Hacker News Reader

Comment by Casteil | Hacker News Reader

> Also, as a curiosity, why is every thread related to a X86 news, need to bring in the Apple M1 fan army and bang their drums?

Honestly? Efficiency & battery life without sacrificing speed/performance.

If you need great battery life (or simply don't want to have to worry about charging your laptop frequently), it's hard to swallow ~4-10h battery life of a typical X86 laptop when MBA/MBP are consistently achieving 10-16+ with real-world use.

...not to mention the other perks MacBooks hold over their competitors, e.g. fit/finish, display quality, speakers, etc.

>They serve completely different markets.

Do they, though? With so many things being web-based these days, it's not very hard for most people (without specific needs) to switch to an M1 as their primary device without experiencing problems.

View on HN

> when MBA/MBP are consistently achieving 10-16+ with real-world use.

Really? I have a 2019 MBP and it doesn't last more than 3 hrs on 100% charge. The only usage is for the web development. And this is my third MBP (the old ones are dead because their magic boards became dead after the expiry of 1yr warranty + 2yr AppleCare plan).

The battery drains pretty quickly if I attach it to an external monitor.

Also, the evil `kernel_task` process eats up all CPU cores (for minutes and the machine remains unusable in the meantime) that drains the battery within an hour if I don't keep my table fan pointed at it (probably because Apple doesn't give a sh*t about the products they sell in India and their performance at 30-45 deg celsius temperature which is normal in Indian subcontinents).

> when MBA/MBP are consistently achieving 10-16+ with real-world use.

I never get more than a couple hours on my MBP, 2.5-3 tops.

Then there's something physically wrong with it. My M1 MBP - which is near-constantly at 100% CPU doing neuroimaging tasks - gets about 9 hours. If I'm not running high-cpu tasks and just web browsing, I've gotten 13-18 typically (e.g., two full days of use between charges).

>If I'm not running high-cpu tasks and just web browsing,

You state this as if they are 2 different things. Sadly, more and more shittily designed sites are using more and more resources. Whether that's just a poorly written bit of JS or a maliciously written bit of JS, web browsing is becoming more compute intensive.

I believe the M1 is much better at computing JavaScript as well. Comparable intel x86 CPUs have 60% more branch misprediction during JS benchmarks and ARMv8.3-A added the processor instruction FJCVTZS (Floating-point Javascript Convert to Signed fixed-point, rounding toward Zero).

Especially due to the better branch prediction, the M1 simply does quite a bit more web browsing with fewer VPU cycles used, thus less power consumption.

Let me guess the device is over two years old, your display is always above 70% brightness, you have chrome opened with over a dozen tabs, alongside it a bunch of other background apps you don't actually need open. Oh and probably a VM or docker. How close was I? ;-)

The only one that matters is if their MBP is over 2 years old. I got my M1 the week it released and I only run it under the conditions you describe. Sometimes accidentally leaving baldurs gate 3 / Stellaris / Civ6 running in the background.

It still gets a battery life of “oh I showed up to an all-day working session with a friend with 50% battery life and forgot my charger and I don’t have any anxiety about that” battery life.

I think the least it’s ever gotten was around 10 hours. I’m still getting 14+ after a couple years of abusing the battery charge levels.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max is also the first phone I truly never worry about battery life since a late-stage flip phone in 2007. (Or the Samsung S5 Active which had a replaceable battery, I just carried a couple extra around in my pocket).

>The only one that matters is if their MBP is over 2 years old

I wasn't just asking because of the potential wear on the battery from abuse, but M1 laptops did not exist 2 years ago. Although the intel macbooks still had great battery life for their size. People who put their device through it's paces and wonder why the battery is draining so fast are a special breed that's for sure.

Intel or M1 CPU?

Sounds like what's normal for a mid aged Intel Macbook.

What use is all those perks for those of us, if the apps we use for work and play are not compiled for M1 nor web based? Meanwhile my "inferior" x86 machine can run everything I need to use.

Why do people insist you need to buy a Ferrari when your work or lifestyle requires an F-150?

Therefore, back to my original question, why do M1 fans need go off topic on every X86 article and spray the same things over and over again: "but muh' Geekbench score", "muh' excellent battery life", "muh' no fan noise" and insist you're wrong for choosing to go X86 even though you don't have a choice because of the architecture.

We know the pros, Ok? But some of us still need X86 machine like the one in the article, regardless if those are machines not for you. And if they're not for you, that's fine, but why always bang on with the M1 trope everywhere?

The comment section isn't a zero-sum game. The fact that alternatives to the x86 are brought up in the comments section could be useful for many people, it might not be for you, but it is for many people. To use your own analogy, how many people are currently sputtering around the USA in pickup trucks that don't require a F-150?

Genuinely wondering, why specifically do you need x86? Some legacy software? Is the compatibility layer not working (Rosetta or how is it called?)?

I need to run Windows video games (new and vintage), Linux tools for penetration testing and windows and Linux tools for embedded development and reverse engineering none of which have M1 ports.

On top of the software I can't run on M1, I can't stand, from an ergonomic perspective, MacOS's rigid opinionated workflow and Apple's stance on upgradability, repairability and general environmental unfriendliness, plus their pricing on RAM and NAND storage wich have two to four times the markups I can gen get on the free market for the Framework (RAM and Storage are more important to me than screaming M1 performance) but that's besides the point, my main point is that I can't run my software and tools on the M1, so I don't understand why everyone on HN wants to crucify you for using X86 instead of M1.

I get that there are specific use cases that preclude M1 as a choice, I even noted that by saying "without specific needs in my post.

>so I don't understand why everyone on HN wants to crucify you for using X86 instead of M1.

No one's "crucifying" anyone, nor "insisting you're wrong for choosing X86".

People are just (rightly) impressed & excited by M1's efficiency/performance/battery life - for many that's a highly desirable set of traits in a laptop, so it's easy to recommend. Sorry this seems to offend you.

>I need to run Windows video games (new and vintage)

Need? I'm not judging for what one does in their own time, but need? Is that really true, or are we pushing this term just a bit for dramatic purposes? Like, are you getting paid for running this games? Are the use of these games part of your actual J O B? If so, then yes, I'll agree need is accurate.

I think you are perhaps getting a bit attached to that one particular word. Mr. Norris89 may or may not need to run old Windows games the way he probably needs to breathe, but he can certainly say “a computer needs to run old Windows games if I’m gonna buy it”. The phrase “I need to run old Windows games” is easily understood as that.

I'll agree with your first example but still question the use of need in your second.

> Why do people insist you need to buy a Ferrari

The cheapest M1 laptop is actually really affordable, almost the same price as this laptop's cheapest configuration. This is probably the exact product I would be looking for if I were trying to avoid buying from Apple. I couldn't find anything on cooling/fans, so IDK if this will be another standard Intel jet engine and lap burner.

It is not really just M1, this pattern is very specific to hardware category on HN.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com