately dropping your laptop once in 5 years actually does make you too clumsy for a plastic laptop.
zarzavat
It's essential for thermals. Without the unibody, it would throttle sooner and you'd lose performance.
dijit
The aluminium chassis cannot be used for heat dissipation without risk of harming users. Which is why there is a "macbook air peformance mod" to add thermal-interface-material (instead of thermal insulation) to turn the chassis into a heatsink.
It's not a heatsink by default.
nagisa
Air has no thermal connection to the chassis for the purpose of making it safe to have in contact with skin.
People have been modding theirs to make this contact, though. And been getting a significant performance boost out of it.
geerlingguy
The original Air lineup was thinner in the front and seemed a little lighter. The thicker front on newer airs gives more battery life, but I'm not a fan of it.
gizajob
The thinness at the front was a bit of a hack though wasn’t it? So Steve Jobs could make it look good in photographs. I’d take the extra battery life any day.
epistasis
I'm in the same boat. I have one of the original M1 MacBook airs, and the thicker front feels like overall a downgrade in hardware. Going up to higher ram amounts might be good for some of my datasets, but it's not needed for any software I run.
So I guess I'll wait for the next cycle and hope they return to the "Air" idea again.
actionfromafar
I like the touchpad. Is there any competitor which is as good and exact? I noticed in Linux, it's not as exact.
criddell
Thinkpad touchpads are mediocre at best. Dell’s are a little worse than that IMHO.
I don’t understand why other laptop manufacturers don’t copy the Apple trackpad.
gozzoo
I have Lenovo laptop with quite mediocre touchpad. I got used to use gestures instead of clicking and it works great for me.
donkyrf
If anybody else wondered about figures:
13.6 inch 2560x1664 screen, 1.23kg (13" Mac)
14.0 inch 1920x1200 screen, 0.98kg (14" Thinkpad)
happyopossum
> The 13 inch version is heavier than a ThinkPad X1 Carbon
And costs ~800 more for 16Gb/512 with a slower CPU and worse battery life.
As someone who spends his life on the road with a laptop, I strongly feel that anything that works for you under 3lbs is the sweet spot. The difference between 2.2 and 2.7lbs is miniscule in the grand scheme of my backpack.
open-sesame
But then you'd have to have a plasticky thinkpad with half the screen resolution...
zeusly
It comes with a 2880 x 1800 120Hz OLED
open-sesame
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...
For an RRP of £3,259.99?
Compare that to the base 512GB, 16GB memory macbook air @ £1099.
The next comparable X1 Carbon I can find is: https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...
RRP: £1,900.00 with this crappy display: 14" WUXGA (1920 x 1200), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 100%sRGB, 400 nits, 60 Hz
devilbunny
I really like my X1 Carbon gen 7, aside from the bizarre Ethernet "port" (it has built-in Ethernet, but they didn't have room for RJ45, so instead of just telling you to buy a USB one it's on a dongle that blocks one of its two USB-C ports when plugged in, eliminating the advantage of "doesn't use a USB port"). But aside from fantastic Linux support, it's got little to recommend it over a similar-vintage MBA, which has a much better look and feel.
usagisushi
Same here. If the rumored A18 Pro MacBook stays under 1kg, it would be very compelling.
Regarding lightweight laptops, the Fujitsu FMV Note U series (14-inch) weighs only 634g-917g with Arrow Lake 255H and a replaceable battery.
honeycrispy
I wish they would provide Linux support. I can't stand OSX.
saghm
It seems like there are a decent number of people finding Asahi stable enough for regular use: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1quko4w/how_via...
I imagine there are still some rough edges (and it seems like distro choices are probably a bit lacking at the moment if you prefer something outside of a few specific mainstream options) but given how niche ARM support was before the first M1 machines, the progress that's happened so far is honestly pretty astounding. Given that the iterations from M[n] to M[n + 1] seem less large than the initial leap from Intel to M1, it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop.
As for Apple "supporting" Linux, my perception is that if they wanted to make it harder than it was for the people working on Asahi to even get this far, they almost certainly could have. It seems like they're probably doing the same thing that most laptop vendors do, which is not explicitly support it but also not go out of their way to block it either. For a company with the reputation and history Apple has, I think that's a pretty huge win for the community, and even as someone who overall has a somewhat negative inclination to purchase from them, I have to admit that they seem way less hostile to Linux on their ARM machines than I would have predicted.
TingPing
Asahi is great on earlier models but it will certainly not support the M5 before its already multiple models behind.
wpm
That's only because they are focusing on upstreaming all of their work into the kernel first. A handful of them spent a small amount of time building some device trees for M3 and it didn't take them long to get to the point M1's were at at the first release of Asahi.
I imagine once a lot of the cleanup and maintenance is done on what they have, they'll be in a better spot to accelerate support for other SoCs, and it probably won't be half a decade before the M6 or whatever is supported.
