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To those who think the MacBook Air M2 isn't a good value...
- Thread starter tubuliferous
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.....but why are you comparing MBA to Dell's business line? The Latitude is mainly for enterprise customers who are willing to pay for the better build quality inside and out. You also chose the highest tier (93xx) which is a convertible with touch screen. No one in their right mind is cross shopping MBA and the Latitude. M2 MBA vs XPS plus is the only comparison that makes sense and you will find that while MBA has a cheaper starting price, it costs double for the essential upgrades (16GB RAM, 512G SSD)
Seeing how the world becomes what it is, I no longer believe customer voting with their wallets is a powerful force anymore. But that’s the topic for another day.
This right here.
And then there is resell value, plus the typical MacBook has a useful life longer than an average Windows machine, increasing the cost to value ratio over the duration of ownership.
To me, no Windows machine competes with my MBP, at any cost.
Dell supports three external displays, including 8K. M2 supports one 6K.
There's always pros and cons.
Are you saying inflation doesn’t exist 😬
Especially atm prices should be lifting… even if zero improvement..
Isnt USA inflation also massive right now..holding price would be discounting..
So if better new products, lift is even more likely..
Re CPI
My broccoli prices Sky high last week with zero new features 😅
Therefore there’s a strong chance here maybe $100 of the price lift directly related to government impact….
Still grumpy about no M1 price drop tho lol
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The M2 air has excellent value. The 13 XPS with comparable display/CPU and much slower GPU starts at $1599 for 8GB/512GB version. It’s same price if you bump it to 16GB, but the Air will still have better CPU/GPU and much battery life. If you want to configure the Dell with a CPU that’s a bit closer to M2, you’d have to pay $150 more. And you’d still have a GPU that’s half the speed.
And Dell XPS Olus is probably the strongest competitor. Other vendors are often even worse. I‘ve seen the mention of HP envy 13” for under $1000. That specific model uses now obsolete CPU, has poor build quality, significantly worse display and poor battery life. Lenovo Thinkpad X13 with Alder Lake starts at a whopping $2200 for a 16GB/512GB config - the Air is $500 cheaper, faster, has two to three times longer battery and much better display.
Now, it’s still the case of course that you can get an okish computer for less. Apple doesn’t do budget computers. And frankly, if you are looking at a budget, but still reasonably quality machine, the M1 Air will blow any competition out of the water for comparable price.
And Dell XPS Olus is probably the strongest competitor. Other vendors are often even worse. I‘ve seen the mention of HP envy 13” for under $1000. That specific model uses now obsolete CPU, has poor build quality, significantly worse display and poor battery life. Lenovo Thinkpad X13 with Alder Lake starts at a whopping $2200 for a 16GB/512GB config - the Air is $500 cheaper, faster, has two to three times longer battery and much better display.
Now, it’s still the case of course that you can get an okish computer for less. Apple doesn’t do budget computers. And frankly, if you are looking at a budget, but still reasonably quality machine, the M1 Air will blow any competition out of the water for comparable price.
It's more the M1 Air than any Windows rival that makes it questionable value. At this point the M2 is realistically 50% more than the M1 (£850 vs £1,250) and it's a very specific person who's going to benefit from spending that much more for the M2 model but not spend an extra £500 or so for the 14" Pro with the myriad extra benefits that brings. You have to really want the new design to splash out that much extra for very limited other upgrades. When it goes on sale for £150-200 off it might make more sense, or especially as Apple trims the price (presumably?) for future iterations.
I might want to add a "for now" at the end. I trust Apple as much as what they actually do, not what they say.
macOS still feels like a badly skinned Linux distro. It’s especially bad when it comes to scaling. I have an M1 Air connected to an LG Ultrawide monitor and macOS looks like blurry garbage, while Windows 10 looks perfectly crisp.
If you don‘t pick a 110 or 220 ppi scaling factor, kiss GPU performance goodbye.
“There are some displays that have an erroneous EDID table, which describes the resolutions accepted by the display as well as the optimal resolution. This is usually not a big problem, as virtually all desktop operating systems allow the user to choose a resolution of their liking. MacOS was always more restrictive in this regard, but at least in the past, Intel Macs gave pro users the means to override the faulty EDID table on the software side or add custom resolutions.
This feature is completely missing for M1 Macs; there is no accessible way to add custom resolutions and display timings, which is unprecedented in the desktop OS space. This is mainly because the Apple Silicon graphics drivers are derived from iOS and iPad OS, which is on one hand great, but on the other hand rather limiting – these devices do not really need to support all kinds of various third-party displays.
As this is mostly a macOS issue, Apple could fix this problem. They need to give the pro users the ability to define custom resolutions and display timings; enable HiDPI rendering for all displays; give more granular options for scaled resolutions; and allow higher scaled resolutions.”
This is why your external monitor looks awful on an M1 Mac
Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS secrets to his motivations
Firma la petizione
Macbook M1 - BigSur - Allow HiDPI on third party external monitors
www.change.org
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I've tested my M1 Max with various modern displays and had zero issues. I used a 27" Dell in the office, now replaced by a 5K LG Ultrafine. At home I have an AOC U32U1, works very well and the image is crisp. I can imagine that MacOS doesn't play well with something like an Ultrawide, but that's just a pitfall for using a weird monitor.
