laptop M2 MacBook Air (16/256 GB or 16/512 GB)

[Super Vegito]

Hey Guys!

 

Hope you are doing well.

 

First of all, I apologise if this is not under the correct sub forum. I'm a newbie so please excuse the indiscretion and add this to the appropriate forum. 

 

Now onto the issue.

 

I want to buy the new M2 MacBook Air.

 

However, I wanted your opinion on the version I should buy. 

 

I definitely want to buy the 16 GB RAM option so that's out of the way.

 

However I am confused as to whether I should take the Mac with the 256 GB SSD or should I take the 512 GB SSD model ?

 

I don't use up much space on my laptop and I know that the 256 GB SSD would suffice for me.

 

However I have the following concerns:

 

The 256 GB SSD has a single NAND Flash Chip and as such has slower read and write speeds compared to the 512 GB model. 

 

i) Would this lead to less reliability in the 256 GB version (SSD life) ?

 

ii) Would the eventual and inevitable depreciation of hardware performance over the years hit me hard due to the single chip and slower speeds ?

 

iii) Would the higher read and write speeds of the 512 GB model be noticeable in everyday usage ?

 

iv) Any other valid concerns which may be raised as per the opinion of fellow community members.

 

(The person who has to use this laptop is a law student who has to use the web browser with a lot of chrome tabs open, lots of Microsoft Office Products and lots of content streaming)

 

Regards,

 

 

 

 

 

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 minute ago, Super Vegito said:

However I have the following concerns:

 

The 256 GB SSD has a single NAND Flash Chip and as such has slower read and write speeds compared to the 512 GB model. 

 

i) Would this lead to less reliability in the 256 GB version (SSD life) ?

 

ii) Would the eventual and inevitable depreciation of hardware performance over the years hit me hard due to the single chip and slower speeds ?

 

iii) Would the higher read and write speeds of the 512 GB model be noticeable in everyday usage ?

 

iv) Any other valid concerns which may be raised as per the opinion of fellow community members.

 

(The person who has to use this laptop is a law student who has to use the web browser with a lot of chrome tabs open, lots of Microsoft Office Products and lots of content streaming)

I personally would go for the 512GB model. You would be surprised how much storage you use when your computer is far more capable than it was before. It opens up a lot of programs that you couldn't use before. Also, Law students have an absurd number of documents to keep track of. My parents are both lawyers and my father goes through literally tens of thousands of 30+ page files every year. That adds up. And, as technology advances so do file sizes.

[rippy4500]

If you get a regular windows laptop you can get more storage and faster hardware for the same price or less. Neither are worth it in my opinion unless you really want a mac.

[Super Vegito]

11 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

If you get a regular windows laptop you can get more storage and faster hardware for the same price or less. Neither are worth it in my opinion unless you really want a mac.

 

Windows isn't an option (I'm asking for a friend and he loves Mac through and through).

[DANK_AS_gay]

16 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

you can get more storage and faster hardware for the same price or less.

More storage sure, but not faster hardware. Not for what he is doing.

[dizmo]

11 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

More storage sure, but not faster hardware. Not for what he is doing.

Eh, you wouldn't really notice the difference though. So. Kind of a moot point.

Browsing can be done on pretty much anything.

[rippy4500]

4 minutes ago, Super Vegito said:

 

Windows isn't an option (I'm asking for a friend and he loves Mac through and through).

Has he considered it at all?

 

It just seems like the better option, you can get 512gb of faster storage (Which can usually be upgraded) for the same price and windows can run pretty much every piece of software out there.

And 256gb vs 512 shouldn't give a noticable increase in speed, it would only matter in some specific programs.

2 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

More storage sure, but not faster hardware. Not for what he is doing.

I highly doubt that it would be faster, and it lacks support for lots of things which is a big downside for most people. The only advantage the M2 has that I can think of is lower power usage, thats about it.

[DANK_AS_gay]

14 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

Has he considered it at all?

 

It just seems like the better option, you can get 512gb of faster storage (Which can usually be upgraded) for the same price and windows can run pretty much every piece of software out there.

And 256gb vs 512 shouldn't give a noticable increase in speed, it would only matter in some specific programs.

I highly doubt that it would be faster, and it lacks support for lots of things which is a big downside for most people. The only advantage the M2 has that I can think of is lower power usage, thats about it.

Like the other guy said, not worth arguing. I can safely tell you that you are wrong though. Maybe in terms of gaming, for $1600 a gaming laptop would be faster... for gaming. And that's it. For literally anything else the Mac is faster. 

