With how fast and impressive the improvements are coming with the M-series processors, it often feels like we're back in the early 90s. I thought the M1 Macbook Air would be the epitome of Apple's processor renaissance, but it sure feels like that was only the beginning. When we look historically at these machines in 20 years, we'll think of a specific machine as the best early Apple Silicon Mac. I don't think that machine is even out yet.

It’s not a server so it’s not a crime to not always be using all of it and it’s not upgradable so it needs to be right the first time. I should have got 32GB to just be sure.

Thankfully, Apple recently made 16GB the base RAM in all Macs (including the M2/M3 MacBook Airs) anyway. 8GB was becoming a bad joke and it could add 40% to the price of some models to upgrade it!

I’m only compelled to upgrade for more ram, but I only feel the pressure of 8gb in rare cases. (I do wish I could swap the ram)

I'll likely upgrade to the M4 Air when it comes out. The M4 MacBook Pro is tempting, but I value portability and they're just so chunky and heavy compared to the Air.

The M1 Pro was a revelation.

That would cause it to throttle even when idle! But even on battery or using the right-hand ports, under continuous load (edit-build-test cycles) it would quickly throttle.

I was going to say why not compare it to something older! 100000x faster than a pc-xt!

I'm typing this from my mid-2012 retina mac book pro. I'm on Mojave and I'm well out of support for the operating system patches. But the hardware keeps running like a champ.

That’s not accurate.

Just yesterday, my 2017 Retina 4k iMac got a security update to macOS Ventura 13.7.1 and Safari even though it’s listed as “vintage.”

Now that Apple makes their own processors and GPUs, there’s really no reason in the foreseeable future that Apple would need to stop supporting any Mac with an M-series chip.

The first M1 Macs shipped in November 2020—four years ago but they can run the latest macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence.

Unless Apple makes some major changes to the Mac’s architecture, I don’t expect Apple to stop supporting any M series Mac anytime soon.

Since Snapdragon X laptops caught up to Apple on battery life I might as well buy one of those when I'll need to change. I don't need the fastest mobile CPU for watching movies and browsing the internet. But I like to have a decent amount of memory to keep a hundred tabs open.

naa... Amiga had the A2500 around the same time, the Mac IIx wasn't better with regards to specs in most ways. And at about $4500 more expensive (Amiga 2500 was around $3300, Mac IIx was $7769), it was vastly overpriced as is typical for Apple products.

>Apple products aren't overpriced

baaahahhahahahahhahahaalaolalololoolol

Oh wait, you're not joking are you.

cough

like saying, "Back in the 70s with Paul McCartney's first band, Wings (...)"

kids? get off my lawn

I've got one and it's really not that impressive. I use it as a "desktop" though and not as a laptop (as in: it's on my desk hooked to a monitor, never on my laps).

I'm probably gonna replace it with a Mini with that M4 chip anyway but...

My AMD 7700X running Linux is simply a much better machine/OS than that MacBook M1 Air. I don't know if it's the RAM on the 7700X or the WD-SN850X SSD or Linux but everything is simply quicker, snappier, faster on the 7700X than on the M1.

I hope the M4 Mini doesn't disappoint me as much as the M1 Air.

I love my M1 Studio. It’s the Mac I always wanted - desktop Mac with no integrates peripherals, a ton of ports - although I still use a high end hub to plug in… lot more. Two big external SSDs, my input peripherals (I’m a wired mouse and keyboard kind of guy) then a bunch of audio and USB midi devices.

It’s even a surprisingly capable gaming machine for what it is. Crossover is pretty darn good these days, and there are ARM native Factorio and World of Warcraft ports that run super well.

Don’t expect to play dark souls on it, but for indies and the like it’s fine.

(Dark Souls is my favourite game/series…how did you know)

The biggest annoyance I've hit actually is that game controller support is pretty bad. Don't expect generic USB HID game controllers to work, support for that isn't baked into MacOS the way it is Windows (Via DirectInput, etc).

The happy path is pretty much specifically a bluetooth xbox controlle.

I’d like a few VMs for a media server and the associated apps. Pihole too ideally, but I keep that separate as that VM going bad is never good.

And pg server. And a few web sites server. And something running in orb stack.

It's the 8gb model and I have around 2gb free most of the time

I like it in every way except price. It just works, comes back online after a power outage, etc. I don't recall any unscheduled disconnects.

--

Additional thoughts: I think there are complaints about the fan being loud so I swapped it out when I first got it. I also have it in my basement so I don't hear anything anyway -- HDDs are loud, especially the gold ones

[0] https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41996008