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Comment by cnst | Hacker News Reader

I'm writing this on a 16GB M1 MacBook Air, but I've gotten disillusioned with macOS and Macs.

When everything is done in a browser, the biggest differentiator on a laptop would be monitor and peripheral support, and Apple is behind the competition.

macOS has no support for daisy-chaining with DP MST, no support for a second monitor (new to M1, the 2020 Intel model does support dual external monitors), no way to turn-off antialiasing, limited ports, RAM and storage options, limited repair and expansion options.

Why exactly do we even still use macOS anyways?

Even the cheapest Chromebook laptops have better monitor support and better expandability, at 1/10th the cost.

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No support for MST daisy chaining is unfortunate, but not really a dealbreaker since most users spending a lot of time at a desk are using either a standalone dock (e.g. CalDigit TS4) or a monitor that has a dock built in (like Dell’s U2724DE) which also achieves one-cable multimonitor (+charging). The limit on number of monitors isn’t an issue on the newer low end models.

On the hardware side of things, the big differentiators are build quality and battery life. To get either as good as is found on MacBooks you’re likely to be spending about as much in the x86 world. Those dirt cheap Chromebooks in particular are miserable to use.

MST makes getting a dock cheaper. It's very cheap to get a hub or dock that can do two or even three monitors over MST, with power pass through and a few extra USB ports for a mouse and keyboard or printer. Like $30-$50. Maybe you spend another $50 for a decent extra charger to go with it.

On Mac you basically HAVE to get an expensive $200+ TB dock to get a one cable multi-mon setup.

The new M4 MBAs can still only do two external screens at a time. It's better but the competition can do more.

Yeah, my $79 Chromebook, could literally already do 2 external USB-C monitors, at 1/10th the price of an M4 MacBook Air!

The best part about DP MST is that most monitors already have a DP-Out, so, you can already daisy-chain even without having to buy a cheap dock.

I'm pretty sure DP-Out would be even more popular if not for the macOS users leaving all the negative reviews about the daisy-chaining not working after paying a full half price for a DP MST monitor compared to a Thunderbolt one!

Ironically, some manufacturers simply remove the DP-Out port, and release the resulting product as a Mac-friendly version of an identical PC monitor with a DP-Out.

My fav USB-C / DP MST monitor deals, have been HP Z24m G3 at $149.99 USD in early 2024, and PHILIPS 4K UHD IPS Black 27E2F7901 at $209.99 in mid/late 2024, both 400nits with DP 1.4, USB-C and DP-Out, at far cheaper prices than any comparable Thunderbolt monitor:

https://slickdeals.net/f/17456364-23-8-hp-z24m-g3-2560x1440-...

https://slickdeals.net/f/17650827-philips-creator-series-27e...

I’d buy the Thunderbolt dock anyway because plain USB-C docks/hubs have been consistently flaky and generally frustrating in my experience, even under Windows/Linux. The reduced frustration is easily worth the higher cost.

> CalDigit TS4

Wait, that's a $379 dock? Isn't it a bit too much to pay so much just to get back about the same ports that most non-Macs still have?

If I connect my peripherals like SSD and mouse/kb through this dock, will they continue working during a power outage? Or do I now have to get a UPS for my laptop, too, because I can't use the native ports anymore, and have to use a dock to connect the most basic equipment?

> Dell U2724DE

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-27-thunderbo...

$599 USD for QHD 2560x1440? That's just not very competitive.

I got a QHD 2560x1440 with RJ45 and a DP-Out for $149 brand new, for HP Z24m G3:

https://slickdeals.net/f/17456364-23-8-hp-z24m-g3-2560x1440-...

So, it's basically a 4x premium for TB.

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Many monitors on the market today do come with a dock built-in, but most of the time, it's a DP MST kind of dock, so, the daisy-chaining won't work in macOS, since it has no support for DP MST.

Thunderbolt is VERY rare across most monitors. It's even more rare on the models that go on sale and aren't broken in some fundamental way (IIRC, some Samsung TB monitor that was on sale, would actually have terrible reviews specifically because it still didn't work daisy-chained properly).