That's the M2 being compared to DESKOP CPUs that draw 200W compared to the 30 watts max of the M2. It's more efficient. It's as fast as DESKTOP CPUs.

Here is the list of mobile processors. It's #1. And the last gen M1 is 7th ,8th, and 9th. So tell me windows laptops are slower again. Tell me.

Oh and in case those results from PassMark didn't convince you, the encode/decode unit in Apple Silicon is phenomenal, and can perform on par with a desktop 3090 in video editing, while drawing 35 watts. It can playback 16 8K scenes with 0 frame drops. So again, tell me how any device at $1600 outperforms an Apple device in anything but gaming and some multi-core workloads (which you wouldn't use a laptop for anyways)

[rippy4500]

2 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

Like the other guy said, not worth arguing. I can safely tell you that you are wrong though. Maybe in terms of gaming, for $1600 a gaming laptop would be faster... for gaming. And that's it. For literally anything else the Mac is faster. 

That's the M2 being compared to DESKOP CPUs that draw 200W compared to the 30 watts max of the M2. It's more efficient. It's as fast as DESKTOP CPUs.

Here is the list of mobile processors. It's #1. So tell me windows laptops are slower again. Tell me.

Oh and in case those results from PassMark didn't convince you, the encode/decode unit in Apple Silicon is phenomenal, and can perform on par with a desktop 3090 in video editing, while drawing 35 watts. It can playback 16 8K scenes with 0 frame drops. So again, tell me how any device at $1600 outperforms an Apple device in anything but gaming and some multi-core workloads (which you wouldn't use a laptop for anyways)

It may be faster in a couple scenarios but these are just benchmarks, real world performance would be different for most things especially since most things have been optimized windows and x86 for decades at this point.

 

And the compatibility with software, instruction sets, apis, etc, is worse. It doesnt matter if that just affects gaming, it affects software too.

5 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

can perform on par with a desktop 3090 in video editing, while drawing 35 watts. It can playback 16 8K scenes with 0 frame drops.

I can understand your cpu argument but as fast as a 3090? You gotta give more than 1 benchmark to prove that one, and 30 series is almost 2 years old now and wasn't made with power efficiency in mind, same with 12th gen cpus. 13th gen and ryzen 7000, along with rtx 40 series will outclass the m2.

 

And all the downsides to mac just arent worth it for most people, no upgrades, worse compatibility, overpriced hardware, and more.

It may be worth it if the software you need to use happens to work well on mac, but if its unoptimized, buggy, or cant run it at all then whats the point?

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 hour ago, rippy4500 said:

It may be worth it if the software you need to use happens to work well on mac, but if its unoptimized, buggy, or cant run it at all then whats the point?

The reason why I provided one benchmark for the M1 decoder/encoder (I think the M2 aside from minor improvements to it has the same decoder/encoder) is because it's only good for video editing. It isn't designed with gaming in mind. It isn't designed with AI in mind, it's designed for video editing. In all other graphics benchmarks the 3090 crushes the GPU in the M2 and even the M1 Ultra, especially in unoptimized workloads. And, Apple develops Final Cut Pro, meaning that it is very well optimised for the encoder/decoder on board

But given that this device is made with 2 things in mind, A. good single core performance, the main thing you use for day to day stuff, like, say, browsing the web, and B. video editing/consumption.

Obviously a 128 core Epyc is gonna shred the 16p 4e core Ultra in multi-core workloads. And PassMark is a reliable benchmark, I specifically ensured that I chose a reliable benchmark to provide substance to my claim. But I guess Geekbench will have to help out. Geekbench has very good day to day benchmarks that include things like Javascript (used extensively in websites) and other various standards and flavors of code used often in day-to-day activities.

In geekbench, the M2 has a score of 1896, putting it between the 12600k, and the 12700kf.

And surprisingly, the Ultra has a Multi-Core score of 23,343, putting it in 2nd place overall! Ahead of the 3970X even! With 12 fewer cores! And it's only 2000 points behind the 3990X, which has 48 more cores. (Obviously this means GeekBench does not scale well to more than 16 cores, but I suppose it's possible)

 

All of this to say, At the very least, the M series processors are no slouches, topping or getting very near the (desktop) charts on Apple's first and second attempt at making a processor, and sweeping the mobile chip leaderboards when the M1 released and both laptop variants (Pro and Max) did as well. When the use case of this machine is browsing and editing PDFs, it is safe to say that an i9-12900KS is overkill. Given that the Single-Core performance of the M series processors is so good, you can expect basic tasks to remain snappy for another 6-8 years. A lawyer does not need a gaming laptop, nor would it have any better experience than the one he would get on a Mac given his usecase. It would be idiotic to say that they are slow. 

