The 15-inch MacBook Air just nails it When I speak to laptop-makers about their wares, they often admit that the benchmark in their field is the MacBook Air. Ever since its 2008 debut, Apple's minimalist portable has been the standard others aspire to match, despite changing little from the formula of a gently tapering aluminum clamshell with screens of between 11 …
Good to see the use of MagSafe for power.
With laptops, I had too many in too short a space of time e(ie. Within 3 years of daily usage) ither have failed USB charging ports or ports which have become loose and so allowing the charging plug to move and give an unreliable connection and thus power supply.
Having just upgaded my laptops at home from older Lenovo's with the square plug to ones with USB chargers, I can see that being an issue. My main laptop is more often or not docked (old ones a nice sturdy docking unit), but even when docked (to a hefty usb-c box), I look at that USB cable and the angle it wants to lean at with trepidation - not because its taut or anything, just because the size of them and a bit of gravity (currently propped up with a pack of post-it page markers)
For my Lenovo L15’s I’ve used these usb power only adaptors, which are a tight fit and seem to slow the wear.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/CONMDEX-Magnetic-Converter-Compatible-ChromeBook/dp/B07GHZC8FN
I have also trialed a similar specification full function connector:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ELECJET-Magnetic-Transfer-Resolution-Compatible-Silver-Gray/dp/B07TV5W2CY
but it was not such a snug fit etc.
But like you note, suspect a laptop attached strain reducer would do much to solve the cable pull angle.
I have a p14s and within days of taking it out of the box, the USB-C connector felt loose and cables fell out regularly. I'm genuinely not being hyperbolic here either. I've had a succession of Lenovo ThinkPads, and at this stage can only say that they are riding on the coat tails of IBMs build quality. The last 4 I have had have all universally been awful.
I find it rather depends on the model and spec you buy. If you typically a buy an off the shelf CTO build the QA can be terrible because they build thousands and thousands of them...but if you choose a custom spec, it gets it's own separate QA.
I've never had a problem with a custom Lenovo Thinkpad...only the CTO models...especially the lower end mass produced office fodder ones.
Lenovo Yoga laptops though...oh boy...they usually suck...I've never had one that doesn't come with some sort of issue. Be it dodgy trackpads, proprietary power connectors, dodgy hinges etc etc.
Agree with AC on this. There are two VERY different categories of ThinkPads out there - the consumer-grade landfill and the corporate workhorses. Consumer grade is no better or worse than cheapo Medion or Acer, but the corporate grade ThinkPads are absolute tanks. Magnesium chassis, proper keyboard, big old beasts that are nigh on indestructible.
We buy Dells, and they all use USB-C for power and docking now.
So far (couple of years since everything bought new started using USB-C only) and the expected problems are occurring - worn-out plugs being an obvious one. The cable module on the Dell docks is expensive and only available from third party resellers (had much correspondence with Dell about this and they kept on telling me to just buy a new dock. Nope -from third party resellers the cable module us about a third of the cost of a whole new dock). The PSUs have a captive cable, so worn out plug means scrap the whole PSU.
We've also had damage to plugs and ports due to power cables getting trodden on - already have a few laptops known to be down to one USB-C port due to charging cables being yanked at an angle which wrecked both plug and socket (and the sockets are soldered to the motherboard so cannot easily be replaced). In contrast, the old 7.4mm barrel connectors were nearly indestructible - in several decades I've only ever had a couple of cracked plugs, and no broken sockets.
I did buy some of those third party magnetic USB-C connectors to test (the plug head goes in the socket, and the other half of the magnet attaches to the USB-C connector on the PSU / dock. Not really good enough - too small and flimsy and sure to get clogged up with dirt and fluff sooner rather than later.
I'm not generally an Apple fan, but their magnetic laptop power connectors are excellent - they detach when they are supposed to, while still being easy to connect, and designed such that they generally won't get clogged with dirt and fluff.
>” I did buy some of those third party magnetic USB-C connectors to test …Not really good enough - too small and flimsy and sure to get clogged up with dirt and fluff sooner rather than later.”
Agree Apple’s MagSafe connectors are good.
For Non-Apple PCs these are probably the best you can do with after market products in an interface which has no locking mechanism. Really need the MagSafe (charging) interface Standardising so it could be built in and thus remove the need for the magnetic usb adaptors.
Not had problems with dirt and fluff when used on the laptop.
Yeah, but they are only magnetic at one end...so while the laptop is usually fine, the charger and the wall socket get a battering if the cable gets tangled round a leg whilst a tripping ape is heading for the ground.
I'd much rather issue a new laptop and RMA the damaged one under warranty / insurance than have that weird guy from building maintenance show up to faff around with a power socket, turning the power off for a few hours.
Obviously this situation could happen, but in practice I've never encountered it - triping over a cable nearly always results in damage to the plug / socket at the laptop end. Even if the other end got pulled, the weak link is the USB connector and socket on the charger (assuming it's not a hard wired cable), so that's likely to break first. Even with a hard wired one, power sockets are pretty robust and it would take a lot to break one (UK - not sure how US ones compare in terms of strength).
Have you ever seen that happening? I can easily see a cable or port on the adapter getting damaged that way, but I've never seen anyone succeed in damaging a wall socket by tripping, even when the cable was hardwired into something heavy which put a lot more tension on the cable when they did it. Either the device or the tripper got the worst of the damage, and once I've seen it damage a plug by bending a pin as it fell out, but the socket always made it through.
Dude, it's been possible to add a magnetic connector to any laptop for ages for peanuts...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AreMe-Magnetic-Adapter-Connector-MacBook-Purple/dp/B0BGD7KZWK/?th=1
That's just one example, there are loads.
