> I still don’t like macOS and would prefer to run Linux on this laptop. But Asahi Linux still needs some work before it’s usable for me (I need external display output, and M4 support). This doesn’t bother me too much, though, as I don’t use this computer for serious work.
“I don’t use this computer for serious work.” Dropped $3K on MBP to play around with. Definitely should have gotten MBA
My work got me a $6500 laptop (128 gb unified memory m4 max) and I had to get a replacement for my self, paid $4000 for 48gb unified RAM and feel completely ripped off
> I don’t notice going back to 60 Hz displays on computers. However, on phones, where a lot more animations are a key part of the user experience, I think 120 Hz displays are more interesting.
I'm always so jealous of these people, 60hz is just so bad for me now and even make me a bit motion sick.
I can see it in everything, moving the window, scrolling, the cursor.
It's interesting how different people pick up different details. I can't really see the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz for example, but I'm unusually sensitive to bad kerning. The nano texture screen also screams smearing and low resolution to me.
I've made a test for myself. Screen split into two parts, two small squares moving and bouncing. First square moves every frame, second square skips every second frame, but moves 2x. So basically one half of the screen is full FPS, another half of the screen is half FPS. And I implemented it as a "blind test", so I could make a guess and then check it.
For screen with 60 FPS, the difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS was pretty obvious and I could guess it 100% of the time.
For screen with 144FPS, the difference between 72FPS and 144FPS was not obvious at all and I couldn't reliably guess it at all. I also checked it with a few other persons, and they all failed this simple test.
So now I'm holding firm opinion, that these high-FPS displays are marketing gimmick.
https://pastebin.com/raw/hwR62Yhi here's HTML, save it and open. left click reveals which half is "fast" (full FPS) or "slow" (half FPS), scroll changes speed, F5 generates new test.
The curse of high standards. I wish I dont notice a lot of things. I wish I can stop thinking about why something that is clearly better hasn't been done.
This is such a weird experience for me. On my phone, I instantly notice going back to 60 from 90 hz. But on my computers and handheld consoles, I don't mind, or even notice, at all.
> My ideal MacBook would probably be a MacBook Air, but with the nano-texture display! :)
I agree on the nano-texture display having used one in person for a little bit. It's sort of like an ultra fine matte texture that isn't noticable while using it, but is noticable compared to other devices in the same room. I hope it becomes a more standard option on future devices.
That said, I've used Thinkpads with matte displays and while not as fine, they mostly have the same benefit.
I think my ideal would be a MacBook Air with both the nano-texture and higher 120hz refresh rate the Pro has. With that, I'll trade an extra second of compile time for my rust projects for the smaller form factor.
To be it looked very much like the matte coating on Dell monitors, where bunched up same-color pixels have this "feels like there's a rainbow here but if I focus on it I don't see it anymore" effect. Definitely better than ThinkPad matte, though.
My mom has an M1 air, and its resolution is not great. Everything looks a bit blurry compared with my 4K Dell XPS my wife’s MacBook Pro m4 display. I guess the air’s native resolution means it has to do fractional scaling.
One thing that wasn't mentioned is the max sustained screen brightness for SDR, which is higher on the M4 Pro (1000 nits) compared to the M4 Air or M1 Pro (500 nits).
There’s an awesome app called Vivid which just opens the HDR max brightness. I use it all the time with my M3 Pro when working outside and I believe it also works on earlier models.
It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.
Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels.
This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy displays provide a superior visual experience by minimizing internal refraction and reflecting ambient light at high angles, which reduces display pollution. Consequently, glossy screens often appear much brighter, blacks appear blacker without being washed out, colors show a higher dynamic range, and small details remain crisper. High-quality glass glossy displays are often easy to use even in full daylight, and reflections are manageable because they are full optical reflections with correct depth, allowing the user to focus on the screen content.
