- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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Honestly I’m expecting this to take up most of the mid-range laptop market. 8gb RAM and only 256GB storage is lame, but the rest of it probably makes it really good value (especially with components getting more expensive recently).
Unless you’re buying used or refurbished, most laptops I found at ~$600 or less kinda suck. Either it has terrible specs, or uses cheap plastic, or has a terrible screen, etc.
I don’t like Apple, but hopefully this is a wake-up call for other vendors. Lower end laptops should stop being cheap garbage.
makes it really good value
An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor. The main difference is a less crap operating system in macOS.
An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor.
Sure, but a tablet isn’t a laptop.
Sure, but a tablet isn’t a laptop.
So form factor, not hardware internals should be the deciding factor in cost?
To a degree, yeah.
The laptop form factor is engineered with lid and palmrest assemblies, if you’re going to compare the two then you’ll want to add a nice keyboard to that iPad. Apple’s is $270.
Apple’s is $270.
Typical Apple tax, completely unrelated to the few dollars a keyboard costs to make for real.
You’re not entirely wrong, in that the Apple Tax is real.
Nonetheless, the quality of the Magic Keyboard is substantially higher than that of a keyboard you can get for “few dollars”
Ultimately, your assertion was:
An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor. The main difference is a less crap operating system in macOS.
An iPad Air with a keyboard that matches the form factor and build quality of a MacBook Neo does not actually cost the same, it costs an additional $270.
The MacBook doesn’t have a touchscreen. It cancels the keyboard cost out.
They don’t even put touch ID on the entry model.
You’re not entirely wrong, in that the Apple Tax is real.
Nonetheless, the quality of the Magic Keyboard is substantially higher than that of a keyboard you can get for “few dollars”
Ultimately, your assertion was:
An iPad Air costs the same but comes with a much better M4 processor. The main difference is a less crap operating system in macOS.
An iPad Air with a keyboard that matches the form factor and build quality of a MacBook Neo does not actually cost the same, it costs an additional $270.
To a degree, yeah.
The laptop form factor is engineered with lid and palmrest assemblies, if you’re going to compare the two then you’ll want to add a nice keyboard to that iPad. Apple’s is $270.
What something should be priced at is what the market is willing to pay for it. People are definitely willing to pay more for a MacBook than an iPad. Also there are similar spec’ed Chromebooks on the market that cost around the same price and people buy them. The Neo is competing with Chromebook.
Except for them to be directly comparable you’d also have to get a keyboard cover for the iPad, making it more expensive than the MacBook, and it’d still have one fewer USB port and no audio jack.
Except for them to be directly comparable you’d also have to get a keyboard cover for the iPad, making it more expensive than the MacBook
One has a keyboard (cheap components), the other has a touchscreen. The cost cancel each other out.
Better specs sure, but I would sooner cut my wrists than to try to work on an iOS device
It’s important to note, and is often overlooked, that macOS is especially good at memory management. That 8 GB will go much farther than it would on it another PC. Not to mention that the vast majority of people using these will be using it to browse the web and other very minor tasks. For the price, it’s pretty great.
I have an 8GB M1 mini in service as my Home Assistant server. 4GB to UTM to run HAOS, the rest for macOS and Ollama running a small LLM for speech to text. I’m genuinely amazed that it hasn’t fallen over. Tried the same thing in Asahi but without macOS’ memory management and access to GPU acceleration, it just wasn’t feasible.
Tried the same thing in Asahi but without macOS’ memory management and access to GPU acceleration, it just wasn’t feasible.
Thank you for sharing this result. I knew Asahi’s memory management wasn’t as robust (so I got a 24GB RAM M2 unit to overcome this).
For your macOS Ollama implementation are you able to leverage the NPU in the hardware (which I know is also unavailable so far in Asahi)?
I actually have no idea how it all works. It just does.
Asahi is incredible for general use computing on M1/2 machines, and perhaps even in use as a general purpose home server. But it’s still very much a fun exercise in what might be possible rather than a solid option, in my opinion.