 

[rippy4500]

2 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

The reason why I provided one benchmark for the M1 decoder/encoder (I think the M2 aside from minor improvements to it has the same decoder/encoder) is because it's only good for video editing. It isn't designed with gaming in mind. It isn't designed with AI in mind, it's designed for video editing. In all other graphics benchmarks the 3090 crushes the GPU in the M2 and even the M1 Ultra, especially in unoptimized workloads. And, Apple develops Final Cut Pro, meaning that it is very well optimised for the encoder/decoder on board

But given that this device is made with 2 things in mind, A. good single core performance, the main thing you use for day to day stuff, like, say, browsing the web, and B. video editing/consumption.

Obviously a 128 core Epyc is gonna shred the 16p 4e core Ultra in multi-core workloads. And PassMark is a reliable benchmark, I specifically ensured that I chose a reliable benchmark to provide substance to my claim. But I guess Geekbench will have to help out. Geekbench has very good day to day benchmarks that include things like Javascript (used extensively in websites) and other various standards and flavors of code used often in day-to-day activities.

In geekbench, the M2 has a score of 1896, putting it between the 12600k, and the 12700kf.

And surprisingly, the Ultra has a Multi-Core score of 23,343, putting it in 2nd place overall! Ahead of the 3970X even! With 12 fewer cores! And it's only 2000 points behind the 3990X, which has 48 more cores. (Obviously this means GeekBench does not scale well to more than 16 cores, but I suppose it's possible)

 

All of this to say, At the very least, the M series processors are no slouches, topping or getting very near the (desktop) charts on Apple's first and second attempt at making a processor, and sweeping the mobile chip leaderboards when the M1 released and both laptop variants (Pro and Max) did as well. When the use case of this machine is browsing and editing PDFs, it is safe to say that an i9-12900KS is overkill. Given that the Single-Core performance of the M series processors is so good, you can expect basic tasks to remain snappy for another 6-8 years. A lawyer does not need a gaming laptop, nor would it have any better experience than the one he would get on a Mac given his usecase. It would be idiotic to say that they are slow. 

 

I never said they were slow or bad in any way, I just meant that it isnt really a solid option in quite a few ways. Sure its quick but compatibility and optimization is still an issue and I doubt apple really cares that much.

 

The m1 is actually pretty slow, not low end but definetly slower than apple claimed. There was a video that proved it, i think the gpu was on par with a 1650 super or something similar, if I find it again ill edit it into this reply.

 

I just think that the benefits of a pc outweigh the benefits of the M2.

[DANK_AS_gay]

2 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

i think the gpu was on par with a 1650 super or something similar,

My guy... 

The base M1 doesn't have the encoder/decoder.

The base M1 is exactly that, base. 

The GPU doesn't matter on a device being used for lawyer stuff. Or really anything other than video editing, gaming, and blender/other stuff you use compute stuff for. The M1 is not designed for that. The M2 happens to have the encoder in it, roughly 20% faster single core performance, and a roughly 35% faster GPU. Decent GPU for gaming =/= good value, and even if it did, the 1650 super isn't exactly terrible for a 10w (the GPU only draws less power than the CPU and GPU) iGPU.

8 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

definetly slower than apple claimed

...

Every company claims bullsh!t stuff about their products, exaggerating product capabilities by choosing tests favorable to their product. Apple's claims were correct-ish. In tests that were suited to their product. Big companies bragging about this stuff is normal. Apple isn't special.

11 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

The m1 is actually pretty slow

I mean, having the fastest single core performance in the world for a few months after release, over 11th gen and 5XXX series AMD desktop chips, and still being 7th, 8th, and 9th in the world today after 12th gen and AMD 6XXX released on mobile isn't exactly what I would call slow. The M2 is the #1 in the world in mobile. For the same specs, an equivalent PC would cost as much if not more. I don't know where you are getting slow. 

 

16 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

I just think that the benefits of a pc outweigh the benefits of the M2.

Only real benefit you have provided is upgradeable storage. While a real issue, for most, this is not a concern, as computers are voodoo magic boxes, and standards like NVMe, USB, M.2, ExpressCard, etc. are an entirely different language. While I do not encourage it, it is understandable to see why Apple wouldn't make it upgradeable. This is a minor concern. I have yet to hear a substantiated claim about the performance of the M1 in the real world.