More accurately, it’s an example of how poorly macOS, especially on M1 chips, handles external monitors in general:
This is why your external monitor looks awful on an M1 Mac
Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS secrets to his motivations
Macrumors forums alone are full of external monitor issues with macOS/Apple Silicon. It’s so bad, there’s a petition for Apple to get their act together:
Firma la petizione
Macbook M1 - BigSur - Allow HiDPI on third party external monitors
www.change.org
More accurately, it’s an example of how poorly macOS, especially on M1 chips, handles external monitors in general:
This is why your external monitor looks awful on an M1 Mac
Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS secrets to his motivationswww.theregister.com
Macrumors forums alone are full of external monitor issues with macOS/Apple Silicon. It’s so bad, there’s a petition for Apple to get their act together:
Firma la petizione
Macbook M1 - BigSur - Allow HiDPI on third party external monitors
Apple only enables HiDPI rendering on HiDPI monitors. Sure, they could let the user decide. But then there will be other problems people will complain about. MacOS has been designed and optimised for certain type of display size and PPI and size. If you use a third-party monitor that matches this standard you'll be fine. If you use something that deviates from this expected standard, you'll encounter issues. MacOS doesn't "poorly handle external monitors", it simply doesn't care to support all kinds of monitors. You might say that this is a limitation and you will be perfectly right. Then again, MacOS was never about supporting all kinds of hardware, it focuses on certain opinionated standards so that it can support them really well. If that's a deal-breaker for you, there is always Windows or Linux.
What the what?. There’s no such thing as a HiDPI standard for monitors.
Windows objectively supports more monitors, both with better visual quality, and perhaps even more importantly, better performance - it doesn’t upscale then downscale in the GPU, crippling GPU performance and causing high temps - than macOS.
There is according to Apple and that's what matters.
Windows supports more monitors and is more configurable, sure. The rest of your claims though, not so much. Apple's solution has superior quality (at the expense of the range of supported configurations), better software compatibility and also better performance for many cases since the drawing algorithms can be optimised. Rectangular blits with rescaling are extremely cheap on modern hardware, unlike vector rendering.
Don’t let the facts affect your world view:
“This affects even Apple's XDR Display.”
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/apple_m1_drivers/
Is there a list of "Tim Cook-approved monitors" so I know which one to buy. Last thing I want is to be stuck with a monitor that Tim doesn't like.
Any 4K display with usual 16:9 or 16:10 display ratio should work, unless there are bugs associated with that particular display.
ASD & XDR
Pony up the lettuce!
Hundred dolla' bills y'all -- and lots of 'em!
Ah, I didn’t know the XPS Plus existed. There were so many options from Dell, and I chose the wrong comparison. I've updated my post accordingly. Thanks!
I think the perception that Macs are priced high purely as a premium brand pretty uninformed. Apple never makes a low-end Mac, but for the capabilities they have it's competitive. You just rarely see closeout supersale prices of 50% markdowns, or devices created as cheaply as possible to hit a price target... though the entry iPad is about the closest Apple gets and outperforms any tablet in its price range.
It's the upgrades and going up the price that the value goes way down, but that's true of many things. And Apple is a master at creating price ladders that make every extra $200 seem worth it until you are paying double of what you started out with.
These aren't priced like fashion or luxury goods that cost 2-100x more than something with the same use. At worst a Mac costs 1.25 times an equally specced machine. And at best you're paying less for some premium features/specs.
It's the upgrades and going up the price that the value goes way down, but that's true of many things. And Apple is a master at creating price ladders that make every extra $200 seem worth it until you are paying double of what you started out with.
These aren't priced like fashion or luxury goods that cost 2-100x more than something with the same use. At worst a Mac costs 1.25 times an equally specced machine. And at best you're paying less for some premium features/specs.
The upgrades themselves are more expensive but the end result is still better price AND performance for the MBA. Unless of course you want to configure the Dell with the base low-resolution display…
I find it interesting how people constantly complain about Apple's pricing, yet continue to lineup for every release. If you truly find the prices to be exorbitant, then my best advice would be to speak with your wallet & find a comparable product elsewhere. Of course, with that comes some potentially uncomfortable sacrifices, but that's the price you pay.
I personally don't mind their pricing. Given their market value, both revenue wise & in the eyes of the consumer, they can essentially do what they want. They've had the market in a stranglehold for years, yet people continue to keep shelling out money. Why wouldn't their prices continue to go up? There's literally nothing that can be done about it. Consumers need to understand that you have to "pay to play." As the kids say nowadays, "it is what it is." You just have to decide if it's worth it in your eyes.
I personally don't mind their pricing. Given their market value, both revenue wise & in the eyes of the consumer, they can essentially do what they want. They've had the market in a stranglehold for years, yet people continue to keep shelling out money. Why wouldn't their prices continue to go up? There's literally nothing that can be done about it. Consumers need to understand that you have to "pay to play." As the kids say nowadays, "it is what it is." You just have to decide if it's worth it in your eyes.