Apple Plans To Overhaul Entire Mac Line With AI-Focused M4 Chips

Dudhunter said:
Now let’s talk about the $1400 dollar Apple laptops with 8gb ram that hit EOL after 4 years. They serve a similar purpose to those shitty, parts bin Acer laptops you mentioned.
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Not really. Apple doesn't make products that are comparable to the shitty parts bin laptops, at any price point. You can look at just the memory spec and try to compare 8GB vs 8GB, but there is more to a computer than that.

At $1400, you get an Air with the following specs:

8 core CPU, 10-core GPU
16GB unified memory
512GB SSD
2 Thunderbolt 4 ports
Insane battery life
Excellent microphone
By far the best trackpad in the industry
Aluminum case
A high-quality screen that is calibrated from the factory (whenever I measure them I barely have to correct them)
Same-day service at Apple Stores in virtually any major metro area in the USA

When you look at the models that Apple ships with 8GB, the value proposition gets even stronger. At $999, you're getting all of the above except an 8 core processor, 8GB ram, and a 256GB SSD. Would I buy that machine? No. But is it still a fantastic value for the money relative to a PC $1000 machine? Well, it actually is depending on what you're looking for. I spent a little time looking at comparable Dell XPS options, and I'm not sure there really is one at that price point. They make cheaper ones, but the CPU is not even remotely close to the M2 and the screen is 1920x1200 which is a joke.

Even the $1399 XPS 13 Plus (which has a processor much more competitive against Apple) still has that crappy screen. Adding on a comparable screen is another $300, which brings it to $1699 - but at $1799 you can get:

M3 Macbook Pro 14
16GB ram
512gb SSD
3x Thunderbolt ports
all the other benefits listed above


I totally agree with what you're saying about hardware enthusiasts existing on any budget and how hardware enthusiasts should have a passion for all things electronic. I just enjoy playing up the price aspect because it's the one thing that anti-apple fanboys cling so passionately to and it riles them up so easily.

The people I'm making fun of are those who have a passion for all things electronic - except Apple, because it hurts their feels for some reason despite the company objectively being a hardware engineering powerhouse. I am a multi-platform user - I just get what's best, regardless of brand - and I love them all.
 
paradoxical said:
A high-quality screen that is calibrated from the factory (whenever I measure them I barely have to correct them)
Same-day service at Apple Stores in virtually any major metro area in the USA
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I wish all manufacturers put at least some effort into calibrating their screens like Apple did. A good bit of them finally are, but I always appreciated Apple for this. Anyways - I have no dog in this fight. Just saw your mention of a calibrated screen and wanted to chime in with how much I appreciate having one - especially on a laptop. You're not typically given hardware-level adjustments to laptop screens, so it's nice when it comes pre-calibrated to damn good accuracy.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I wish all manufacturers put at least some effort into calibrating their screens like Apple did. A good bit of them finally are, but I always appreciated Apple for this. Anyways - I have no dog in this fight. Just saw your mention of a calibrated screen and wanted to chime in with how much I appreciate having one - especially on a laptop. You're not typically given hardware-level adjustments to laptop screens, so it's nice when it comes pre-calibrated to damn good accuracy.
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Yes, it’s just another example of Apple really paying attention to quality hardware for people that do work with their machines. Pc makers really show very little attention to things that actually matter to professional users on a day to day basis.

Every single time I use my computer, I use human interface devices for a larger percentage of time than I take advantage of the 128gb of ram I have or the M3 Max raw horsepower. Every single time I travel with my computer, I rely on the outstanding battery life more than I do the GPU power. Of course, my MacBook stomps most laptops in these performance metrics anyway, but my point is that Apple DEMOLISHES pc laptops when it comes to screen, touchpad, battery, speakers, and microphone quality.