[Obioban]

For 99% of people, the speed difference of the SSD will be unnoticeable. There is no reliability issue.

 

IF 256gb is sufficient in terms of space, get that. That said, 256gb really isn't a lot-- 512 would probably give the computer a longer life, as storage needs continue to increase.

[Darkseth]

14 hours ago, Super Vegito said:

i) Would this lead to less reliability in the 256 GB version (SSD life) ?

 

ii) Would the eventual and inevitable depreciation of hardware performance over the years hit me hard due to the single chip and slower speeds ?

 

iii) Would the higher read and write speeds of the 512 GB model be noticeable in everyday usage ?

 

iv) Any other valid concerns which may be raised as per the opinion of fellow community members.

 

(The person who has to use this laptop is a law student who has to use the web browser with a lot of chrome tabs open, lots of Microsoft Office Products and lots of content streaming)

 

Regards,

- No, but less Performance. Half, to be exact. Not worthy of a Laptop this pricerange.. You HAVE to go 512gb.

- Nope. 99,9% of all regular persons will never manage to "kill" a SSD. You would probably have to fill it to 100%, and erase it again, every single Day for many Years. It COULD happen, but it's extremely unlikely. Worry only about the Performance

- Watch MaxTech videos, they test stuff like this. For ultra basics like browsing, Word, no. There are occasions, where the performance difference can be 2x.

 

 

My personal opinion: Do not get the M2 Macbook Air. Yes, it's sexy, but several problems:

- too expensive for only 256/8gb.

- you HAVE to go up to 512gb, because of slow SSD. 

- You often upgrade to 16gb Ram, because you will never be able to upgrade that.

---> And BOOM: Price: 2000~

 

That's too much. For that Price, you can get the 14,2" Macbook Pro. Much faster, MUCH better Display, much better Speakers, more Ports.

 

If you do not need such a "pro" device, you also don't need to pay the Money for that: Macbook Air M1. Probably 400-500 bucks cheaper with the same 512/16gb Configuration. No Mag Safe but at least much better Value.

And M1 has better efficiency than the M2.

 

 

Let me wrap this up again:
Save alot of Money, and get the M1 Air. It's WAY more than enough for a Law Student. Probably even the cheap Base model with 256/8gb will be enough, unless the User does alot of Multitasking.
Even if you use Low Power Mode, which caps the m1 at a mere 4 Watt, the Performance will feel extremely high for those small Tasks mentioned above.

 

if anything on that is not enough (you need more performance, you need media encoders, etc etc), then you go straight up to the 14". Skip the M2 models.

[Obioban]

12 hours ago, rippy4500 said:

And all the downsides to mac just arent worth it for most people, no upgrades, worse compatibility, overpriced hardware, and more.

It may be worth it if the software you need to use happens to work well on mac, but if its unoptimized, buggy, or cant run it at all then whats the point?

Apple has majority market share in the >$1000 computer segment (aka, the price point in which they compete), so it seems like it is worth it for the majority of people that can afford them.

 

Would you like the computer with...

best battery life

best screens (particularly macbook pro)

best speakers

best track pad

best chassis quality

among the top performance processors in their respective classes (e.g. M2 vs other ultrabook processors)

a better OS (subjective, but as someone who works in windows 8 hours a day, I can't wait to get home to my Mac)

best average reliability

longest average product life

higher resale value

great integration with your iPhone

 

If so, you will enjoy a Mac.

 

There's 3 reasons I see to not buy a Mac:

1) your goal for the computer is gaming (my guess is this will lessen as a factor in the next ~3 years)

2) you must use some specific windows only program (these are rapidly decreasing)

3) you need a cheaper computer

 

If you're not one (or more) of those 3, a Mac is a better choice IMO.

[Obioban]

8 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

- No, but less Performance. Half, to be exact. Not worthy of a Laptop this pricerange.. You HAVE to go 512gb.

- Nope. 99,9% of all regular persons will never manage to "kill" a SSD. You would probably have to fill it to 100%, and erase it again, every single Day for many Years. It COULD happen, but it's extremely unlikely. Worry only about the Performance

- Watch MaxTech videos, they test stuff like this. For ultra basics like browsing, Word, no. There are occasions, where the performance difference can be 2x.

 

 

My personal opinion: Do not get the M2 Macbook Air. Yes, it's sexy, but several problems:

- too expensive for only 256/8gb.