Apple's "nano texture" matte screens were engineered to solve the specific optical problems of traditional matte finishes, the washed-out colors and smeary details. But they cost more to make. The glossy option is still available, and still good.
If anything, Apple was right back then.
Glossy has so many benefits for the places where you’d use a computer, it’s not even close. Having the option to pay premium for those few that work in environments where matte helps them makes sense. I’d pay money for my display to not be matte.
I wonder if they will (re)introduce premium keyboards with sculpted keys that self-center your fingers someday. magsafe coming back was nice, maybe more extra ports?
Apple was actually late to the glossy display party. HP and Dell moved to them a few years before Apple. I don't think Apple was "insisting" on them, but rather following an industry trend that they were late to.
They are really good at selling a small quantitative improvement that causes them to start using something, as a new type of thing going from impossible to possible. As if the tech didn’t just didn’t exist before Apple started using it.
It is probably a pretty good screen, though.
I don’t really like Apple overall. But, to some extent, it’s like… well, maybe that’s a good way of selling incremental engineering improvements.
i recently worked with a macbook pro and it caused uncomfortable feelings of eyestrain. i had some app that was supposed to disable the temporal dithering but i'm not sure if it helped. i'm curious if there's anyone else on here like me who has experienced eyestrain with macbooks where the nano texture display has helped.
It's certainly on brand for Apple to face widespread criticism in the past for having matte screens as the default (computer magazines of the day found that matte finishes made screens too dim) only to face renewed criticism for dropping the thing they were previously criticized for.
> It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option
I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later.
If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it.
To be clear, I've been complaining about glossy Macs ever since matte was eliminated, and I too purchased an M4 MacBook Pro soon after it was available.
It’s classic Apple commenter not know about Apple. They offered matte display upgrades to the MacBook Pro almost 20 years ago. The current glossy black display only became a product line wide choice with the retina displays in 2012, likely because they didn’t prioritize getting an appropriate matte glass finish on the retina screens due to low demand.
> The nano texture display is great at reducing reflections. I could immediately see the difference when placing two laptops side by side: The bright Apple Store lights showed up very prominently on the normal display, and were almost not visible at all on the nano texture display.
This is a quiet boon for those who enjoy working outdoors but find the sun/brightness a problem.
An frequently overlooked point is the display brightness. The pro models offer 1600 nits peak brightness, which makes these good units for looking at HDR content, especially if you like to take photos or edit videos. Meanwhile the Air maxes out at 500 nits, so the effect and contrast is drastically reduced for those models.
20 years ago I bought a G3 iBook because the hardware was lovely and the system was supported perfectly by stock Debian woody. (Hands up if you remember having to bless your laptop with “holy penguin pee”, part of the output of the yaboot bootloader used in PowerPC systems!)
Times changed and the best hardware for me right now is a Dell XPS from the model lines a few years back that looked like an aluminum sandwich with a black plastic filling. These machines are fantastic but (1) no OLED, (2) now high speed refresh rate, and (3) the keyboard isn’t great.
Could this modern Apple hardware bring me back to Free OS on pretty hardware, or is there something else I should try?
Asahi (Linux) lags quite far behind the latest Apple hardware release. If you want the Linux experience on Apple hardware, I think the best move is full-screen VM. Performance of that is more than good enough, but it does mean you are running a full non-free software stack to get to your free software VM.
I bought one of those iBooks for Debian linux, but I found the resolution was a bit small for X. At the time, I had a thing for non-intel architectures. Prior to that, I had done a lot of work packaging up Debian for Sparc machines. I had access to a wide variety of Sun workstations at my job as a sysadmin at a university.
Can't you run small LLMs on like... a Macbook air M1? Some models are under 1B weights, they will be almost useless but I imagine you could run them on anything from the last 10 years.
But yeah if you wanna run 600B+ weights models your gonna need an insane setup to run it locally.
How much of a difference would I see in compute between an M2 and M4 for example? Assuming it’s the same RAM. Did they also make the gpu and neural engine that much better between the two?
