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points by makmanalp 2 days ago | 0 comments

Man every time I want to get a new macbook air they come up with a new macbook pro which means 6 months later they're going to come up with a new generation of airs by which time I think "let me wait a bit and see if people like it", and so here I am with a 2022 M2 that is perfectly fine except for the disk being too small.

[–] FinnKuhn 2 days ago

I still have the original M1 Pro (thankfully with enough disk space) and I still don't really see a reason to upgrade. Since the M1 all these MacBooks are more than powerful enough for anything I might want to do and the original battery life was so good an upgrade would harldy be worth it.

[–] seabrookmx 2 days ago

Yeah you Mac users are spoiled. I bought this Framework 13 with the Ryzen 5 340 last year and was blown away at how fast it was, only to discover that it's roughly on par with the M1 Pro that came out 4 years earlier (and has much better battery life).

I don't _need_ the battery life and still prefer to run Linux so the tradeoff is worth it to me, but for most users it's pretty hard to not recommend a Macbook.

[–] FinnKuhn 2 days ago

> I don't _need_ the battery life and still prefer to run Linux so the tradeoff is worth it to me, but for most users it's pretty hard to not recommend a Macbook.

The thing is I never had a Mac(Book) before, but the hardware at the time was just so much ahead of anything else that I didn't mind that limitation. At least for what I bought it any OS (Windows/MacOS/Linux) would have been totally fine.

[–] riffraff 2 days ago

Same here. A part of me wants to get a new MBP but I really can't justify it.

[–] pinktonio 2 days ago

playing gta 6 on it maybe.

[–] FinnKuhn 2 days ago

It's a console exclusive as of now and if/when it releases for computers at least I would rather play it on a dedicated Gaming PC and not a Laptop.

[–] KetoManx64 2 days ago

It'll be decompiled and released on PC by modders within a week of it being officially released, AI tools have gotten too good for things like that to be controlled by Sony/Rockstar.

[–] anakaine 2 days ago

Still likely to be GPU intensive even with relinking

[–] ant6n 2 days ago

I don’t understand this. I have a m4 with 16gb, and it can barely run office. Throw in a couple of browser tabs of ChatGPT and LinkedIn, and it slows to a crawl.

Every app window / browser tab is like 1GB these days.

[–] unsloppable 2 days ago

They're snappier, that's about it.

[–] rickdeckard 2 days ago

The unbearable burden of consumerism.

"You didn't even finish your M2 yet and already want to refill your plate?"

[–] yunnpp 2 days ago

Maybe gp should try squeezing it through the other major cavity of the body. Might have some extra room there.

Edit: guys, come up, muster some sense of humor. This screen is only 14" after all.

[–] neilsimp1 2 days ago

Genuine question from someone who knows nothing about Apple products... can't you replace/upgrade the drive?

[–] pbasista 2 days ago

They are soldered in. Replacement itself can probably be done by a professional repair technician who is equipped with the right tools. But it is not a self-service job that anyone can do.

On top of that, the drives might be somehow paired to the motherboard. And I would imagine that pairing a new one with the existing motherboard may require some proprietary software that only Apple has.

These are only my assumptions though. People e.g. at Louis Rossmann's repair shop might know more.

[–] philistine 2 days ago

Apple does not use common parts for its storage. People are used to M.2 drives, but those have the controller on the stick, and Apple has integrated the controller inside its M-series. So you first need to find compatible storage in the first place, and the only place it can come from is a donor Mac.

[–] 233mhz 2 days ago

Oh you silly boy, of course you can, it's extremely easy, here is a video showing how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrg7nPG6_UU

[–] AppleBananaPie 2 days ago

Thanks! I can't believe I didn't know how easy this is!

[–] lynndotpy 2 days ago

For those who can't see the video, I think the above two commenters are being facetious for humor.

It is funny because the video is 50 minutes long which requires a difficult soldering job and chip reprogramming. This does not include the process of opening the Macbook Pro, disassembling it, removing the logic board, nor the reverse process.

[–] mycall 1 day ago

So 3 hours in total for the work? That is not a cheap fee.

[–] bel_marinaio 2 days ago

Soldered to the board for anyone that does not know

[–] arghwhat 2 days ago

Heh, no, it's soldered.

If you throw enough money at a sufficiently skilled technician it can be done, but no M.2 slots in sight here.

[–] hias 2 days ago

You really know nothing, lol! When was the last time you replaced your "drive" inside your Android phone?

[–] neilsimp1 1 day ago

I run a Linux phone :D. But yeah, that is also soldered on.

I'm disappointed a mainstream laptop is soldered, though. Why would anyone buy it?

[–] alt227 2 days ago

This is an Apple device, the word upgrade does not exist in their world.

[–] DaSHacka 2 days ago

Of course it does! You just have to go to a Genius Bar after the release of a new MacBook, and tell them you're interested in buying one. They'll even handle recycling your old one for you!

[–] telesilla 2 days ago

I'm still on my early 2022 macbook 14" M1, which I was thoughtful enough to get 64gb ram for at the time, and remain still incredibly happy. M6 must be nuts!

[–] peezd 2 days ago

Yeah, I'm still on a 2021 M1 Pro and the only real complaint is that the battery has weakened somewhat, but still fine. and if I really cared I would probably figure out what to do to get firefox from being such a constant drain.

[–] rTX5CMRXIfFG 2 days ago

Just get the Air. Moore's law peaked a long time ago and the differences between the M-generations are too small to be meaningful.

[–] SOLAR_FIELDS 2 days ago

The air is designed for non degenerates who don’t actually use the laptop in their laps. For us degens we need active cooling lest we are thermal throttled from belly heat

[–] makmanalp 2 days ago

Shockingly this has not been an issue for me

[–] dreamcompiler 2 days ago

I got a used M2 Air a year ago and it's the best Apple laptop I've ever owned. And I've owned dozens.

Plus it runs Asahi linux on the metal.

[–] makmanalp 2 days ago

No agreed, for me it’s about the incidentals - nicer camera, nicer screen, WiFi 6e, large drive etc

[–] jonpurdy 2 days ago

I bought my 2022 M2 Air with 24GB/1TB/10-core GPU. Very very glad I did.

The only reason I’m bitter is because they put in WiFi 6E in the M3 generation. Now I just use a 2.5Gbe USB-C adaptor when transferring large files to and from my NAS.

[–] exe34 2 days ago

Cries in mid2012 mac book air. This one refuses to die, and it does everything I need except LLMs (but I have a desktop with a 3090), so I'm stuck with it...

[–] seemaze 2 days ago

I picked up a 24GB 2TB M2 air and it's still cruising along. Short of having the foresight to pick up 512GB Ultra prior to the rampocalypse, I'm happy.

[–] karim79 2 days ago

Exactly the same story here. I'm still very happily using an M2, which is just great.

[–] qubex 2 days ago

I’m in the exact same predicament: I bought an M2 Air upon release in 2022, chose a BTO with 16 GB of RAM, the top-bin processor, and it still runs absolutely 100% perfectly. Unlike the OP, I’m doing very OK with storage, so I don’t even have that excuse.

The machine is basically flawless and entirely suitable for everything I throw at it (and throw stuff at it I do: when I’m not web-browsing or playing YouTube videos I’m using Wolfram Mathematica, which is one heck of a resource hog) and it’s absolutely utterly fine and blasé about the whole thing.

As things are, I can see myself keeping it for a decade. There was a time when I used to change Apple laptops on a yearly basis (starting with PowerBook G4s in the early/mid 2000s and up until the mid 2010s, when I migrated most of my mobile computing to iPads… which lasted for about a decade until I got this thing).