- you HAVE to go up to 512gb, because of slow SSD. 

- You often upgrade to 16gb Ram, because you will never be able to upgrade that.

---> And BOOM: Price: 2000~

 

That's too much. For that Price, you can get the 14,2" Macbook Pro. Much faster, MUCH better Display, much better Speakers, more Ports.

 

If you do not need such a "pro" device, you also don't need to pay the Money for that: Macbook Air M1. Probably 400-500 bucks cheaper with the same 512/16gb Configuration. No Mag Safe but at least much better Value.

And M1 has better efficiency than the M2.

 

 

Let me wrap this up again:
Save alot of Money, and get the M1 Air. It's WAY more than enough for a Law Student. Probably even the cheap Base model with 256/8gb will be enough, unless the User does alot of Multitasking.
Even if you use Low Power Mode, which caps the m1 at a mere 4 Watt, the Performance will feel extremely high for those small Tasks mentioned above.

 

if anything on that is not enough (you need more performance, you need media encoders, etc etc), then you go straight up to the 14". Skip the M2 models.

M1 has worse efficiency than M2. 

 

$1700 for a 16/512 M2 MBA

 

Most people will never notice the difference in speed between the 256 and 512. Life is not bench marking.

 

It's easy to lose yourself on specs sheets and conclude the MBP is the better deal-- but that ignore the niceness of a smaller/lighter computer with no fan.

[Darkseth]

14 minutes ago, Obioban said:

M1 has worse efficiency than M2. 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M2-SoC-Analysis-Worse-CPU-efficiency-compared-to-the-M1.637834.0.html?_gl=1*cufmxs*_ga*Mzg4MjM1OTM2LjE2NDg3NTQxNzI.*_ga_XLBGPKWB3N*MTY1OTUzNTM2NS4zLjAuMTY1OTUzNTM2NS4w

 

 

Nope, M2 has worse efficiency. It's faster, but also consumes more Power.

 

Btw since we have these Points per Watt numbers: Around 1200 Points per Watt for the M1 in the 4 Watt Low Power Mode (4 Watt, 4500 Points~ on my M1 Macbook Pro).

 

 

Edit: Here in Germany, the 14" Pro is actually cheaper with the same 512/16.

M2 Air is new, so it's still near MSRP.

14" Pro is out a while, so it had time to drop in Price. 

[Obioban]

34 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M2-SoC-Analysis-Worse-CPU-efficiency-compared-to-the-M1.637834.0.html?_gl=1*cufmxs*_ga*Mzg4MjM1OTM2LjE2NDg3NTQxNzI.*_ga_XLBGPKWB3N*MTY1OTUzNTM2NS4zLjAuMTY1OTUzNTM2NS4w

 

 

Nope, M2 has worse efficiency. It's faster, but also consumes more Power.

 

Btw since we have these Points per Watt numbers: Around 1200 Points per Watt for the M1 in the 4 Watt Low Power Mode (4 Watt, 4500 Points~ on my M1 Macbook Pro).

 

 

Edit: Here in Germany, the 14" Pro is actually cheaper with the same 512/16.

M2 Air is new, so it's still near MSRP.

14" Pro is out a while, so it had time to drop in Price. 

I should have been more specific:

The M2's efficiency cores are more efficient than the M1's efficiency cores.

[rippy4500]

3 hours ago, Obioban said:

Apple has majority market share in the >$1000 computer segment (aka, the price point in which they compete), so it seems like it is worth it for the majority of people that can afford them.

 

Would you like the computer with...

best battery life

best screens (particularly macbook pro)

best speakers

best track pad

best chassis quality

among the top performance processors in their respective classes (e.g. M2 vs other ultrabook processors)

a better OS (subjective, but as someone who works in windows 8 hours a day, I can't wait to get home to my Mac)

best average reliability

longest average product life

higher resale value

great integration with your iPhone

 

If so, you will enjoy a Mac.

 

There's 3 reasons I see to not buy a Mac:

1) your goal for the computer is gaming (my guess is this will lessen as a factor in the next ~3 years)

2) you must use some specific windows only program (these are rapidly decreasing)

3) you need a cheaper computer

 

If you're not one (or more) of those 3, a Mac is a better choice IMO.