It's always interesting to see users have somewhat strong opinions over fan vs fanless. I could never go Macbook Air again because I've been to hotter climates and do things beyond just using a browser and invariably the keyboard gets too warm for my fingertips. I need the MBPs fans and Mac Fan Control, noise be dammed.
I still have a 2019 MacBook Pro with the non-butterfly keyboard and escape key (unfortunately still the Touch Bar).
It’s still a great laptop except the battery lasts maybe 75 mins. I just keep it plugged in but despite the fact it’s 6 years old I don’t notice any problems with it.
I’m tempted to buy an M4 laptop just because it’s “new” and “faster” but then I ask myself Why? It’s the same thing with my iPhone. Until my laptop dies or there is something functional that I can’t do with my old laptop I’m going to keep using it.
I couldn't really trust the author of the review after he established his preference for "quiet computers" having no cooling slots or whatever he called them. Okay, fine, you're placing aesthetics above actual performance, then. The Pro laptops are the only ones viable for any really hardcore work because if you push the Air too hard it is going to just slow down in order to stay cool and that's not what you want if you are doing graphics work or in my case, I was running a bunch of containers in K8s. I never bought an Air because it was too similar to an iPad.
The thing that mostly irks me about Apple these days is soldered in RAM and non-upgradeable storage. Apple is still the best thing going for doing most pro development work, but it's just so irritating that they shit on us like this. I did buy an M4 Mini and expanded it some. My 2019 MB Pro is siting here on the desk, mostly unused these days. The Intel Macs are basically dead now--still great computers, but no longer desirable. My daughter is doing Graphic Arts in college and is using another 2019 Pro for that. I've used Macs continuously since at least 2014.
>The thing that mostly irks me about Apple these days is soldered in RAM and non-upgradeable storage.
Isn't the 'soldered-in' RAM and storage fundamental to the M-series architecture? It's not like there's a board with individual chips sitting in it for the RAM and storage, that could potentially have been 'popped out' if they weren't soldered in. It's all one giant 'chip' now.
I have done real work, using a computer 10+ hours a day on every ecosystem, Windows, Linux, Mac. I've used each for ~10 years a piece.
My most recent laptop died and it really showed me what I appreciate in a laptop, performance, build quality, lightweight, good battery, low noise, good ergonomics.
I was sick of the recent overheating generation of pc laptops that don't last more than a couple years under my usage.
As a result I decided to try to switch back to a macbook after a decade hiatus.
The hardware is good but the software is absolute garbage. Trialing it for a week the amount of bullshit that is MacOS was enough, and Asahi wasn't there yet either. Instead I decided to get an AMD framework laptop.
Best decision ever.
I have a laptop that's got great quality, can be upgraded without paying a $5k tax, can replace the keyboard for $100 instead of $700, it works with me rather than against me and my wallet.
Heh, matte; finally. Gloss is such a PITA if you can't control what's behind you, which ironically is a pretty common dev-with-macbook experience. Walking around to different parts of the office. Off-sites. Etc.
I've only purchased matte screen laptops because I only use them for travel. Lenovo pretty much.
Also prefer semi-gloss for my monitors as I work in well lit daylight conditions if I can help it. There have been very high quality semi-gloss monitors for ages now.
lots of people can notice that. my last job involved meticulously timing our software's input-tp-display latency, testing viewers' responses to it, and fighting for each and every ms we should shave off of it.
I’ve been swapping back and forth between a MacBook Pro and a Linux workstation lately. The input latency difference is insane - macOS is sooo much worse than Linux. It’s gotten to the point that I’m porting code to Linux just so I don’t have to use my editor from macOS.
I don’t know how many milliseconds the difference is, but going back and forth it’s so obvious to me that it’s painful.
I was on the fence for same reason - should I get the nano display? I opted for the 15" MBA, and the display has been great. Way better than my 2019 Macbook Pro. I've had zero issues with glare, but I'm also in an office environment during the day and use it at night when home.