Unfortunately, since Apple doesn’t support Linux I have to buy my engineers loaded Thinkpad P1 Gen 6s. The loaded XPS laptops we buy constantly fail and are total POS riddled with firmware issues when using high speed IO and their docks. The Thinkpads are nice machines, but for $7000 their trackpad, speakers, and microphones are significantly worse than a $999 MacBook Air. At least with the Oled screen upgrade that is decent, but even so the coating sucks on it. You might wonder why people buying a powerhouse Thinkpad care about speakers and mics, but you would be surprised how many impromptu round table video calls happen with remote employees when people try to utilize the built in peripherals. Unfortunately, the experience isn’t great.
 
paradoxical said:
You're talking to the guy who literally bought a 128gb Macbook just to troll Dukenukemx.
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oCkpOF.gif
 
paradoxical said:
Yes, it’s just another example of Apple really paying attention to quality hardware for people that do work with their machines. Pc makers really show very little attention to things that actually matter to professional users on a day to day basis.

Every single time I use my computer, I use human interface devices for a larger percentage of time than I take advantage of the 128gb of ram I have or the M3 Max raw horsepower. Every single time I travel with my computer, I rely on the outstanding battery life more than I do the GPU power. Of course, my MacBook stomps most laptops in these performance metrics anyway, but my point is that Apple DEMOLISHES pc laptops when it comes to screen, touchpad, battery, speakers, and microphone quality.

Unfortunately, since Apple doesn’t support Linux I have to buy my engineers loaded Thinkpad P1 Gen 6s. The loaded XPS laptops we buy constantly fail and are total POS riddled with firmware issues when using high speed IO and their docks. The Thinkpads are nice machines, but for $7000 their trackpad, speakers, and microphones are significantly worse than a $999 MacBook Air. At least with the Oled screen upgrade that is decent, but even so the coating sucks on it. You might wonder why people buying a powerhouse Thinkpad care about speakers and mics, but you would be surprised how many impromptu round table video calls happen with remote employees when people try to utilize the built in peripherals. Unfortunately, the experience isn’t great.
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You literally had me until you said Linux. And then you had me again.
IMG_2958.jpeg
 
DukenukemX said:
I wonder if they'll release it later this year? Gotta feel bad for Apple owners because early last year Apple released the M2's and later in the same year they released the M3's. Keep holding onto those M1's because M4's are around the corner.
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I wouldn't feel that bad. M2 shipped in 2022; it was just MacBook Pro owners that got the M2 and M3 refreshes in the same year, and that was a fairly long stretch. That and there was a time when Apple refreshed computers roughly every half year as it kept up with chip revisions from Intel (and even Motorola/IBM, if I recall correctly).

The advice is right, though. If you're still happy with an M1 Mac, there's no reason to rush out and get an M3. I'm the perfect target for an M3 as I'm still using an Intel machine and feel the pinch every day.
 
paradoxical said:
Unfortunately, since Apple doesn’t support Linux I have to buy my engineers loaded Thinkpad P1 Gen 6s. The loaded XPS laptops we buy constantly fail and are total POS riddled with firmware issues when using high speed IO and their docks. The Thinkpads are nice machines, but for $7000 their trackpad, speakers, and microphones are significantly worse than a $999 MacBook Air. At least with the Oled screen upgrade that is decent, but even so the coating sucks on it. You might wonder why people buying a powerhouse Thinkpad care about speakers and mics, but you would be surprised how many impromptu round table video calls happen with remote employees when people try to utilize the built in peripherals. Unfortunately, the experience isn’t great.
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What you describe here is exactly why I still haven't gotten around to buying a PC laptop with a strong Nvidia GPU in it. That GPU would be great for my work, but it takes $5k to get the spec that I would use. The $5k pays for a really nice mobile GPU while the rest of the machine remains garbage tier $300 laptop spec from 2005.

Instead of paying $5k for garbage, I usually end up with a much less expensive MacBook that I use for remoting into a high spec PC desktop.

Last year, a CEO of a major US automaker (might have been Ford?) gave an extremely honest assessment of why the company was 2+ generations behind when it comes to technology in the car: He said that the automaker had stopped doing any real development over two decades prior and instead had foisted that responsibility onto their suppliers. This is where PC OEMs are living right now, and they seem to be happy about it despite the lagging sales and shrinking margins - exactly the issues the automaker was looking to resolve. The reason Apple's screens are so great is because Apple actually does the development of their own products (in concert with their suppliers, of course). This is different from Dell which communicates a price point to the supplier and then ships whatever junk they receive for that price. The culture at PC OEMs is that "the supplier's screen" looks how it looks whereas at Apple it's "our product and thus it needs to meet our standards."
 