Some of these arent entirely true, better reliability, best battery life, and longest average product life. If you know how to properly manage a windows pc it will last longer than a mac, you cant replace the drive, memory, motherboard, etc, like you can on a normal laptop, you have to replace the whole thing if something breaks on a mac, or bring it to apple and pay a fortune to them to fix it. And windows will still get updates as long as it can run on the hardware, no matter how old it is.

I dont agree with the better os point, because most average users dont care, and you can install windows, macos, or linux on either of them. And while some people still prefer macos, windows is just more powerful, its compatible with literally everything and allows for deeper customization, troubleshooting, tweaking, etc. Most of the issues that windows has can be fixed easily.

These are the main reasons i think windows is more practical.

 

The only reason the m2 is "faster" is because people only look at benchmarks and what apple tells them, real world performance is much different in most applications, and you talk about compatibility with programs like it doesnt matter. Software has been designed for windows and x86 for decades and the compatibility and optimization isnt there yet on mac for alot of things, and im not just talking about gaming.

 

Best screens, speakers, and track pad: This depends on the device, on pc there are good ones and bad ones, they may be better than one on a low end laptop but a midrange to high end laptop will probably be better.

 

Best chassis quality: I personally think apples design looks bland, others think that it looks nice. But thats just my opinion and doesnt matter. If you were talking about build quality then my opinion is similar to my last point, if you're comparing it to low end laptops? Yes, its better. But midrange to high end? Likely not. High end laptops will use better materials like metal or thicker plastics.

 

I own an iphone but have never had a reason to consider a mac, you can transfer files and sync data between an iphone and pc easily.

 

higher resale value: this one is true, although theres no good reason why other than that the apple logo gives them value.

[Obioban]

1 minute ago, rippy4500 said:

Some of these arent entirely true, better reliability, best battery life, and longest average product life. If you know how to properly manage a windows pc it will last longer than a mac, you cant replace the drive, memory, motherboard, etc, like you can on a normal laptop, you have to replace the whole thing if something breaks on a mac, or bring it to apple and pay a fortune to them to fix it. And windows will still get updates as long as it can run on the hardware, no matter how old it is.

I dont agree with the better os point, because most average users dont care, and you can install windows, macos, or linux on either of them. And while some people still prefer macos, windows is just more powerful, its compatible with literally everything and allows for deeper customization, troubleshooting, tweaking, etc. Most of the issues that windows has can be fixed easily.

These are the main reasons i think windows is more practical.

 

The only reason the m2 is "faster" is because people only look at benchmarks and what apple tells them, real world performance is much different in most applications, and you talk about compatibility with programs like it doesnt matter. Software has been designed for windows and x86 for decades and the compatibility and optimization isnt there yet on mac for alot of things, and im not just talking about gaming.

 

Best screens, speakers, and track pad: This depends on the device, on pc there are good ones and bad ones, they may be better than one on a low end laptop but a midrange to high end laptop will probably be better.

 

Best chassis quality: I personally think apples design looks bland, others think that it looks nice. But thats just my opinion and doesnt matter. If you were talking about build quality then my opinion is similar to my last point, if you're comparing it to low end laptops? Yes, its better. But midrange to high end? Likely not. High end laptops will use better materials like metal or thicker plastics.

 

I own an iphone but have never had a reason to consider a mac, you can transfer files and sync data between an iphone and pc easily.

 

higher resale value: this one is true, although theres no good reason why other than that the apple logo gives them value.

By average life, I literally meant the average lifespan of products: https://whatsabyte.com/average-laptop-lifespan-by-brand

While Apple's ram/hd is, indeed, not serviceable, they seem to have sufficient additional reliability to counter that.

 

MacOS vs windows-- on average, people are happier with MacOS than windows. So, I'd say they do care.

https://fortune.com/2010/09/21/mac-vs-windows-tracking-the-customer-satisfaction-gap/

 

People think the M2 is faster because it feels faster. My work computer is a $6000 2022 desktop workstation, and it feels slower in pretty much everything I do than my personal M1 MacBook Air. MacOS feels faster, and the Apple silicon adds a degree of quickness to every interaction that is not captured in benchmarks. Everything, always, feels instant with the M1 in a way I've never experienced with any other computer at any price.

 

I don't know of any PC laptop with trackpad, screen or speakers as good as the MacBook Pro, much less both.

 

By chassis I meant build quality/rigidity/etc. I don't think anyone objective thinks Apple isn't best there.