All said, Apple could just spend a tiny tiny amount of their warchest and just ship some goddamn drivers for Linux a la Boot Camp and save the Asahi team the time divining it from the tea leaves.
saghm
Sure, I don't disagree. I feel like I was pretty explicit about what I was claiming though:
> it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop
allthetime
Is it? I have my old M1 Air and I am very curious but don't want to go through the trouble of fiddling about with linux for a few days just to leave it rotting after. I would be inclined to maintain a dual boot situation as well and SSD space is at a premium.
misswaterfairy
It's worth watching the 39C3 talk about porting Linux to Apple Silicon earlier this year.
https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app...
The jist is that Apple don't want to prevent you from running your own bootable code on a Mac (which isn't true for iPhone and iPad, sadly), as long as you don't compromise the security of Apple's bootloader, code, etc.
elxr
Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way.
This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops.
The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus the screen).
dagmx
Can you quantify your claim?
PTL’s highest SKU is comparable to the base M5 for only multicore perf at double the power use in every benchmark I’ve seen. It lags significantly behind in single core.
But I’d love to see a benchmark showing otherwise.
Just the latest I’ve seen https://youtu.be/7OxE7FwJPJM?si=b5T0PbmhUD1TXhX4
But I can find none that have PTL actually anywhere near M5 without strapping a much larger battery to the device
philistine
It's ridiculous to claim high and mighty that a chip that's not out yet is competitive. The only real way to test a laptop chip is in a laptop with the thermal choices made by the laptop maker. Hell, the M5 has been mostly benchmarked on the Macbook Pro, and that has a fan! The M5 is not going to be as impressive in the Air.
It's been five years since M1 and Intel has never been competitive in single-core perf per watt with Apple. It would be surprising if it changed.
lotsofpulp
Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?
brokencode
It’s funny that this is even remotely a concern in 2026. We have computers you can talk to but Windows laptops maybe won’t go to sleep in your backpack.
I do hope that it’s fixed though. I haven’t followed Windows laptops that closely, but my work laptop from a few years ago does lose battery surprisingly quickly when “sleeping”.
philistine
Let me wax poetics here. Apple has been chasing the dream of the portable computer for so long, and has been at the forefront of the ultimate form factor of the personal computer, the laptop, since the early 90s. It's not surprising to me that the company that made an OS for everything, and a project to make an OS for everything, cannot figure out a reliable way to bring us a bicycle for the mind where you just close the lid.
Only Apple has been laser-focused to give us this experience.
Crespyl
I've had my Framework (w/Arch and KDE) since 2022 and have yet to have any problems with sleep. I can safely unplug from my monitor/dock, close the lid, and drop it in my bag. It's never tried to cook itself while in sleep.
Battery life in sleep (and in general) could be better, but on the whole I've been quite happy with it.
criddell
You can go into Windows settings and change what happens when you close the lid to hibernate or power down.
jauntywundrkind
> M5 also features faster unified memory with 153GB/s of bandwidth
I was about to write a post mourning how much I wish Panther Lake really could compete, but lacked the memory bandwidth to offer a real challenge. But supposedly it can go up to 9600MT/s which would bring Panther Lake to ~150GB/s.
I am curious what the NPU on M5 has. The 50 TOp/s on Panther Lake is... fine. Apple is really seeing huge success with MLX, with an adoptable software stack that the PC world is super struggling to deliver.
undefined
sspiff
Same. I was on macOS for work for about 3 years. Never gelled with me.
I was on an M2 Macbook Pro with Asahi and it was great. It's really hard to fault Apple's hardware for most use cases.
I'm currently on a Strix Halo laptop (HP Zbook), which is about as expensive, and the hardware is great, but power efficiency and build quality lag leagues behind by Apple. A 4000 euro laptop still feels like a cheap toy.
dcminter
One of us! :)
Currently in a brief macos phase before I can be issued my Linux laptop at work. It's so clunky. A major annoyance for me right now is the lack of MST multi-screen over USB which means my nice daisy-chained home setup is fine on my near-decade-old Dell but doesn't work at all on the fancy Macbook. They have the hardware to support it, they just don't.
Generally the hardware with Apple is amazing but I'll take the hit on that and things like battery life just to get an OS that feels like it's on my side.
I'd maybe consider Asahi for home use but I'd be wary of it for work. Perhaps in a few years.
pjmlp
Then support companies like Tuxedo, System 76, Dell, Asus,....