"My ideal MacBook would probably be a MacBook Air, but with the nano-texture display! :)"
Mine as well. What is the likelihood this will happen?
I have a hunch it will not and they will either scrap the nano texture completely or keep it as differentiator for the Pro line, but I am curious what others think.
Mine too, and I bought an air in the last generation and I barely use it because I thought the 60hz display would be ok, but I've been living with 120's everywhere for long enough the 60hz is actually horrible to use now. First world problems for sure, but it's enough that I literally don't use the machine.
I’ve used MBP for many many years, but recently bought an MB Air. I slightly miss the extra ports. I love how much lighter it is. I never notice a speed difference. I’m always ssh’d into a Linux box if crunching any real data, and for UI stuff the CPU doesn’t need a fan at all. Definitely gonna stick with MB Air.
I also went for the fantastic nano texture display on my M4, after having glossy my M1. Very happy with the decision as I use the laptop in brightly lit enviroments so appreciate fewer reflections. Going back to a glossy display is a shock.
Same experience. I cannot consider any screen that does not have the nano texture coating. It is exceptional and a huge improvement. To the point that I actually prefer a tester Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra over Apple’s own iPhone display.
I do not like the Apple Nano Texture. 5% of the time it really helps but 100% of the time it just reduces the picture fidelity somehow. When doing visual tasks like video editing, it is just not good.
Is it possible to install previous macOS version on newest macbook model? I see people having terrible experience with macOS Tahoe yet I am considering purchasing a macbook..
On M5 MacBook Pro: no, simply because no builds with drivers for it exist
On all others, including the M4 MacBook Air and the M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pro currently for sale: yes. At most you'll have to make a bootable USB if it's already got Tahoe installed, you can even install in place (but some things might break, of course)
I upgraded from M4 to M5 MBP because I broke my M4's screen and so my company ordered a replacement M5 while the M4 is being repaired. I can't really notice a difference at all. It's an absolute work horse, but so was the M4. I _did_ spring for the nano texture display this time around, and that is definitely nice (but nothing to do with the M5)
I just upgraded from an M1 to an M5 a couple days ago.
It is rather shocking how much faster everything feels given I didn't think my old macbook pro was slow. While I expected xcode builds to be faster (and they are), I was a bit shocked when opening a new firefox tab was instantaneous since I hadn't noticed it wasn't before.
Another thing I didn't expect is that the new speakers have noticeably more bass and can get quite a bit louder.
I didn't get the nano-textured display, because having to adjust the display angle to get colors to render correctly is more annoying than having to do it for glare (I don't work in a high-glare environment).
funny i was recently picking between a glossy and nano texture screen and came to the opposite conclusion — the glossy screen’s image was so much more crisp, and i didn’t really see much difference in terms of reflection
The part about noticing web pages loading (at most) 8ms faster due to the display is total nonsense. Many can notice the difference between 60 and 120Hz when scrolling, but definitely not for a page load. That’s less than 1/10th of the blink of an eye.
If page load seems noticeably faster, it’s far more likely that it’s simply a faster machine. Or imaginary.
After 18 years of Mac-abstinence, I just bought a MacBook Air and realized there is apparently no way to change the App Store language without changing region and payment method. WTF? That seems like the most basic thing one could imagine. What has happened to Apple?
I was able to switch the App Store language from English to Spanish by changing my primary language in System Settings > Language & Region > Preferred Languages.
It didn't require me to switch my region or payment method.
Why did you think Apple was user friendly or flexible...it's the Apple way or the highway. Most only stick around because of the currently superior hardware
I have the M4 Max. The fans never really come on unless I launch something that maxes out the GPUs, which I rarely do. I do have some software projects that use all CPUs and maxes those out while they build (all 14 of them). The fans stay silent.
