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Comment by arthurcolle | Hacker News Reader

Yeah it seems crazy to buy these. What is the benefit? I sometimes feel FOMO for the new Apple M1 Pro/Max/Ultra whatever and then realize "my MBP with an i9 and 16 GB of RAM literally has 6 hours of battery life" and then realize that if I'm ever sitting down for that long I should get up and touch some grass.

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until you try an M1 product, you can't appreciate just how good it is - and how bad the previous i9 is.

also in 2022 six hours of battery life is not something I could life with. while you're right that you don't need to sit 6 hours in a single sitting, it could easily be that you don't have an option to charge.

transatlantic flights, for example. (ok, no grass there :-))

I use an i10 laptop with 16GB of RAM and I also use a 2012 macbook pro. Both running Linux. I am productive on both devices, so I would be very surprised if an M1 product would make me feel the need to switch away from an i10 (or i9) device. I do agree the M1 is quite neat though, just not a big deal for users that run tasks lighter than compiling a browser engine.

I didn't even realize there were i10s

There aren't. Maybe they meant 10th gen?

What is an i10?

Maybe it's airline dependent, but I can't remember the last time I went on a long-haul flight that didn't have charging options. Some airlines are even starting to add USB-C to every seat so you don't need to futz around with an AC adapter (although given the proliferation of different charging capabilities, it might still be handy to use AC if you want to charge quickly)

On the last flight I was on, the AC service couldn't handle the power draw of my charger. Kept tripping the circuit immediately.

One nice benefit of laptops adopting USB-C charging is that they become much more tolerant of slower chargers, which in turn shouldn't trip a plane.

Most long flights have AC outlets but half the time they are located under the leg of the person next to you. Virtually all the time they are a universal outlet that barely holds a US plug and definitely doesn’t hold a MacBook charger. It’s not a game changer but it’s nice to leave your adapter in your bag and not worry about charging.

Speaking of chargers, a 45W tiny GaN charger is enough for an M1 MacBook (maybe not for all use cases but I’ve yet to have an issue). I use this one which isn’t much bigger than a usb-a iPhone charger. https://us.anker.com/products/a2664

The extension cable [1] fixes both of these problems.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK122LL/A/power-adapter-e...

Yes, but it takes up the same volume as a macbook. The UK plug in this kit (or most any knock-off or adapter) also solves the problem. Still prefer battery life and carrying nothing extra, however.

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MD837ZM/A/apple-world-...

What airlines have you been on that have USB-C, and at a high enough wattage to charge a laptop?

Air Canada's chargers are 60w IIRC. But MBPs are pretty accepting of various voltages- if you're desperate, you can even trickle charge one with an old school USB-A port

Air France (A220) within Europe, 60W USB-C port

The whole transatlantic thing is BS, you really want to be writing code all the way? Anyway, most flights going East over the Atlantic are overnight and you want to be sleeping.

My wife has an intel macbook circa 2018? It gets uncomfortably hot just watching youtube videos, my M1 macbook air has never even gotten warm. Her battery life seems terrible, maybe it is 4-5 hours or so, but I go days without charging mine with casual use. If you are not diligent about recharging every night, the drastic increase of battery life makes a big difference.

6 hours of battery life would be a dream. With my workflow the Intel MBPs gave me around 2 hours, the M1 Pro doubles that to 4 hours which is perfect because by then I'm getting up, going for lunch, etc.

With the Intel MBP I had to carry around a huge jackery-style portable battery

I have a M1 and am frustrated by how consistently bad it is. All these people heap praise on it, while mine runs so slowly that it needs to be restarted at least once daily.

I took it into the mac store, they replaced the whole board/cpu unit. No change.

So either I have some other fluke, my software stack has something strange I can't debug (activity monitor only shows apple processes using all the CPU), or people just have different opinions of what fast means.

For context, I would say my 2018 Chromebook is generally faster for most things than my M1.

Rant over. I assume I have some dud computer it's just frustrating.

>activity monitor only shows apple processes using all the CPU

would that be 8GB M1 and swap process by any chance?

I bought an intel iMac several months ago when they suddenly went missing from the Apple Store with no 27” replacement. It has 8GB of RAM, yet is somehow faster than my M1 Max (16GB) at compiling my current Xcode project (a Unity game). The battery life is good, but if you’re pushing it hard it isn’t that great unfortunately. For web dev, sure it can go most of the day. Also it’s extremely heavy and thick. I wish it was thinner, it doesn’t fit in the bags I have for my older 15” MBPs. It has an HDMI port, which I will never ever use, one less USB C port (which really sucks ass), and with all the dumb thickness they didn’t include the one “retro” port I would actually use daily, USB type A. It doesn’t get very hot at full load (CPU mining for days/weeks) so I’m not sure why it’s so thick. The old Intel versions should have been in the mega-thick chassis, but the M1 doesn’t really benefit.

My favorite part of the new 16” MBP is actually the screen. It’s so incredible I struggle to describe it. When moving the mouse it feels more instantaneous, everything is smoother. So don’t FOMO on the CPU, it’s good but not the killer feature.

Yeah the 16" (last gen Intel cpus) is the one I have! That's what I'm saying, it's fine and while the battery life of the M1 seems absolute stellar, I'm def not going to be buying computers for the next 3 or 4 years just because I have like 3 unused MBPs that all are literally in great condition. Too much churn in hardware tech.

EDIT: your music link sharing site is neat, be my friend

Yeah the screens and speakers are great; a real step-up from my previous 15”. The HDR actually works unlike most standalone screens that have good specs on paper but actually don’t deliver. The webcam is much nicer (although nothing special, just that the old ones were obsolete). The mic is also good, as it always was.

> It doesn’t get very hot at full load (CPU mining for days/weeks) so I’m not sure why it’s so thick.

Perhaps that’s why…?

No way to prove it without some serious hardware mods! But given how the M1 Air performs without a fan or thick chassis, I have my own guess…

I noticed that I hadn't charged my Macbook Pro for almost a week once. I wasn't using it much per day but it was being used.

Also I don't really care about the battery, the amazing thing about the M1 chips is that they just don't get hot.

This doesn’t get mentioned enough. My 2020 intel MacBook Pro is a solid machine that gets the job done.

But the damn thing burns my lap.

I too don't care one iota about the battery life, it's plugged in at all times anyway. But it's blazing fast and the fan never makes a sound, assuming there even is a fan. It really was a game changer for me in mobile development where I was used to fans continuously whining for 8h, and the machine still being slow probably due to thermal throttling.

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