Macbook Air for College
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@stacksofplates said in Macbook Air for College:
@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
Daughter wants a Mac laptop for college. Any suggestions?
What is she going for?
Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology
IMO a Mac makes sense in that field. My wife's cousin went for something similar and they did a good bit of programming. Mostly Python but I think it's a good fit.
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
Daughter wants a Mac laptop for college. Any suggestions?
Either give it and buy it for her. Or put your foot down and don't. Those are roughly the options. LOL
What more were you looking for? Make sure it has the M1 chip. That's about it.
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@gjacobse said in Macbook Air for College:
Uh-
Don’t?What is the need for having the MacBook?
Why wouldn't you? The new MacBook crushes almost everything else. It's pricey, but really cheap given its performance.
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@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
@gjacobse said in Macbook Air for College:
Uh-
Don’t?What is the need for having the MacBook?
Why wouldn't you? The new MacBook crushes almost everything else. It's pricey, but really cheap given its performance.
Can the M1 run ALL - 100% all mac software? if not, then I wouldn't buy it, but that's just me.
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@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
Can the M1 run ALL - 100% all mac software? if not, then I wouldn't buy it, but that's just me.
- That's insane. Can your Windows machine run 100% of Mac software? If not, why do you buy Windows?
- Who runs all software? The entire premise of a Chromebook is that you only need one app now, the browser, and all others are useless. It's got a huge piece of the market.
- Yes, it can. But it's ridiculous to want it to.
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@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
but that's just me.
Correct, this actually matters to literally no one. Being able to run some ancient app from 1992 affects nobody.
The only thing that matters to anyone is if it can do a good job for their actual workloads that they will run. Not theoretical ancient workloads that they will never encounter.
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@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
but that's just me.
Correct, this actually matters to literally no one. Being able to run some ancient app from 1992 affects nobody.
The only thing that matters to anyone is if it can do a good job for their actual workloads that they will run. Not theoretical ancient workloads that they will never encounter.
A better answer would have been - anything modern, written/released in the last say 10 years - yes you'll have no issues with.
you have some old legacy crap - just like windows, you'll likely have issues.
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@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
but that's just me.
Correct, this actually matters to literally no one. Being able to run some ancient app from 1992 affects nobody.
The only thing that matters to anyone is if it can do a good job for their actual workloads that they will run. Not theoretical ancient workloads that they will never encounter.
A better answer would have been - anything modern, written/released in the last say 10 years - yes you'll have no issues with.
you have some old legacy crap - just like windows, you'll likely have issues.
Exactly. Why would you expect an Apple product to not run Apple software? That's a weird assumption. It's fine to ask, but this has been the single best selling computer in the last year. This is changing the entire face of IT, it is selling at such a pace. It single handedly destroying Intel's financial outlook for the year. Apple has moved architectures previously and has never left users unable to run legacy apps that are no longer maintained. Just as Windows has, albeit not as well. I guess if you are used to the Windows world, legacy support just isn't up to par with Apple and Linux and so maybe it seems like everyone does so badly, but they don't.
But the real question that I generally have is... if your product doesn't support any Mac made in the last year, doesn't that tell you that you'd better not be deploying it? That's ghost ship software for sure. Few things are more telling that you should rethink the kinds of things you want to deploy.
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@dashrender said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
@gjacobse said in Macbook Air for College:
Uh-
Don’t?What is the need for having the MacBook?
Why wouldn't you? The new MacBook crushes almost everything else. It's pricey, but really cheap given its performance.
Can the M1 run ALL - 100% all mac software? if not, then I wouldn't buy it, but that's just me.
Yes. Rosetta will translate any Intel based apps for the m1. You won't notice any performance penalties. It really is blazing fast.
It's really nice to have fanless (or minimum fan with the pro) and have a real terminal to work with.
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@stacksofplates said in Macbook Air for College:
Yes. Rosetta will translate any Intel based apps for the m1. You won't notice any performance penalties. It really is blazing fast.
It's like emulating a Nintendo 64 on a modern PC
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@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
Make sure it has the M1 chip.
Info like this is what I was looking for. Max Ram is sad, though.
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
Make sure it has the M1 chip.
Info like this is what I was looking for. Max Ram is sad, though.
You prob won't notice the smaller RAM.
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
What more were you looking for?
Air or Pro?
It depends. If you need the extra 100 nits of brightness, touchbar, and you know you need the fan from extended compute then get the pro. Otherwise save the couple hundred and get the air.
You can still get the 8 core cpu and 8 core gpu in the air. It's pretty much the same minus the stuff mentioned above. The battery is also a tiny bit smaller and I think the microphone is less "studio quality".
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
Make sure it has the M1 chip.
Info like this is what I was looking for. Max Ram is sad, though.
It's not. 16GB is a crazy ton. Remember this is not Windows, so the RAM bloat is not even close. And it's integrated RAM, no CPU/GPU split. So this is more usable RAM than a Windows machine with a GPU with discrete GPU RAM.
Most Windows machines are shipping with 8GB now. And that's with 1GB minimum lost to GPU transfer, and generally more lost to GPU sharing. The M1 16GB limit is nothing like that, it's more efficient at the OS level and WAY more efficient at the hardware level. 8GB is enough for nearly everyone. 16GB would be needed for like video editors and other high end users.
You have to leave the Windows mindset behind. It's more like Linux where 16GB is enough for anything unless you are using it as a hypervisor.
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@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
What more were you looking for?
Air or Pro?
I THINK the Air. Both are really good, though.
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@stacksofplates said in Macbook Air for College:
@jasgot said in Macbook Air for College:
@scottalanmiller said in Macbook Air for College:
What more were you looking for?
Air or Pro?
It depends. If you need the extra 100 nits of brightness, touchbar, and you know you need the fan from extended compute then get the pro. Otherwise save the couple hundred and get the air.
You can still get the 8 core cpu and 8 core gpu in the air. It's pretty much the same minus the stuff mentioned above. The battery is also a tiny bit smaller and I think the microphone is less "studio quality".
Yeah, watch out for the 7 core Air. Cheaper, but just splurge.
Also the Air is lighter. For a student on the go, likely will be appreciated.