This is, by far, the fastest machine I've ever had. My previous laptop was a more modest M1 mac book pro. And before that I was on a cheapo intel i5 Samsung laptop - a stop gap solution after my last intel mac died when a loose keyboard key destroyed the screen (yep the generation with the crappy keyboards, worst mac I've ever owned). That intel was of course pathetic and shit. I wasn't expecting much and it disappointed me despite that. The M1 was about 3x faster. The M4 Max is a beast. In terms of build speeds, the i5 was unusable while building and would take 15 minutes. The M1 got it down to 5 minutes (10 CPU cores that are faster than the 4 intel ones). But it didn't have enough memory so swapping slowed it down a bit. The M4 max builds stuff in around 30 seconds. No more swapping and the 14 cores are quite a bit faster than the M1 ones. Same project (but of course with a few years of development). We have more tests now, not fewer.
Otherwise it's a great laptop. Keyboard is fine. Touchpad is best in class in the industry (everything else is pathetically mediocre in comparison; it's not even close), the screen is best in class as well (contrast, colors, resolution, everything). And Apple learned it's lesson when it comes to keyboards. Most windows/linux laptops I'm aware off are a compromise between heating/cooling, lousy input and output devices, performance, design, screen quality, etc. Apple nails all of those things. Nobody else does.
High end Macs are not cheap. But for professionals it's a minor expense. If you lease a car for getting your ass to work every morning, you are probably spending 2-3x more at least than what this would cost you. And the whole point of getting to work is to open your laptop and earn a living with it. It's more important than the damn car. It's what pays for that car. I spend less than what used to be 1 hour of my freelance rate per month on this absolute monster. Maybe it's 2 hours for you if you just got started. That's still nothing on 160ish billable hours per month. Employers tend to be less enlightened of course. But if it's your choice, don't be frugal and buy the laptop you need. If a simple browser is all you need, of course get something decent looking like a mac book air or whatever. But otherwise, get the best you can afford. I've compromised once with that Samsung. I did not enjoy that.
We used to sell conversion kits to shoehorn a pixel qi display into the thinkpad x230. Since apple has put in 1,000nit displays on the pros, we don't bother anymore. The nano texture sold me and it performs wonderfully outdoors. I hate giving apple money but here I am.
It's because Apple sucks the least. They still suck, though. They could build decent computers that are upgradeable, but they refuse because they want your $$$$ in large amounts.
macOS does not have auto update. In fact it doesn't bother you with any updates which lead to me behind patches behind because I was accustomed to Windows nagging me for updates every week.
If you'd like to change that, you can go to System Settings → Battery → Options → Wake for Network Access
Or just search for "Power Nap" (what it used to be called). They usually wake up intermittently for Time Machine backups, wake-on-lane and other stuff.
i'll never understand picky preferences about monitors... i still use an LG flatron wide that's old enough to vote... and when i slack at the apple store, it's not like i notice some life-or-death difference. a monitor is a monitor.
ok, i guess for graphic designers it might matter more?
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
dr_pardee|4 months ago
“I don’t use this computer for serious work.” Dropped $3K on MBP to play around with. Definitely should have gotten MBA
criddell|4 months ago
mastax|4 months ago
e12e|4 months ago
arthurcolle|3 months ago
Sad
bix6|4 months ago
jofzar|4 months ago
I'm always so jealous of these people, 60hz is just so bad for me now and even make me a bit motion sick.
I can see it in everything, moving the window, scrolling, the cursor.
kccqzy|4 months ago
hu3|4 months ago
There's less ghosting in 240hz.
And scrolling on 60hz to me looks blurry.
I'd like to think that those who don't notice the difference have improved brain GPUs that can compensate for ghosting.
vbezhenar|4 months ago
For screen with 60 FPS, the difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS was pretty obvious and I could guess it 100% of the time.
For screen with 144FPS, the difference between 72FPS and 144FPS was not obvious at all and I couldn't reliably guess it at all. I also checked it with a few other persons, and they all failed this simple test.