Thunderdolt said:
What you describe here is exactly why I still haven't gotten around to buying a PC laptop with a strong Nvidia GPU in it. That GPU would be great for my work, but it takes $5k to get the spec that I would use. The $5k pays for a really nice mobile GPU while the rest of the machine remains garbage tier $300 laptop spec from 2005.

Instead of paying $5k for garbage, I usually end up with a much less expensive MacBook that I use for remoting into a high spec PC desktop.

Last year, a CEO of a major US automaker (might have been Ford?) gave an extremely honest assessment of why the company was 2+ generations behind when it comes to technology in the car: He said that the automaker had stopped doing any real development over two decades prior and instead had foisted that responsibility onto their suppliers. This is where PC OEMs are living right now, and they seem to be happy about it despite the lagging sales and shrinking margins - exactly the issues the automaker was looking to resolve. The reason Apple's screens are so great is because Apple actually does the development of their own products (in concert with their suppliers, of course). This is different from Dell which communicates a price point to the supplier and then ships whatever junk they receive for that price. The culture at PC OEMs is that "the supplier's screen" looks how it looks whereas at Apple it's "our product and thus it needs to meet our standards."
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I feel this…
My biggest struggle for laptops right now are ones with a NIC that supports VLan tagging. So many don’t. And lots say they do but not on the 620i only the 620e but the white paper for the 620 doesn’t distinguish between the two variants so you get an unwelcome surprise when you go to test the IoT network and the settings just don’t take or aren’t there…
 
westrock2000 said:
Maybe it’s a usage case thing. Both my M1 MacBook Air and M2 Mini have 8GB of RAM. Has never once been an issue for me. RAM is designed to negate the effects of slow storage. Get fast enough storage and that need becomes less evident.
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Ram is still faster than the fastest NVMe's. 8G if too little these days for most in day to day usage, browsers with tabs, office apps, messenger apps or anything...it costs Apple about $5 for that ram chip a recent article was talking about, but they charge you so much to go to 16GB. (Dell does the same)
 
MrGuvernment said:
Ram is still faster than the fastest NVMe's. 8G if too little these days for most in day to day usage, browsers with tabs, office apps, messenger apps or anything...it costs Apple about $5 for that ram chip a recent article was talking about, but they charge you so much to go to 16GB. (Dell does the same)
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Oh yea, they arent even in the ball park of eachother. Never will be because they both evolve.

Id imagine latency of nvme storage vs ram is in the range of 10000x slower too, would make doing anything painful id imagine
 
Thunderdolt said:
It costs Dell $2 and yet nobody is upset that Dell doesn't give RAM away for free.

Go figure.
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I think they do the moment they go to manually build one on dell, but

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/del...30-laptop/usexchcto9530rpl07?ref=variantstack

going from 16 to 32 is $200, a giant amount for 16GB of 4800-DDR5.

Apple charges the double $200 by 8 GB, at least Apple ram is more special (100GB/s I think) and quite fancy connection to the SOC.

I do feel a lot of complaint about Apple price are in good part complain about oem pricing in general coming from DIU people, at least now, there as many price point for many things for which Apple seem to be perfectly good value vs Dell/HP of the world and it is easy to see why they are so popular. I would also add that there is something nice about hardware company trying to make money on the hardware and not by putting Norton suite and other low-value post sales revenues. I do not remember any OEM custom build option that did not make me say, hum probably better just buy extra-ram on amazon.

westrock2000 said:
Maybe it’s a usage case thing. Both my M1 MacBook Air and M2 Mini have 8GB of RAM. Has never once been an issue for me. RAM is designed to negate the effects of slow storage. Get fast enough storage and that need becomes less evident.
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There also endurance, ram as virtually unlimited write endurance, SSD do not, at least on the first 8GB M1 that was the issue how much writing on the drive occurred by day
 
paradoxical said:
Every single time I use my computer, I use human interface devices for a larger percentage of time than I take advantage of the 128gb of ram I have or the M3 Max raw horsepower. Every single time I travel with my computer, I rely on the outstanding battery life more than I do the GPU power. Of course, my MacBook stomps most laptops in these performance metrics anyway, but my point is that Apple DEMOLISHES pc laptops when it comes to screen, touchpad, battery, speakers, and microphone quality.
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The problem here is that I strive to never use any of those HIDs, so they hold almost no value.

