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points by booty 2 days ago | 0 comments

I was just thinking the same thing. The M-series is so good, the demand for uber-desktops is smaller than ever. And all professionals I know truly want/need the portability of a laptop.

    the iMac returned to its roots as the “family computer” or “grandma email box” kind of machine.

And receptionists! Don't forget receptionists. :)

[–] cosmic_cheese 2 days ago

My preferred setup would be a semi-beefy desktop paired with a highly mobile laptop, which with the current product line would be something like a Studio (or a high end 27”/32” iMac, if such a thing existed) and 13” Air. I ended up with an MBP due to constricted availability of the Studio/Mini, though.

[–] SenHeng 2 days ago

I’ve felt the same way since way back then ever since reading about this guy’s setup[0], so I paired a 11” MBA with the quad core Mac Mini 2012.

I’ve kept that philosophy over the years, the MBA was replaced by the 2017 12” retina MacBook and then again with the 13” M2 MBA. The Mini gave way to the 2018 Mini, then a M1 Max Studio. I even attempted replacing the MacBook with an iPad though that didn’t really workout.

It’s the best of both worlds really, enough power to do everything when on the go and even more power back at the office.

0: https://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/a-note-about-my-new-mac-set...

[–] booty 2 days ago

That's interesting. (I mean that genuinely. Sometimes when people say that, they mean "You seem crazy")

What's the appeal there? Doing big-RAM-requirement stuff that just won't run on a laptop?

[–] cosmic_cheese 2 days ago

It’s not that what I do can’t fit on a laptop, but rather that I prefer to minimize weight in the machines I travel with, and if I need power while I’m out there’s always macOS’ built in remote desktop capabilities which work quite nicely with Tailscale.

So if I’m going to have a machine always sitting on my desk at home anyway, it may as well be a desktop with fewer compromises and no battery to slowly degrade while never getting used.

A nice bonus is that it takes a lot more to make the fans on a desktop noisy relative to what it takes on an MBP, and if there’s one thing I dislike about computers it’s fan noise.

[–] SenHeng 2 days ago

Back in the Intel Mac era, it used to be that running even a single docker/vagrant container would bring any MacBook to its knees, so having a nice beefy machine for doing the Real Work was useful while the MBs were mainly used for lighter work loads while on the go.

Nowadays, the M series chips are so powerful that I’ve not had a real need to use my Studio and work mainly using my M2 Air.

[–] vardalab 2 days ago

The whole point of having always on machines is you can close your laptop and the rest of the work keeps on going. Like you can leave home and work keeps on keeping on. I've been doing that for like 30 years. In combination, especially if you have a good laptop, then you can have best of the both worlds.