So now I'm holding firm opinion, that these high-FPS displays are marketing gimmick.
https://pastebin.com/raw/hwR62Yhi here's HTML, save it and open. left click reveals which half is "fast" (full FPS) or "slow" (half FPS), scroll changes speed, F5 generates new test.
kcrwfrd_|4 months ago
ksec|4 months ago
I would live a much happier life.
QuiEgo|4 months ago
When I use a desktop display, my pattern is: load page, read content for 10-30 seconds, scroll, repeat.
When I use a phone, the read-time-before-scroll is more like 1-5 seconds due to the much smaller display.
I notice the scrolling blur in both places on 60 Hz displays, but it bothers me way more on a phone because I'm scrolling so much more.
rigrassm|4 months ago
aucisson_masque|4 months ago
There is nothing groundbreaking about 120hz.
dontlaugh|4 months ago
It’s unfortunate if it bothers you. I have the same reaction to 30Hz.
adastra22|4 months ago
tobi_bsf|4 months ago
npteljes|4 months ago
accrual|4 months ago
I agree on the nano-texture display having used one in person for a little bit. It's sort of like an ultra fine matte texture that isn't noticable while using it, but is noticable compared to other devices in the same room. I hope it becomes a more standard option on future devices.
That said, I've used Thinkpads with matte displays and while not as fine, they mostly have the same benefit.
ymyms|4 months ago
rsingel|4 months ago
I ran that thing for like 6 years til the replacement for the failed GPU failed again.
More matte screens please!
krashidov|4 months ago
smileybarry|4 months ago
christophilus|4 months ago
My mom has an M1 air, and its resolution is not great. Everything looks a bit blurry compared with my 4K Dell XPS my wife’s MacBook Pro m4 display. I guess the air’s native resolution means it has to do fractional scaling.
carbocation|4 months ago
flyinglizard|4 months ago
rottencupcakes|4 months ago
LeoPanthera|4 months ago
This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy displays provide a superior visual experience by minimizing internal refraction and reflecting ambient light at high angles, which reduces display pollution. Consequently, glossy screens often appear much brighter, blacks appear blacker without being washed out, colors show a higher dynamic range, and small details remain crisper. High-quality glass glossy displays are often easy to use even in full daylight, and reflections are manageable because they are full optical reflections with correct depth, allowing the user to focus on the screen content.
Apple's "nano texture" matte screens were engineered to solve the specific optical problems of traditional matte finishes, the washed-out colors and smeary details. But they cost more to make. The glossy option is still available, and still good.
tymscar|4 months ago
m463|4 months ago
mdasen|4 months ago
bee_rider|4 months ago
It is probably a pretty good screen, though.
I don’t really like Apple overall. But, to some extent, it’s like… well, maybe that’s a good way of selling incremental engineering improvements.
inference-god|4 months ago
a-dub|4 months ago
GeekyBear|4 months ago
lapcat|4 months ago
I don't recall Apple ever "insisting" anything about glossy vs. matte. They simply eliminated the matte option without comment, and finally brought it back many years later.
If you have a reference to a public statement from Apple defending the elimination of the matte option, I'd like to see it.
To be clear, I've been complaining about glossy Macs ever since matte was eliminated, and I too purchased an M4 MacBook Pro soon after it was available.
shuckles|4 months ago
nomilk|4 months ago
This is a quiet boon for those who enjoy working outdoors but find the sun/brightness a problem.
quitit|4 months ago
nwienert|4 months ago
I live in a sunny place with big windows and basically use it all day every day. When it turns off my screen feels broken I so prefer the brightness.
ricardobeat|4 months ago
Unless you’re making Instagram content, very few photographers use HDR. Everything else will look the same on both screens.
gorgoiler|4 months ago
Times changed and the best hardware for me right now is a Dell XPS from the model lines a few years back that looked like an aluminum sandwich with a black plastic filling. These machines are fantastic but (1) no OLED, (2) now high speed refresh rate, and (3) the keyboard isn’t great.