For work, I'm using a windows laptop because WSL is where it's at - my servers are Linux, so I want to actually be using Linux for anything local. At home, I dock my laptop and use a full sized Keyboard, mouse, headset, and 3 monitor setup. As far as I know, Mac only supports 1 external monitor, so that's a big strike against it.

When I travel, I pack 2 Asus USB monitors, a bluetooth mouse and 10keyless mechancial keyboard - I have no desire to use any compact keyboard so I don't care how nice it is. When I arrive at the office, I plug the work supplied monitor into my laptop and also connect my 2 external monitors, my mouse, and my keyboard. I rarely take conference calls while traveling, but if I do, I use my Air Pods for the call, because I don't really want everyone nearby to be listening to my call (I can't always reserve an office), nor do I really want to be tied to being close to my laptop.

in these conditions, battery life is entirely moot - I plug into an outlet in my reserved work area. The battery life of even the cheapest Toshiba is fine for a 2 hour meeting in a room, and if a specific meeting is longer than that, I've never been in a conference room without plugs.
 
Thunderdolt said:
It costs Dell $2 and yet nobody is upset that Dell doesn't give RAM away for free.

Go figure.
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I did mention Dell in my post...But certainly some companies get more flack than others do for the same tactics.

Dell I love when you go to configure servers, and literally the exact same memory modules, pending what options you choose, can jump in price significantly. I have done some side by side builds of the same model server, or their "pre-configured" base models and add ram and disk, and the price difference for the same parts gets stupid!
 
paradoxical said:
When you look at the models that Apple ships with 8GB, the value proposition gets even stronger. At $999, you're getting all of the above except an 8 core processor, 8GB ram, and a 256GB SSD. Would I buy that machine? No. But is it still a fantastic value for the money relative to a PC $1000 machine?
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I will agree that the 16GB unified RAM model has considerable value.
However, the 8GB unified RAM model is not nearly enough and will accelerate burning through write cycles on the embedded NAND.

8GB RAM is simply not enough for anything beyond the lightest usage in this era, and Apple's OEM NAND chips are nothing special that would withstand this.
Everyone learned the hard way back in 2020 with the M1 Mini with only 8GB unified RAM.
 
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Apple products have never appealed to me. I've always viewed them as appliances. I'll take an "inferior" Windows device any day, or an Android phone 🤷‍♂️. It doesn't help that everyone I know with Apple devices admits buying them because of social pressure, and "looking poor". It's silly as hell.

I have zero invested into the Apple ecosystem so my incentive to go Apple for anything is still... virtually zero.
 
Tengis said:
Apple products have never appealed to me. I've always viewed them as appliances. I'll take an "inferior" Windows device any day, or an Android phone 🤷‍♂️. It doesn't help that everyone I know with Apple devices admits buying them because of social pressure, and "looking poor". It's silly as hell.

I have zero invested into the Apple ecosystem so my incentive to go Apple for anything is still... virtually zero.
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I’ll take an appliance any time. Any time. That means it works and it’ll keep working. I’ve never had a toaster not work, I’ll take that reliability.

It’s interesting. Everyone I know that has an android device uses it precisely because it’s not Apple. They fashion themselves as being free thinkers, or superior to the sheep or whatever. They speak of their phone in terms that are not of a superior products, but that it’s not Apple.

In reality, no one cares that they have an Android. No one.
 
Liver said:
I’ll take an appliance any time. Any time. That means it works and it’ll keep working. I’ve never had a toaster not work, I’ll take that reliability.