 

iPhone-- there's far more integration than just file sharing. Copy on the Mac, paste on the iPhone. Airdrop. iMessage. Game save states. Open safari pages. Take a picture with the iPhone and it's on your computer photo library ~instantly. Open the document scanner on your mac, execute with the iPhone. Use the iPhone as a super high quality web cam for your mac. Use your iphone as a hotspot without having to take your phone out of your pocket (or have a wifi hotspot always on, draining the battery). Caller ID on your computer when people call.Take phone calls on your computer, transfer them to you phone mid call if you need to step away from it. Click on a phone number in a picture on your computer, dial it from your computer. At any instance you can choose whatever device is more convenient and proceed with it.  There's deep and useful integration between the iPhone and Mac-- FAR beyond what you can do with a PC and iPhone or Android.

[rippy4500]

5 minutes ago, Obioban said:

By average life, I literally meant the average lifespan of products: https://whatsabyte.com/average-laptop-lifespan-by-brand

While Apple's ram/hd is, indeed, not serviceable, they seem to have sufficient additional reliability to counter that.

 

MacOS vs windows-- on average, people are happier with MacOS than windows. So, I'd say they do care.

https://fortune.com/2010/09/21/mac-vs-windows-tracking-the-customer-satisfaction-gap/

 

People think the M2 is faster because it feels faster. My work computer is a $6000 2022 desktop workstation, and it feels slower in pretty much everything I do than my personal M1 MacBook Air. MacOS feels faster, and the Apple silicon adds a degree of quickness to every interaction that is not captured in benchmarks. Everything, always, feels instant with the M1 in a way I've never experienced with any other computer at any price.

 

I don't know of any PC laptop with trackpad, screen or speakers as good as the MacBook Pro, much less both.

 

By chassis I meant build quality/rigidity/etc. I don't think anyone objective thinks Apple isn't best there.

 

iPhone-- there's far more integration than just file sharing. Copy on the Mac, paste on the iPhone. Airdrop. iMessage. Game save states. Open safari pages. Take a picture with the iPhone and it's on your computer photo library ~instantly. Open the document scanner on your mac, execute with the iPhone. Use the iPhone as a super high quality web cam for your mac. Use your iphone as a hotspot without having to take your phone out of your pocket (or have a wifi hotspot always on, draining the battery). Caller ID on your computer when people call.Take phone calls on your computer, transfer them to you phone mid call if you need to step away from it. Click on a phone number in a picture on your computer, dial it from your computer. At any instance you can choose whatever device is more convenient and proceed with it.  There's deep and useful integration between the iPhone and Mac-- FAR beyond what you can do with a PC and iPhone or Android.

You can sync most of that already or with third party software, the rest of those are just services that apple developed, there are alternatives.

 

If that $6000 pc is slower then its probably full of bloatware or something, my pc is properly tuned and it obliterates my friends mac in terms of speed, i have a budget nvme ssd and ryzen 5 cpu in my desktop, chrome takes a fraction of a second to load. like i said if you know how to properly manage a pc then it is more capable than a mac.

 

I did mention build quality, like i said, low end laptops, yes. High end ones? no. Midrange laptops are somewhere inbetween.

[Obioban]

8 minutes ago, rippy4500 said:

You can sync most of that already or with third party software, the rest of those are just services that apple developed, there are alternatives.

 

If that $6000 pc is slower then its probably full of bloatware or something, my pc is properly tuned and it obliterates my friends mac in terms of speed, i have a budget nvme ssd and ryzen 5 cpu in my desktop, chrome takes a fraction of a second to load. like i said if you know how to properly manage a pc then it is more capable than a mac.

 

I did mention build quality, like i said, low end laptops, yes. High end ones? no. Midrange laptops are somewhere inbetween.

"You can sync most of that already or with third party software, the rest of those are just services that apple developed, there are alternatives."

That kind of stuff is exactly the bloatware the makes windows slow.

 

" like i said if you know how to properly manage a pc then it is more capable than a mac."

It just isn't. None of the underlying Unix goodness, none of the underlying hooks for automation of everything. MacOS is vastly and deeply capable-- in ways most PC users have no actual idea about.

 

"I did mention build quality, like i said, low end laptops, yes. High end ones? no. Midrange laptops are somewhere inbetween."

What PC laptop has build quality on par with any laptop apple sells?

What PC tower has build quality on par with the Mac Pro?

[rippy4500]

5 minutes ago, Obioban said:

"You can sync most of that already or with third party software, the rest of those are just services that apple developed, there are alternatives."

That kind of stuff is exactly the bloatware the makes windows slow.

 

" like i said if you know how to properly manage a pc then it is more capable than a mac."