Could this modern Apple hardware bring me back to Free OS on pretty hardware, or is there something else I should try?
jitl|4 months ago
dunham|4 months ago
__mharrison__|4 months ago
amelius|4 months ago
bigyabai|4 months ago
ericmcer|4 months ago
But yeah if you wanna run 600B+ weights models your gonna need an insane setup to run it locally.
yalogin|4 months ago
charlie0|4 months ago
blindriver|4 months ago
It’s still a great laptop except the battery lasts maybe 75 mins. I just keep it plugged in but despite the fact it’s 6 years old I don’t notice any problems with it.
I’m tempted to buy an M4 laptop just because it’s “new” and “faster” but then I ask myself Why? It’s the same thing with my iPhone. Until my laptop dies or there is something functional that I can’t do with my old laptop I’m going to keep using it.
operatingthetan|4 months ago
willsmith72|4 months ago
cottsak|4 months ago
Next.
moooo99|4 months ago
lisbbb|4 months ago
The thing that mostly irks me about Apple these days is soldered in RAM and non-upgradeable storage. Apple is still the best thing going for doing most pro development work, but it's just so irritating that they shit on us like this. I did buy an M4 Mini and expanded it some. My 2019 MB Pro is siting here on the desk, mostly unused these days. The Intel Macs are basically dead now--still great computers, but no longer desirable. My daughter is doing Graphic Arts in college and is using another 2019 Pro for that. I've used Macs continuously since at least 2014.
PlunderBunny|4 months ago
Isn't the 'soldered-in' RAM and storage fundamental to the M-series architecture? It's not like there's a board with individual chips sitting in it for the RAM and storage, that could potentially have been 'popped out' if they weren't soldered in. It's all one giant 'chip' now.
unknown|4 months ago
[deleted]
zepolen|4 months ago
My most recent laptop died and it really showed me what I appreciate in a laptop, performance, build quality, lightweight, good battery, low noise, good ergonomics.
I was sick of the recent overheating generation of pc laptops that don't last more than a couple years under my usage.
As a result I decided to try to switch back to a macbook after a decade hiatus.
The hardware is good but the software is absolute garbage. Trialing it for a week the amount of bullshit that is MacOS was enough, and Asahi wasn't there yet either. Instead I decided to get an AMD framework laptop.
Best decision ever.
I have a laptop that's got great quality, can be upgraded without paying a $5k tax, can replace the keyboard for $100 instead of $700, it works with me rather than against me and my wallet.
iammrpayments|4 months ago
ksec|4 months ago
The MBA should also have the LCD display with 120Hz and brightness from MBP, Vapour Chamber cooling from iPhone Air, and better keyboard.
Rapzid|4 months ago
I've only purchased matte screen laptops because I only use them for travel. Lenovo pretty much.
Also prefer semi-gloss for my monitors as I work in well lit daylight conditions if I can help it. There have been very high quality semi-gloss monitors for ages now.
arbirk|4 months ago
doph|4 months ago
josephg|4 months ago
I don’t know how many milliseconds the difference is, but going back and forth it’s so obvious to me that it’s painful.
dontlaugh|4 months ago
The question is more whether it’ll bother you.
unknown|4 months ago
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Scene_Cast2|4 months ago
msephton|4 months ago
baq|4 months ago
moonAA|4 months ago
bitwize|4 months ago
Apple is designing pro gear for its target audience.
proee|4 months ago
weinzierl|4 months ago
Mine as well. What is the likelihood this will happen?