It’s interesting. Everyone I know that has an android device uses it precisely because it’s not Apple. They fashion themselves as being free thinkers, or superior to the sheep or whatever. They speak of their phone in terms that are not of a superior products, but that it’s not Apple.

In reality, no one cares that they have an Android. No one.
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I don't have an Android phone because I care if you like it, which is precisely why I don't have an Apple phone.
 
"I prefer slower, less secure, less powerful, less reliable devices with worse battery life because it is very important to me that people don't think I am a conformist. And something about a SD card and a removable battery which hasn't existed for a decade." -Android users
 
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Red Falcon said:
I will agree that the 16GB unified RAM model has considerable value.
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Like what? Where? The only time I can see this being beneficial is when both the CPU and GPU need the same data which I can't think of many beneficial situations for it. On the other hand, I can see many situations where it's a performance penalty.
However, the 8GB unified RAM model does not as 8GB RAM (on any modern platform) is not nearly enough and will accelerate burning through write cycles on the embedded NAND.
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Also, 8GB is still 8GB.

View: https://youtu.be/u1dxOI_kYG8?si=R7jFRPorztbn1F5z
8GB RAM is simply not enough for anything beyond the lightest usage in this era, and Apple's contracted NAND chips are nothing special that would withstand this.
Everyone learned the hard way back in 2020 with the M1 Mini with only 8GB unified RAM.
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8GB is enough for most light use but I keep hearing that Mac users are for professional users but what professional user can make use of 8GB?
Thunderdolt said:
It costs Dell $2 and yet nobody is upset that Dell doesn't give RAM away for free.

Go figure.
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Another shitty company doing the same shitty practice does not mean Apple is in the right. There's a good chance that Dell is also a shitty company.
paradoxical said:
"I prefer slower,
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Apple is the slowest.
less secure,
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Apple has an unpatchable flaw with no work around announced and Triangulation that plagued iPhone users for years. More recently, Apple had to issue a threat notification because Israel can't stop hacking them.
less powerful,
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I can assure you that slower also means less powerful.
less reliable devices
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The iPhone 15's are still over heating.
with worse battery life
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View: https://youtu.be/KLVbgnEld8M?list=PLxG1rcvx0wlvapXdPowUwva4eAV1jtPEe&t=292
because it is very important to me that people don't think I am a conformist.
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You do realize that Apple users are the minority? You seem to have a very delusional view of why people hate Apple products. Their stuff costs a fortune and specs are worse than PC or Android equivalent. It's built so it can't be fixed. Can only run a very small amount of software compared to Windows and Linux. iOS has only now gotten the ability to run emulators now, but still forces all web browsers to use WebKit. iOS is always behind in features compared to Android. You can't side load on iOS, even with all the EU mandates so far.

I can go on, but I feel that these bad things are features to you.

And something about a SD card and a removable battery which hasn't existed for a decade." -Android users
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SD card hasn't existed for Apple, but some Android devices still get SD card slots. It's nice spending a fraction for storage. It's also inevitable that even Apple has to have removable batteries.
apple sd card.png
 
MrGuvernment said:
Ram is still faster than the fastest NVMe's. 8G if too little these days for most in day to day usage, browsers with tabs, office apps, messenger apps or anything...it costs Apple about $5 for that ram chip a recent article was talking about, but they charge you so much to go to 16GB. (Dell does the same)
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Also their base price is higher, which makes the lack of RAM less forgivable. Like I get if there's some cheap craptastic computer that is trying to hit a low price that has a small amount of RAM. I still don't like it, as it won't give the user a good experience, but at least I understand: You have to cost down all the components to hit a super low price. Apple doesn't so super low price, even for low end models. They charge plenty, and have plenty of profit margin, meaning they could easily afford more RAM. I'm not going to shit on something like the Acer Go for having 8GB of RAM. It costs $300. Everything in that system is the cheapest shit they can get. I will shit on a $1600 Macbook Pro for having 8GB of RAM. That is an expensive system, with some decent components in it, they can sure as shit afford more RAM.