The only time Apple supported first class Linux on their consumer hardware was with MkLinux, and that was when everything was going down in flames and they needed to survive somehow.
cromka
I believe they'll enable it, actually, fairly soon. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight. Considering they have long-term contracts on RAM and SSDs and that they steep margin on their Mac hardware, there is hardly any reason to not make money off of those who actually wouldn't buy Mac hardware otherwise. Plus, there's a chance they'll also buy AirPods, mouse, keyboard, etc.
w10-1
No support needed. Run Linux in a VM. Devices are limited, and you can't save/restore your state, but there's no real performance hit: my code runs faster on macOS(VM(Linux)) than macOS.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
Buy the mac, try Linux in an hour, take it back if you don't like it.
theowaway213456
Agreed - I just can't get excited about the world's fastest CPU core running on the world's most locked-down and developer-unfriendly OS.
virgildotcodes
World's most developer-unfriendly OS seems a bit hyperbolic when such a large number of devs use MacOS as their primary dev OS.
jama211
Agreed, it’s Unix like, homebrew is great, it’s like GP forgot about windows
a456463
Same. Virtualization is worse than on windows. OSX is garbage made by wannabe designers who don't know anything about human design
longbucks
Does the chip actually improves? I’m still on a specced out M1 Max (64GB RAM / 2TB SSD) and it still feels like a beast for my daily work. It’s wild that we’re at the M5 now, but it’s hard to justify an upgrade when this machine still handles everything I throw at it so well. Seeing 512GB finally become the baseline is great, but I think I’ll be holding onto this M1 for a while longer.
jhawk28
M5 is almost 2x the single core performance of the M1 Max. You would notice that things are faster.
metaltyphoon
Well when macOS feels heavier now than before so is that 2x really a 2x?
maest
But everything is fast enough, so moving to the M5 seems like a downgrade, as it is heavier
tiffanyh
I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread.
The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper.
This is a solid product, that continually receives incremental improvements and delivered at a lower price point (when spec'd out).
bhouston
The MBA is an absolutely solid product that is actually sufficient for the large majority of full stack devs. I use it (MBA 15" M3) with a large complex TypeScript code base, and it is fast and amazing at 24GB of ram or more.
PS. The biggest speedup I got this past year (10x) was switching to native TypeScript (tsgo) and native linting (biome or oxlint).
ajross
> absolutely solid product that is actually sufficient for the large majority of full stack devs
Worth pointing out that the same thing is true for a $350 windows box. The news here isn't "The M5 Air is a disappointment", it's "Laptops are commoditized and boring".
jimbokun
As a developer my quality of work life improved radically when they let me have a Mac instead of the Windows laptop I was using.
bhouston
As a Windows-based developer from 1996 to 2015 and then Linux from 2015 to 2020, I can say that my dev experience is immeasurably better using a Mac.
The ranking is MacOS >> Linux >> Windows. The Apple ecosystem is expensive but worth it if you can afford it (iPhone + Watch + iPad + AirPods + Mac.)
lenerdenator
> Worth pointing out that the same thing is true for a $350 windows box
Depends. Are you doing dev on Microsoft's stack, or are you doing dev on all of the other stacks?
davio
$350 windows box probably isn't silent like the MBA
a456463
dudee.. ihave 32GB ram in a laptop from 2015 and $300 laptop from ebay for compiling kernels. please.
packetlost
It's a bit slow, but still workable for Rust too. I prefer doing my daily work on a much more powerful 9955HX though.
LoganDark
Makes sense; according to Geekbench, 9955XX has about a 25% lead in multi-core over the base M4, and about a 5% lead in multi-core over the base M5. And more cores, so better for parallel Rust compilation.
r0fl
This laptop should be good enough for 90%+ of all users out there for 5-10 years
kibwen
[flagged]
lghh
Mine shipped with one. It's not perfect, but it's always been more than capable for me. Did yours not boot into anything on startup?
ApolloFortyNine
Why is the finder the way it is? Is it actually easier to use than (whatever the normal file browser windows and linux uses is called) if all you ever use is macs?
Most of the other quirks I can work around (though the default alt tab behavior not picking up windows of the same app is an insane default) but the finder is just unusable.
georgeburdell
Snarky but I agree. I dislike how much MacOS changes with each version. My kids have a Linux box (NUC). I wish we could have Linux on a late model Mac Mini
wasting_time
I wonder how many more sales Apple would get if they published enough specs to make Asahi et.al. first-class.
gib444
Until they release an update that slows it down
allthetime
Which one is that? My M1 MBA absolutely rips still.
havaloc
I don't get it either. I've rolled out well over a hundred of these in a higher education setting and I have never had one have a hardware issue or needed to retire it other than wanton damage. I still have a ton of M1s in circulation and they are great still. I had to just replace a Dell with only 2.5 years of service, they tend to fall apart.
ProllyInfamous
Twenty years ago, I worked at a Dell laptop repair facility, which primarily supported education customers.