I have a hunch it will not and they will either scrap the nano texture completely or keep it as differentiator for the Pro line, but I am curious what others think.
raggi|4 months ago
oofbey|4 months ago
msephton|4 months ago
mrcwinn|4 months ago
tobi_bsf|4 months ago
unknown|4 months ago
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jsomedon|4 months ago
oscu0|4 months ago
On all others, including the M4 MacBook Air and the M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pro currently for sale: yes. At most you'll have to make a bootable USB if it's already got Tahoe installed, you can even install in place (but some things might break, of course)
inatreecrown2|4 months ago
treetalker|4 months ago
Does anyone have any feedback on the new M5 models?
danielbln|4 months ago
Aloisius|4 months ago
It is rather shocking how much faster everything feels given I didn't think my old macbook pro was slow. While I expected xcode builds to be faster (and they are), I was a bit shocked when opening a new firefox tab was instantaneous since I hadn't noticed it wasn't before.
Another thing I didn't expect is that the new speakers have noticeably more bass and can get quite a bit louder.
I didn't get the nano-textured display, because having to adjust the display angle to get colors to render correctly is more annoying than having to do it for glare (I don't work in a high-glare environment).
bdcravens|4 months ago
unknown|4 months ago
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quanto|4 months ago
petethepig|4 months ago
shwaj|4 months ago
If page load seems noticeably faster, it’s far more likely that it’s simply a faster machine. Or imaginary.
13415|4 months ago
Aloisius|4 months ago
It didn't require me to switch my region or payment method.
zrm|4 months ago
killingtime74|4 months ago
jillesvangurp|4 months ago
This is, by far, the fastest machine I've ever had. My previous laptop was a more modest M1 mac book pro. And before that I was on a cheapo intel i5 Samsung laptop - a stop gap solution after my last intel mac died when a loose keyboard key destroyed the screen (yep the generation with the crappy keyboards, worst mac I've ever owned). That intel was of course pathetic and shit. I wasn't expecting much and it disappointed me despite that. The M1 was about 3x faster. The M4 Max is a beast. In terms of build speeds, the i5 was unusable while building and would take 15 minutes. The M1 got it down to 5 minutes (10 CPU cores that are faster than the 4 intel ones). But it didn't have enough memory so swapping slowed it down a bit. The M4 max builds stuff in around 30 seconds. No more swapping and the 14 cores are quite a bit faster than the M1 ones. Same project (but of course with a few years of development). We have more tests now, not fewer.
Otherwise it's a great laptop. Keyboard is fine. Touchpad is best in class in the industry (everything else is pathetically mediocre in comparison; it's not even close), the screen is best in class as well (contrast, colors, resolution, everything). And Apple learned it's lesson when it comes to keyboards. Most windows/linux laptops I'm aware off are a compromise between heating/cooling, lousy input and output devices, performance, design, screen quality, etc. Apple nails all of those things. Nobody else does.
High end Macs are not cheap. But for professionals it's a minor expense. If you lease a car for getting your ass to work every morning, you are probably spending 2-3x more at least than what this would cost you. And the whole point of getting to work is to open your laptop and earn a living with it. It's more important than the damn car. It's what pays for that car. I spend less than what used to be 1 hour of my freelance rate per month on this absolute monster. Maybe it's 2 hours for you if you just got started. That's still nothing on 160ish billable hours per month. Employers tend to be less enlightened of course. But if it's your choice, don't be frugal and buy the laptop you need. If a simple browser is all you need, of course get something decent looking like a mac book air or whatever. But otherwise, get the best you can afford. I've compromised once with that Samsung. I did not enjoy that.
pcdoodle|4 months ago
lisbbb|4 months ago
commandersaki|4 months ago
kapone|3 months ago
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drnick1|4 months ago
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amelius|4 months ago
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sunaookami|4 months ago
anonymous344|4 months ago
i noticed my ola macbook pro was connected to my router even when it was sleeping.. probably sending some private info periodically to apple and cia
jlund-molfese|4 months ago
Or just search for "Power Nap" (what it used to be called). They usually wake up intermittently for Time Machine backups, wake-on-lane and other stuff.
kome|4 months ago
ok, i guess for graphic designers it might matter more?
Tagbert|4 months ago