Since you're a Dell fan, I've just casually looked over the filters at https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/computer-monitors/ar/8605, and it's got 42 for USB-C, but only 6 for Thunderbolt; that's 7 times more non-Thunderbolt monitors that Thunderbolt.

If we limit the search to QHD 2560x1440, there's 11 USB-C, but only 1 Thunderbolt. You're basically paying 2x more, or $300 more, for a "free" Thunderbolt dock.

Compare to DP-Out options. For example, HP Z24m G3 2560x1440 was on sale for many months throughout 2024 at $149.99 USD brand new, it does have DP-Out and RJ45, a very quality monitor.

As for battery life, I'm not doing video encoding or compiling on my Mac, so, battery life is just a matter of power consumption. There are many ARM-based Chromebooks that are powered by like 5W CPUs. By definition, they're INCAPABLE of consuming their 50Wh battery in less than 10 hours; this often results in a better battery life than my MacBook Air, simply because M1 is still a 15W CPU, and can easily made to waste lots of cycles doing pointless webpage busywork that noone cares about, diminishing the battery life.

Yes, they've finally fixed the regression with a second monitor come M4, but it's still missing the most basic ports and expansion features.

The Dell monitor goes on sale for lower prices from time to time. Those other cheaper 2560x1440 monitors aren’t really apples to apples comparisons, because they use older less capable panels (less contrast, lower brightness, no certified flicker free, no VRR, no factory calibration, capped at 60hz, etc etc) and many don’t include KVM functionality even if they do add a couple extra ports. Comparably feature rich monitors from other brands are similarly expensive.

As far as port counts go, to get anything close to what a TS4 adds, you’re looking at a desktop of some kind or maybe one of those monstrous 17”+ workstation or gaming laptops (but even most of those have fewer ports).

That's the thing, the brightness is actually only 350nits on Dell, but 400nits on HP and Philips I've linked; the original MSRP was the same as the Dell, it's only the sale price that ended up being really good on those. So, the only TB monitor in its class actually has worse brightness than many of the non-TB options.

The HP is calibrated and has amazing colours, and it's 90Hz, too, although I keep it at 60Hz.

The Philips monitor is 4k UHD and also IPS Black, same 2000:1 contrast as all IPS Black panels share, so, I'm not sure why you'd get the Dell with the lower resolution and lower brightness at a higher price. The only true benefit of Dell is 2.5GigE and 120Hz, but 350nits is actually a downside compared to 400nits of the cheaper monitors I've listed.

BTW, you've never addressed the UPS issue.

Do any docks at all work when the power is out? How do you take that into account when you need to connect stuff like SSD, kb and mouse? Do you suffer data loss on your SSD because your laptop lacks standard ports and dock use is required that can't be powered by the laptop anymore? Or do you get UPS for your laptop just for the dock? I just don't understand how the dock requirement is not a big deal. I got a laptop simply because it's fanless and has an integrated UPS, I didn't need it to be portable otherwise.

4k is a detractor for my usage, no integer scaling, which is annoying not just under macOS but also Linux. 2560x1440 or 5k are preferred.

I guess you’d probably need a UPS for a powered dock, I don’t know. The power is out too infrequently where I live for it to be an issue and it’s nice for the dock to be able to charge for one cable swapping between machines.

I think the last power loss here was 8mo15d ago at my place (around Christmas time in 2024?), but it could easily result in a data loss if you're using an external SSD through a dock, because your MacBook lacks a sufficient port supply, and because internal storage is severely limited by Apple, too, so, you may as well be required to use it with an external SSD at all times.

4k@27in may be too small pitch, but QHD@27in would be too pixelated. Especially on macOS that does NOT allow turning off antialiasing.

I'm currently using the 400nit HP Z24m G3 @ 2560x1440 @ 24in with my 16GB MBA M1, the colours are absolutely amazing compared to the cheaper Lenovo monitors.

Firefox works great, because it lets you turn off antialiasing, but there's no way to turn it off in Brave or Chrome, which results in super washed out and blurry text everywhere.