It just isn't. None of the underlying Unix goodness, none of the underlying hooks for automation of everything. MacOS is vastly and deeply capable-- in ways most PC users have no actual idea about.

 

"I did mention build quality, like i said, low end laptops, yes. High end ones? no. Midrange laptops are somewhere inbetween."

What PC laptop has build quality on par with any laptop apple sells?

What PC tower has build quality on par with the Mac Pro?

If somebody wants the benefits of macos, they can just dual boot macos and windows. Thats why i said your os argument doesnt matter because you can use either.

 

What pc tower has build quality on par with a mac pro?

i can give a couple examples, corsair 4000d/4000x airflow, lian li pc-o11 dynamic, lian li lancool 2, phanteks p360a, rog strix helios, these are just a couple ones i can think of. And of course i have the advantage of being able to choose any of these and also any other case out there, while being able to put whatever hardware i want in there and not having to pay a fortune for it.

For laptops theres the asus zenbook linup, asus tuf gaming/dash lineup, rog strix and zephyrus lineup, msi stealth gs66/gp66, along with other gigabyte and lenovo laptops and many more. The big brands like hp, dell, and acer dont make great ones all the time.

All have many display options from 4k 120hz to 1080p 360hz and everywhere inbetween, mac doesnt have that advantage they have 60hz or 120hz at their best, yes ik high refresh rate is only really useful for gaming but its still a point for the pc.

 

The real answer is that there is no best option, there are good and bad macs, there is also good and bad pcs. Neither have any huge advantages or disadvantages. Pc is more capable considering that it can run macos in a vm or dual boot and get all the advantages of it but macs are also capable of doing that with windows so its not really good to compare operating systems this way.

[Obioban]

1 hour ago, rippy4500 said:

If somebody wants the benefits of macos, they can just dual boot macos and windows. Thats why i said your os argument doesnt matter because you can use either.

 

What pc tower has build quality on par with a mac pro?

i can give a couple examples, corsair 4000d/4000x airflow, lian li pc-o11 dynamic, lian li lancool 2, phanteks p360a, rog strix helios, these are just a couple ones i can think of. And of course i have the advantage of being able to choose any of these and also any other case out there, while being able to put whatever hardware i want in there and not having to pay a fortune for it.

For laptops theres the asus zenbook linup, asus tuf gaming/dash lineup, rog strix and zephyrus lineup, msi stealth gs66/gp66, along with other gigabyte and lenovo laptops and many more. The big brands like hp, dell, and acer dont make great ones all the time.

All have many display options from 4k 120hz to 1080p 360hz and everywhere inbetween, mac doesnt have that advantage they have 60hz or 120hz at their best, yes ik high refresh rate is only really useful for gaming but its still a point for the pc.

 

The real answer is that there is no best option, there are good and bad macs, there is also good and bad pcs. Neither have any huge advantages or disadvantages. Pc is more capable considering that it can run macos in a vm or dual boot and get all the advantages of it but macs are also capable of doing that with windows so its not really good to compare operating systems this way.

Dual booting windows/MacOS isn't a useful thing at the moment. Windows for ARM is severely lacking, so doing that will give you severely compromised experience. Hackintoshes are getting less support by the day, as Apple increasingly doesn't use modern Windows side hardware, and won't be viable at all once MacOS stops supporting windows hardware. VMs are pretty slow when running in emulation (between hardware architectures).

 

I'm not sure you have any notion of what the screen on the MacBook Pro is. 1600 nits peak brightness, 1000 nit sustained, 10,000 local dimming zones for perfect blacks, 120hz with variable refresh rate (so doesn't hurt battery life), and actually useful resolutions (and an OS that can take advantage of them, unlike windows).

 

... given your list, I'm not entirely sure you know what a high quality chassis is. I'd be pretty embarrassed to bring almost any of those into a meeting.

[rippy4500]

1 hour ago, Obioban said:

... given your list, I'm not entirely sure you know what a high quality chassis is. I'd be pretty embarrassed to bring almost any of those into a meeting.

Pretty sure we werent talking about asthetics. Most of them look pretty nice to me, the gaming ones might have too much rgb for some people but the ones that dont have that do still look nice.

I was talking about build quality as in how strong/sturdy its designed, not how it looks.

Macs just look plain to me.

Those are just opinions, buying a very different laptop just because it looks nicer is not great buying advice.

Most people dont even care about it that much as long as it doesnt shatter when it gets dropped or if it flexes a bunch.