Eh. 8GB is unified memory, meaning it also needs to carry the graphics load. You’re making it sound like it is just working memory. MacOS is also more graphics heavy than PC, especially Linux based OS, so whatever efficiency you’ll get from the OS in terms of memory compression and management, you’ll also have to offer for the smooth expose, missing control and all the frosted glass translucent garbage they force on the users.
8GB is shit low. Email and browsing, ok. But as soon as you have 40 tabs open in chrome, it will be email or browsing. Garageband sure, again dont run anything else in the background. But I doubt you’ll even be able to edit a 1080p project in iMovie without stutter on battery power. The biggest issue is that you can’t upgrade it, so whatever software upgrades happen, 8GB is all you’ll ever get.
I seriously doubt many people using this will be doing much video editing with 40 tabs open. Your expectations are unrealistic for the type of user who will be buying these.
Additionally Apple has a bunch of cloud storage deals. I think most people store all of their photos and videos in iCloud which for most people is the majority of their storage space. I bet this is right in the sweet spot for usability, which doesn’t surprise me given Apple’s laptop history
They were talking about memory not storage
They were also talking about using it to browse the web and for very minor tasks, which is relevant.
Right, but storage and memory are clearly the bottlenecks on this computer and we’re pointing out how Apple is alleviating those bottlenecks
Always buy refurbished laptops, including MacBooks.
That is so true, and can’t be underestimated. The budget laptop market absolutely blows these days. I got a 1300x768 screen, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB storage (albeit HDD), and ~2 GHz CPU in 2016, for $500. That was at Best Buy, who tried to sell $100 HDMI cables at the time, and wasn’t even a great deal, though I was fine with it.
Now the budget market is…pretty much the same. Slightly better 1080p screen, same RAM, 1/4th the storage (but usually an SSD), a significantly better CPU that has most of that CPU progress kneecapped by Windows 11. It’s GRIM out there.
Honestly, it might be a wakeup call for laptop vendors, or it might just put a lot of them out of business. This is not a good economy for them to suddenly have to compete with Apple on value…
Agree. Probably best notebook for students and also for smaller companies, if you’re not relying on high end hardware.
8GB RAM and 256GB SSD isn’t great, but it’s not surprising at this price point with the price of memory and storage right now. Anyone who has built a system recently can attest. If RAM/SSD pricing wasn’t so god awful I could imagine double the capacity at this price point.
Not usually an Apple guy, but it’s hard to overstate how smart it is to focus on affordability right now. I feel like having a ~$500 device in the current market is so important. (Especially if it respects your privacy.)
This is the opposite of “own nothing and be happy” and I suspect these things are gonna sell like hotcakes.
Now we just need to get Linux going on them. 🫡
I know you didn’t mean it like that, but at $599 it is not a “$500 device”. It is a $600 device. Which maybe isn’t much worse but still quite a price difference.
Asahi Linux on MacBook Neo? A man can dream…
Affordability and battery life. I am team linux and android normally, but you really cannot beat a MacBook as an SSH terminal or remote development terminal because they are reliable and the battery lasts all day.
Macs do not respect your privacy. In comparison to windows it’s better but they still log and send every application you open to Apple.
Let’s stop perfect getting in the way of better.
For the threat models and data harvesting the general consumer (i.e. our moms) will face, MacOS does a far better job than Windows and iOS far better than Android (and no, your mom isn’t actually using a pixel with Graphene. Maybe she could, but she isn’t. Not really.)
If Apple can’t satisfy your threat model and privacy posturing, fine. But don’t assume everyone’s requirements are the same as yours, that’s how we scare people away.
For the threat models and data harvesting the general consumer (i.e. our moms) will face
If your mom is going to install facebook, X and instagram to post all personal details and photos away along with all the permissions app requests. I don’t think it matters?
Are you talking about security? What else is Android secretly supplying these apps?
