You should wait until next Fall if you don't really need to replace your M1 Max. Rumors say that Apple's going to redesign the Macbook Pros next year with an OLED screen.
I would rather buy the last refresh of the old design. Waiting for a redesign is risky, as some redesings are just bad (like the touchbar MBP). And Apple is opinionated enough that it often refuses to admit its mistakes and sticks to them for years.
As someone who went all in on the 2019 i9 Intel MBP months before Apple announced the M1 MBP, I can tell you this strategy is not always optimal. Years of managing overheating and underperformance due to said overheating has not been fun. Especially when I found out about the benchmarks showing those M1s were running circles around the laptop I purchased, for a fraction of the price
Apple has had missteps of course, but you can usually buy last year’s model, right?
OLED is much better than other display technology, and they’ve done other OLED screen devices. It would be quite surprising to see them screw this up—not impossible, sure. They could screw up some other design element for example. But, it would be somewhat surprising, right? And OLED is a big change so maybe they won’t also feel the need to mess with other stuff.
The notch is bigger than it should be for sure, I would've loved for it to be narrower. But I don't really mind the trade-off it represents.
You could add half an inch of screen bezel and make the machine bigger, just to fit the web cam. Or you could remove half an inch of screen , essentially making the "notch" stretch across the whole top of the laptop. Or you could find some compromised place to put the camera, like those Dell laptops which put the camera near the hinge. Or you can let the screen fill the whole lid of the laptop, with a cut-out for the camera, and design the GUI such that the menu bar fills the part of the screen that's interrupted by the notch.
I personally don't mind that last option. For my needs, it might very well be the best alternative. If I needed a bigger below-the-notch area, I could get the 16" option instead of the 14" option.
jltsiren|4 months ago
anigbrowl|4 months ago
jameslk|4 months ago
bee_rider|4 months ago
OLED is much better than other display technology, and they’ve done other OLED screen devices. It would be quite surprising to see them screw this up—not impossible, sure. They could screw up some other design element for example. But, it would be somewhat surprising, right? And OLED is a big change so maybe they won’t also feel the need to mess with other stuff.
kossTKR|4 months ago
mort96|4 months ago
The notch is bigger than it should be for sure, I would've loved for it to be narrower. But I don't really mind the trade-off it represents.
You could add half an inch of screen bezel and make the machine bigger, just to fit the web cam. Or you could remove half an inch of screen , essentially making the "notch" stretch across the whole top of the laptop. Or you could find some compromised place to put the camera, like those Dell laptops which put the camera near the hinge. Or you can let the screen fill the whole lid of the laptop, with a cut-out for the camera, and design the GUI such that the menu bar fills the part of the screen that's interrupted by the notch.
I personally don't mind that last option. For my needs, it might very well be the best alternative. If I needed a bigger below-the-notch area, I could get the 16" option instead of the 14" option.
brookst|4 months ago