Honestly, macOS is not production ready at this point. Data loss because you have to use an external SSD through a dock, poor monitor support with regressions after moving to Apple Silicon, no ports for anything, inadequate RAM/storage that cannot be upgraded in any way besides the external SSD through a dock with a UPS.

Basically, the most simple things are super complicated.

Didn't it used to be the opposite with the Macs, where they were actually simpler and more flexible?

I have one desk setup where the main monitor is a 5k Studio Display (with 27” 1440 secondary), and another where that Dell is the main monitor. While the former is much nicer looking, I don’t find the 27” 1440s bad at all under macOS. My mail client and RSS reader even sits on the secondary 1440 most of the time, so it’s used for reading plenty. I don’t futz with AA settings at all.

Laptops in general haven’t been flush with ports for a very long time now, unless we’re talking about workstation laptops and sometimes gaming laptops. I have an old late-00s 15.4” Precision that has more ports than a lot of consumer desktops and entry-level motherboards these days, but by and large laptops come with maybe a third as many at most. Apple laptops haven’t been replete with ports like that since the PowerBook G3 “Pismo” was EoL’d back in 2000. People who need that many ports usually get a tower of some kind.

I have two monitors plugged on my M1, one on the HDMI port and the other one on HDMI through a USB hub.

Those are old non-Apple monitors and they look worse (colors and texts) than when plugged on Windows though.

(And I do hate macOS)

> Macos has no support for a second monitor

This is factually inaccurate. It's perhaps true on the Air and base model Pro, but not the others.

I hate on Apple's bs all the time, but it seems like the reality in your situation is that you got nearly the cheapest mac laptop 5 years ago, with a shitty screen, bumped the ram, and you're doing just fine still, except for some esoteric limitations that I just factored into my budget when buying one recently and aren't blocked by, namely external monitor support without MST.

I didn't get that computer at that time because of some of those limitations, sticking with my prior intel 13" until last year, until I finally convinced myself it was time. Doesn't mean they aren't worth complaining about though, I think 5 years on an Air is pretty good, they've always favored mobile utility over stationary excellence

> I didn't get that computer at that time

Meant to say that I didn't get the lower specced M series around the time you did even though I was generally still sticking with the base models, because of the constraints you mentioned, opting to just wait until it was more feasible to spend more later on and continue suffering

I mean, that's the reason I got the late-2020 MBA M1 16GB in September 2022, instead of going for M2 24GB 512GB for twice the price, because M2 downgraded the 256GB SSD, so, you'd have to get 512GB to get the same performance as M1 256GB, and then might as well max out the RAM at 24GB, too, and now suddenly you're paying 2x for the base model with max RAM compared to the maxed-out base M1 MBA.

So, if you agree with the constraints I've mentioned, how are they inaccurate? The early-2020 Intel MacBook Air does support dual external monitors, it's an M1 regression where it's no longer supported, and it took them until M4 to finally fix the regression, it's present in every MBA until then, and in several MBP models, too.

I agree with the criticism of the pricing ladder, and shared related sentiments in similar comments throughout the years about other issues, but I've simply never purchased an Air because it's not a developer laptop if those are your constraints. Earlier Pros had multi-monitor support, just not the Air. It's a way more capable laptop in other ways than it was before even with the regression, so it required a harder decision.

It was only in 2024 that the gap between the computer I did have became significantly noticeable enough, and the configuration became more tolerable in their stupid pricing ladder to accept it. Because the money was also finally there on my side, the 4.5k CAD I paid was actually relatively fine, when you consider that it's relatively cheap within the scope of investments in professional tools.

In prior years, I had a 14" M2 Pro, M3 Pro, sitting in my cart with minimum 32gb of ram, but it felt too highly priced for what it was. Then in 2024 I got a 16" 48gb Pro. Even though I'd prefer 64, it had the right balance for me in my overall budget for my only physical tool investment (rather than focusing on the specific upgrade costs). "Can I spend ~4.5k CAD on this tool and be happier than I was doing my work?", the answer was yes, and it's been great, but I'm not sure I'd have been as happy with it earlier.

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