Let’s stop perfect getting in the way of better.
“Let’s just giveaway more leeway for corporations, so we can get more accustomed to losing our rights, until we have to jump off the cliff for the lesser evil”
Apple fanboys were proud they had no ads, Apple put on ads. They said they fight the government, they work with authoritarian governments around the world. They said they care about user privacy, they were funneling notifications to directly to the US government.
Yea, keep defending these knucklefucks, they’re totally not trying to manufacture consent for global surveillance while you’re given the illusion of “lesser evil” and losing ownership of devices you bought.
Downvote away, cult.
Look - I can’t prevent my mom from being on facebook and playing candy crush. Nothing I say or do will make that happen. I can improve the situation by:
- Introducing alternatives and hope they spread (Chat with your mom on Signal)
- Reducing data harvesting during ”passive” behaviour (e.g. reduced permissions for apps. Graphene is probably the best here, but good luck getting your mom on that)
- Reducing data harvesting by the phone vendor (Samsung, Google, Apple). This is primarily done by buying an iPhone, simply due to incentives. (Again, good luck getting your mom on Graphene).
If I go too hard on my mom, she’ll just buy herself a cheap chinese android without telling me. Is that better?
It doesn’t seem much worse to me. As long as she doesn’t have too many ad-ridden spyware apps.
That claim seems like it’d be trivial to fact check, and indeed does seem to be false.
indeed does seem to be false.
That’s from 5 years ago. Let’s look what Apple themselves say about that topic:
Personal Data Apple Collects from You
Usage Data. Data about your activity on and use of our offerings, such as app launches within our services, including browsing history; search history; product interaction; crash data, performance and other diagnostic data; and other usage data
this is HIGHLY misleading. The page you linked is for Apple’s global/web properties (hence “within our services”); device-level settings govern app and OS telemetry separately. You can opt out of telemetry on apple devices you own.
Which apps are launched from their website?
Only if you decide to send that telemetry, which is prompted to you clearly and unambiguously.
Reasonably priced Mac. What a crazy timeline.
Reasonably priced Mac.
Phone CPU. Similar priced iPads come with a much better CPU.
Counterpoint: Phone CPUs can rival yesterday’s desktops.
Yes, but it’s still worth pointing out that the compromises run deeper than alternatives, including Apple’s own iPad Air.
Absolutely agree than phone socs can drive a viable experience, but it’s just still pricier even using iPad Air as a comparison.
I’ve been running an M1 for years now. So tired of the argument that Mac is underpowered. No, it’s not a video editing/compiling/gaming powerhouse, but it more than makes up for it with an 8+ hour battery life, best-in-class display, and silent running, going on 5 years now.
It still handles everything I throw at it just fine. If I need to bust out the compute power, Mac just isn’t the right rig for it. But that doesn’t make them useless.
But only run iPadOS, so they’re a glorified paperweight.
Regardless, I’m never buying another mac unless I can run asahi linux on it. Apple has progressively destroyed MacOS for the last 15 years, and will continue to do so. Most of Apples software design decisions are anti-consumer and monopolistic, and should be straight up illegal. Apple owns your device; not you.
Similar iPads also come with a lot less ports, no physical keyboard, no aluminum clamshell protection, and a shittier OS.
Similar iPads also come with a lot less ports, no physical keyboard, no aluminum clamshell protection, and a shittier OS.
If you honestly think these justify the crap CPU, you’re absolutely out of touch with reality.
Please enlighten me then, if you don’t mind. Are there some good benchmarks out there that show the Inadequacies of the A18 chip?
Please enlighten me then, if you don’t mind. Are there some good benchmarks out there that show the Inadequacies of the A18 chip?
I found several after only 30 seconds of googling, including Apple fans’ favorite benchmark: Geekbench multicore where the A18 is about 40% slower.
Isn’t it about 40% cheaper than the M4 CPU macbook ?
Isn’t it about 40% cheaper than the M4 CPU macbook ?