Goes double since you can't upgrade said RAM, so you can't later say "Well that was a mistake, I need more to get good performance." Nope, you are screwed.
 
Sycraft said:
Also their base price is higher, which makes the lack of RAM less forgivable. Like I get if there's some cheap craptastic computer that is trying to hit a low price that has a small amount of RAM. I still don't like it, as it won't give the user a good experience, but at least I understand: You have to cost down all the components to hit a super low price. Apple doesn't so super low price, even for low end models. They charge plenty, and have plenty of profit margin, meaning they could easily afford more RAM. I'm not going to shit on something like the Acer Go for having 8GB of RAM. It costs $300. Everything in that system is the cheapest shit they can get. I will shit on a $1600 Macbook Pro for having 8GB of RAM. That is an expensive system, with some decent components in it, they can sure as shit afford more RAM.

Goes double since you can't upgrade said RAM, so you can't later say "Well that was a mistake, I need more to get good performance." Nope, you are screwed.
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That's the one thing about the current Mac lineup that gets me — it's been at 8GB base for some configs for years, and a $1,600 machine shouldn't start there. Now, 8GB on a modern Mac isn't quite like 8GB on Windows, but it's also true that it doesn't magically provide gobs of headroom, either. It's telling that Apple used the MacBook Air refresh as an opportunity to make Air and Pro configs with 16GB included; it knows people want more memory.

I suspect the MacBook Pro M4 will start at 16GB... and hopefully not sit there for years on end. Not sure about the Air, but I'd imagine you won't have to go to the very top spec to get more than 8GB of memory.
 
Aurelius said:
That's the one thing about the current Mac lineup that gets me — it's been at 8GB base for some configs for years, and a $1,600 machine shouldn't start there. Now, 8GB on a modern Mac isn't quite like 8GB on Windows, but it's also true that it doesn't magically provide gobs of headroom, either. It's telling that Apple used the MacBook Air refresh as an opportunity to make Air and Pro configs with 16GB included; it knows people want more memory.

I suspect the MacBook Pro M4 will start at 16GB... and hopefully not sit there for years on end. Not sure about the Air, but I'd imagine you won't have to go to the very top spec to get more than 8GB of memory.
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This is the same situation with GPU manufacturers and their abuse of 8GB. It's 2024 and 16GB should have been the minimum for at least 5 years now, but they aren't because the manufacturer knows you can't upgrade so they push you to buy models with more ram, but apparently another 8GB of ram costs $200. Meanwhile 16GB of DDR5 is like $60. Apple isn't paying $60 for 16GB obviously. Same goes for storage but at least people can use external USB drives. For $1,600 you're not getting 16GB on a Windows PC. You're getting 64GB of ram with a 4TB NVME, that can both be upgrade. For comparison, This Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro has 18GB of "unified memory" with 512GB of storage for $2,500. That is just insultingly over priced. The kicker is that the Lenovo LOQ still allows you to upgrade the ram and storage even for $1,600.
 
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Lower end models often are just created to push the middle of the road model. Consumers feel better when they feel like they have a choice in how much they spend. You arent supposed to buy the lowest model, its there to make you "well im already spending this much, might as well get the one with more stuff for a little more". Then "hmm, if i put an extra couple hundred in this, i could future proof myself even longer!".
 
DukenukemX said:
This is the same situation with GPU manufacturers and their abuse of 8GB. It's 2024 and 16GB should have been the minimum for at least 5 years now, but they aren't because the manufacturer knows you can't upgrade so they push you to buy models with more ram, but apparently another 8GB of ram costs $200. Meanwhile 16GB of DDR5 is like $60. Apple isn't paying $60 for 16GB obviously. Same goes for storage but at least people can use external USB drives. For $1,600 you're not getting 16GB on a Windows PC. You're getting 64GB of ram with a 4TB NVME, that can both be upgrade. For comparison, This Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro has 18GB of "unified memory" with 512GB of storage for $2,500. That is just insultingly over priced. The kicker is that the Lenovo LOQ still allows you to upgrade the ram and storage even for $1,600.
Click to expand...