>other than wanton damage
Some fairly clever students read their warranties closely and figured out how to get annual upgrades without violating warranty exclusion clauses. Very clever. Very annoying.
ajross
> The MBA is an amazing value, and appears to have only gotten slightly cheaper.
Looks to me like the base model went up by $100, no?
The whining is just whining. It's a fine laptop, but it's not significantly improved from the one they shipped a year ago. Add to that the fact that laptops as a whole are well on the way down their commoditization slope and the general HN desire to cheer about Great New Apple Devices, this is for sure a backwards step.
c-hendricks
Base price went up, as did storage and the new price is cheaper than the previous price + equivalent storage I think
Robdel12
I retired my M1 MacBook Air last year, really out of power greed. I wanted to play with local LLMs (lol).
I seriously never had issues with my m1 in my workloads. Dev stuff, docker, etc. editing 30min 4k GoPro videos. I probably would these days with rust dev stacked in there but yeah. Can’t agree more, they’re an amazing value.
a456463
Because Apple is ripping everyone off in the name of design when things apples to apples are much better elsewhere
jstummbillig
The MB Air M line is a personal contender for best product of all time: Fantastic performance without fans, amazing battery life, high res display and build quality at that price point.
When the M1 came out it was quite frankly unbelievable. And, even after all these years, I still don't see who would beat it across those dimensions.
allthetime
My M1 Air is going strong as my travel & about-town laptop. It can do everything I do on my vastly more powerful M4 mbp, aside from compile multiple mobile apps simultaneously in less than a minute. Absolutely insane value and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.
ProllyInfamous
>fantastic performance without fans
I have an MBA15M3 that is lovely. With 1mm thermal heat pads (internal, CPU|case), I was able to increase the run-time before throttling significantly.
Among my favorite evening companions. Much more durable than initially conceivable.
joe_mamba
>I'm not sure why the negative tone in this thread.
Which negative tone? 90% the mainline comments I see are positive.
t1234s
I was hoping they would move one of the usb c ports over to the right side. this is the only thing I dislike about the M4 air
avhception
I have 2 thinkpads, and one of them is better in every aspect - except that the inferior one has it's 2 USB-C ports on opposite sides of the laptop, while the other one has both ports on the same side. Being able to plug in the charger from either side is really great, will definitely look for that in a future laptop.
a456463
You want framework. I can switch ports in whatever configuration I want.
bhouston
I love my MacBook Air 15" M3 so much. It is large fast and light. While I really appreciate the improved M5, my main ask is actually a brighter screen. The current 500 nits is a bit low if you are ever not in a dark room.
Anyhow, because the differences between my M3 and the new M5 are just the CPU/GPU and I am not actually hurt much by the current CPU speed, I won't be upgrading.
ProllyInfamous
I love mine as well... got it for $849 at CostCo, last year, in an astoundingly-awesome tax-free weekend sale, with 2%cashback.
Not really using it for anything demanding, mostly just listing to podcasts at night (the speakers are wonderful). Battery life is incredible. Screen mostly stays off, but is very clear — I can see the brightness being an issue if used outdoors/windowsun.
thesimp
In NL I can buy a base Macbook Air with 16G memory and 512G SSD voor 1199,- inc tax.
I just looked up my M1 receipt: in 2020 I bought a Macbook Air M1 with 16G memory and 512G SSD for 1399,- inc tax.
I did not expect the price for a base machine to go down in 2026.
omnimus
The base M1 was 256gb 8gb ram for 999usd. Thats why yours was 1399eur.
Each Air generations gets slight upgrade and also now got 100usd price increase.
zeusly
That was not a base machine in 2020
tempaccount420
Wow, 512GB of storage on the base model! That means the more reasonable 1TB option is cheaper now (+$200 over base).
aBioGuy
The M4 MacBook Air (16gb, 1TB) retailed for $1400 (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1884084-REG/apple_mba...).
The M5 equivalent is now $1300. 1TB requires the CPU upgrade.
SirMaster
Yes, previously the 512GB Air was $1200, now it's $1100.
MagicMoonlight
I’m still running a 2013 MacBook Air. 4gb of RAM, no CPU to speak of. Still works.
I’ll probably buy this, unless the cheap one they release tomorrow is better. A current MacBook is something like 30x more powerful than my ancient one. It’s going to be insane.
haunter
The new cheap Macbooks have also been more or less confirmed.
Macbook Neo, probably coming with the iPhone A-series chips https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-accidentally-leak...
normie3000
iPhone processor? Should be interesting to see how performance is.
raw_anon_1111
The latest iPhone processors are faster for single core performance than an M1.
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
This is the best laptop for the general consumer around $1k.
There is simply nothing comparable in the Windows laptop world. You can maybe get a cheaper Windows laptop but it will be terrible in almost everything - the new Apple budget MacBooks will probably be a much better choice. And around $1000, there is no comparison. I wish it was different.