It’s 100% the same price as another portable M4 computer sold by Apple
Probably means their normal go-to market has plateaued. In this price range they can still sell and profit.
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Or maybe it will come with some subscription model to get you more power, from the cloud of course.
If it wouldn’t carry just 8 GB of RAM, it would be a great deal. Sadly, it’s not even upgradable, so its usefulness is rather limited.
Yeah 8gb of ram is unusable for most things.
Yeah 8gb of ram is unusable for most things.
Most notably web browsing which one would think this thing is mostly for.
What is wrong with your computers that 8GB is unusable for a browser?
Probably Windows.
Tab hoarding I would guess.
You known what, good job Apple. You’ve been winning me over lately. I’m not sure I’d exactly recommend this route to people, the 8 GB RAM is rough even with macOS being more efficient with it. But in the RAM-pocalypse we’ll take what we can get, and the rest is fire for budget range.
This is the “let’s get the budget computer crowd using iCloud services” solution.
They can afford to sell at a loss if needed, because the onboard storage is just low enough to make NOT subscribing to cloud services painful after 6-8 months.
Exactly. Most of Apples software design decisions since the iPhone are anti-consumer and monopolistic, and should be straight up illegal.
Apple owns your device; not you.
Wait, but legally I own the laptop, right?
The MacBook 5C.
The Neo yellow color is awful. The 5C colors were fun because the plastic material made them look good.
If it had more memory I’d be on board. 8GB is fucking rough.
Honestly if it forces software to be leaner going down the line, I’m ok with memory crunches (it won’t, but I’m just thinking out loud).
I have a 13 year old MBP with twice as much RAM. It came with the same amount.
They really said ‘Cheap’ and $600 in the same sentence.
They sell 4 wheels for $700. People buy it.
Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit - Apple https://share.google/FCOp7IY3rKkfeIOth
“Adds improved mobility to your Mac Pro”
That’s absolutely ridiculous. Easy to see how Apple got to where it is now if people actually pay this amount for this crap.
Easy to see how America got to where it is today too… Grifting is the only American culture.
It’s pretty. But I recently bought a Lenovo IdeaPad at Costco for less, with 16GB ram and 1TB SDD and am running Linux Mint on it, which I’m getting way more out of than any other Mac I’ve owned.
Without a doubt the Mac’s screen is better than mine. But I feel like, all things considered, what I have can do more (and probably for longer). I’m happy to see something like this come along and take the wind out of Microslop’s sails (and sales). At the same time, I feel like one is able to get far more value out of a less-costly machine. If one were going to switch OSes anyway, why not Linux? I guess they’re banking on people already owning iPhones and therefore making this a more seamless transition or whatever…
How is Linux support on your idea pad? Does everything work as expected?
Haven’t had any real issues. The only thing that is truly bizarre to me is that the monitor will not render the purple color used on Mastodon (it turns it cobalt blue). I knew that the IdeaPad has a not-so-great monitor, but I added Vibrant Linux and managed to make things look pretty good–except for that damn Mastodon logo lol. I’ve tried numerous things to get it to render correctly (and what makes it even weirder is that I can compare images on the page to another machine and they look the same, it’s just the logos and other text that won’t go purple… looks like I’m on Bluesky).
But I’ve had no driver issues or anything like that. Only time I’ve had anything break was due to my own incompetence in adding scripts to things.
Very nice! It might be hard to test now, but how would the mastodon logo look under Windows?
I would be kinda impressed that Apple is finally offering something that’s good value, but 8GB of RAM? ehhhhhh. It’s probably still a decent-ish deal, I don’t really know how good a phone SoC would handle anything more than light tasks, though.
A renewed interest in competing with Chromebooks?
Can’t complain. My kids need to use something beyond my 8 year old Surface.
I think it would be good for the industry. Windows had a stronghold in this price bracket and a competition is never bad especially considering how MS is pushing AI into W11.