You could not pay me $10k to use that machine on a daily basis. It is absolutely embarrassing that a $1600 computer has a 1920x1200 screen with a garbage-tier touchpad and terrible battery life. And don't say "I'd just dock it" - what's the point in a laptop then? My MBP is excellent both on the go AND in a dock.
 
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DukenukemX said:
This is the same situation with GPU manufacturers and their abuse of 8GB. It's 2024 and 16GB should have been the minimum for at least 5 years now, but they aren't because the manufacturer knows you can't upgrade so they push you to buy models with more ram, but apparently another 8GB of ram costs $200. Meanwhile 16GB of DDR5 is like $60. Apple isn't paying $60 for 16GB obviously. Same goes for storage but at least people can use external USB drives. For $1,600 you're not getting 16GB on a Windows PC. You're getting 64GB of ram with a 4TB NVME, that can both be upgrade. For comparison, This Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro has 18GB of "unified memory" with 512GB of storage for $2,500. That is just insultingly over priced. The kicker is that the Lenovo LOQ still allows you to upgrade the ram and storage even for $1,600.
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Not a bad find! Tempting to be honest. Also $100 off coupon! :D
 
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DukenukemX said:
This is the same situation with GPU manufacturers and their abuse of 8GB. It's 2024 and 16GB should have been the minimum for at least 5 years now, but they aren't because the manufacturer knows you can't upgrade so they push you to buy models with more ram, but apparently another 8GB of ram costs $200. Meanwhile 16GB of DDR5 is like $60. Apple isn't paying $60 for 16GB obviously. Same goes for storage but at least people can use external USB drives. For $1,600 you're not getting 16GB on a Windows PC. You're getting 64GB of ram with a 4TB NVME, that can both be upgrade. For comparison, This Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro has 18GB of "unified memory" with 512GB of storage for $2,500. That is just insultingly over priced. The kicker is that the Lenovo LOQ still allows you to upgrade the ram and storage even for $1,600.
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The comparison with that Lenovo isn't straightforward. The LOQ has a lower resolution (if slightly higher refresh rate) and lower quality display, just one USB-C port (no surprises at the lack of Thunderbolt with AMD), build quality will undoubtedly be worse... you get the idea. Performance will be great for games and some pro apps while plugged in, of course, but it's going to tank while on battery and won't fare as well with some creative apps. I recently used an ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 and that thing took a speed hit while unplugged (even with performance modes forced on). It also didn't last more than a few hours on battery when doing pedestrian tasks.

That kind of RAM and SSD capacity is great for the money, but Lenovo is prioritizing different things than Apple. And while Apple is undoubtedly charging higher profit margins, I know I'd much rather have the MacBook Pro for audiovisual editing (provided I get a config with enough storage, at least) even with those memory and storage deficits.
 
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Darunion said:
Lower end models often are just created to push the middle of the road model. Consumers feel better when they feel like they have a choice in how much they spend. You arent supposed to buy the lowest model, its there to make you "well im already spending this much, might as well get the one with more stuff for a little more". Then "hmm, if i put an extra couple hundred in this, i could future proof myself even longer!".
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I think here there is some usecase, people that like Apple ecosystem and want something similar to a Chromebook or Ipad with a keyboard for typing or that will remote connect to their computer (work computer) for anything heavy, imagine you are a Google employee, many teams work mostly on remote session, your local device being a small client where 256GB-8GB of ram could be fine but still want the battery life, perfect experience for the little it has to do locally for your personnal browser-messaging-texto app and the budget to go with apple laptop and if you want the screen resolution higher than 1080p (which would be a must for many) the cheap option are not common anyway.

paradoxical said:
terrible battery life.
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Not sure a 7840HS with a 80 whr battery will be terrible here...
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lenovo-legion-slim-5-2023
In our testing, which involves web browsing, light graphics work and video streaming while connected to Wi-Fi with display brightness set at 150 nits, the Legion Slim 5’s battery lasted for 7 hours and 21 minutes.

That getting close to 8 hours days, it is garbage in MacBookPro world (they are getting around 17 hours on that same tests), they are not in the world of not need to think about it if you charged it last night level which is a big deal and difference to be or not be at that level for sure, but not garbage at all either relative to the pre Apple Arm paradigm shift.
 
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Lakados said:
The other half is, if you have an M1 based Mac for 90% of the consumer base there is no need to go to an M3.

If you are a corporate user there are few reasons to upgrade to an M3 from either the M1 or M2 variants. Unless you specifically need one of the few exclusives that the M3 offers it’s too small of an improvement.

It certainly doesn’t help that sales of the M1 were very good and that was only 4 years ago. It’s a repeat of the iPhone 6 where sales of the 7, 8, and 9 were notably smaller because of how many people bought the 6 and how few people replace their devices every year.
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This absolutely. The M1 was a huge change coming from Intel. I had an Intel i9 based MBP from work and it frankly sucked. Then got the M1 Pro MBP and the battery life is great and the machine does everything I need it to. Since the M1, the M2 and M3 have been more iterative then anything else, and especially the M2 to the M3 saw some segments not gaining much performance, looking at you M3 Pro.

As long as you have any M-based Mac product, there's literally no reason to buy a new one.

EDIT: Not to say there aren't other issues that might warrant a change like 8GB of RAM in 2024 :ROFLMAO:. PC wise, I've been on 12GB minimum since the X58 days.
 
LukeTbk said:
I think here there is some usecase, people that like Apple ecosystem and want something similar to a Chromebook or Ipad with a keyboard for typing or that will remote connect to their computer (work computer) for anything heavy, imagine you are a Google employee, many teams work mostly on remote session, your local device being a small client where 256GB-8GB of ram could be fine but still want the battery life, perfect experience for the little it has to do locally for your personnal browser-messaging-texto app and the budget to go with apple laptop and if you want the screen resolution higher than 1080p (which would be a must for many) the cheap option are not common anyway.


Not sure a 7840HS with a 80 whr battery will be terrible here...
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lenovo-legion-slim-5-2023
In our testing, which involves web browsing, light graphics work and video streaming while connected to Wi-Fi with display brightness set at 150 nits, the Legion Slim 5’s battery lasted for 7 hours and 21 minutes.

That getting close to 8 hours days, it is garbage in MacBookPro world (they are getting around 17 hours on that same tests), they are not in the world of not need to think about it if you charged it last night level which is a big deal and difference to be or not be at that level for sure, but not garbage at all either relative to the pre Apple Arm paradigm shift.
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That is garbage to me because I have a Macbook Pro which I often run a mobile triple screen setup off of on battery with an iPad Pro and a LG Gram.

In this configuration, the resolution and screen quality available dwarf the PC as does the battery life with two other devices sucking off battery. I was able to work the entire day off battery from a hotel bar with this configuration on my last road trip!
 
paradoxical said:
That is garbage to me because I have a Macbook Pro which I often run a mobile triple screen setup off of on battery with an iPad Pro and a LG Gram.

In this configuration, the resolution and screen quality available dwarf the PC as does the battery life with two other devices sucking off battery. I was able to work the entire day off battery from a hotel bar with this configuration on my last road trip!
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Yep I work all day long often on my work M1 Pro MBP 16" battery. On the other hand, my old Intel i9 based 2019 MBP 16" would die in an hour.
 
Sir Beregond said:
This absolutely. The M1 was a huge change coming from Intel. I had an Intel i9 based MBP from work and it frankly sucked. Then got the M1 Pro MBP and the battery life is great and the machine does everything I need it to. Since the M1, the M2 and M3 have been more iterative then anything else, and especially the M2 to the M3 saw some segments not gaining much performance, looking at you M3 Pro.

As long as you have any M-based Mac product, there's literally no reason to buy a new one.

EDIT: Not to say there aren't other issues that might warrant a change like 8GB of RAM in 2024 :ROFLMAO:. PC wise, I've been on 12GB minimum since the X58 days.
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I have a late 2019 Intel-based MPB that I keep in my desk drawer for when I need screenshots for guides and such and it is certainly more than usable, but Nov 2020 M1 MBP blows it away in every measurable aspect.
 
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