Sure, it sticks out a few mm...but it's not like it isn't possible.
Also, I'll let you in on a secret...*checks to make sure there isn't anyone listening*...you can make any USB-C cable magnetic not just the charger...and you can do it at both ends! Then you can not only save your laptop socket, but your charger socket too (if your charger doesn't have a built in cable). :O
If your laptop doesn't have a USB-C socket and you're handy with a screwdriver, it's usually possible to find replacement power socket boards (cheaper laptops will have the power socket built into the motherboard, but some better laptops have the power input socket on it's own board to make it repairable...there are quite a few $PROPRIETARY to USB-C conversion boards out there...Or you can make one yourself with components from Amazon for less than a fiver. For example, I found a USB-C conversion board for my ancient Yoga 700...it was about £4 and was a drop in replacement...ah but I have a barrel jack you say? Well barrel jack to USB-C is a thing too...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/PUSOKEI-5-5x2-1mm-Connector-Portable-Charging-default/dp/B0BDFZLJVB/
You can put a magnetic adapter on that as well...at both ends if you're feeling fruity!
Welcome to the world of tomorrow my man (or 5-10 years ago for the rest of us)!
Magnetic sockets in general are not really a new thing...way back in the day when I used to configure boat loads of switches and routers with serial cables...I had a magnetic serial cable...it was magnetic at both ends with an adapter that plugged into the COM socket at each end...I had loads of adapters for it and I could chop and change between devices really quickly without faffing around with thumb screws etc. They were dirt cheap as well...the adapters had a kind of clamping mechanism on them to "grab" the screw holes on the switch / router to stop the adapter falling out but allowed quick release when you needed to take them off...you pinched the spring loaded sides.
"Dude, it's been possible to add a magnetic connector to any laptop for ages for peanuts..."
Not sure which of us your patronising screed is directed at, but from my perspective:
- I have tried the magnetic power connectors (might even be the ones you link to - they look the same), and I found that with the testing I did they were likely to get clogged up, given the sort of work we do and the places the lapto[s get used and transported. This did happen with some test ones.
- The Dell chargers all have hardwired cables
- Dell laptops with USB-C charging ports - the main business range (Latitude) at least - have the USB-C sockets soldered to the motherboard. Yes, I have opened them up to check. As regards the slighly older ones with barrel connectors - can't remember, but the barrel connectors are better suited to their purpose anyway and I rarely encounter any damage (and where it does happen it's always the plug, not the socket) so I wouldn't want to replace them with USB-C anyway.
The reason we don't use workarounds isn't because we are too thick to think of them, it's because they either aren't relevant to the particular circumstances - or they aren't practical for one reason or another.
"For a lot of people, a Framework is going to be better for the environment and as good or better for them."
Not for Apple's target market. For anyone already invested in the Apple ecosystem (noting I'm not), then buying a Framework pre-built with Windows would be an unlikely and odd move. If easy maintenance were a buying consideration they'd never have bought anything from Apple. For the iPeople, easy maintenance doesn't matter - they'd use Apple to do anything they wanted fixing, and if it is beyond repair they'll likely use the company's recycling.
15" M2 Macbook Air with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD is £1999. Since the author opted for maxed-out 24GB RAM, I don't imagine they took the 256GB SSD option.
However there's an elephant in the room. Apple now have a 14" M3 "Macbook Air": it's just they called it the Macbook Pro with M3 processor (as opposed to M3 Pro or M3 Max). It's basically identical spec to the Macbook air:
- base 8GB RAM: check
- two thunderbolt 3 ports: check
- 8 cores (4 performance + 4 efficiency): check
- 100GB/sec RAM bandwdith: check
- single external monitor: check
- weight: roughly same as 15" MBA (1.51kg - 1.55kg)
The 14" Macbook Pro M3 once you've upped it to 24GB RAM with 512GB SSD costs £2099. Advantages over the 15" MBA apart from the newer processor include HDMI, SDXC, a higher resolution screen, and Wifi 6E.
However, for the same price you could get the 14" Macbook Pro with M3 Pro processor and 18GB RAM. In effect, you trade 6GB of RAM for:
- three thunderbolt 4 ports, including one on the right
- 11 cores (5 performance + 6 efficiency)
- 150GB/sec RAM bandwidth
- support for dual external monitors
- better speakers, using the space around the keyboard
- headphone jack on the left-hand side, where it belongs
This also happens to be an off-the-shelf configuration, so you can pick one up in-store. I have it. I am very happy and I expect it to last me at least 5 or 6 years.
P.S. I agree the Framework with Ryzen processor is awesome, if you are happy with Windows or Linux as your OS
It might not look like it but the 14 inch MacBook Pro is a brick in comparison to the Air. You need to balance out whether it's worth it for the brighter / faster screen and extra ports. I think the speakers are identical between the two (if not, the ones on the Pro are stunning for a laptop).
Came to say just this. My colleague at work has an M1 14" MacBook Pro and when I have my personal* M2 13" MacBook Air on the desk near it, the difference in size is quite stark.
* My current work machine is an old Intel 16" MacBook Pro from 2019 which I refer to as the 'desk warmer'.
Why is it not as fast? Do Macs not support external PCIe Gen 4 storage? The built in storage is roughly Gen 3 speeds...so outrunning the internal drive should be simple. The internal drive is around 3.1GB/s according to various reviews...you can pick up a WD SN850X right now for relatively cheap and that goes at around 7GB/s...I see around 6.8GB/s on mine in an external enclosure (UGREEN) depending on the machine I plug it into of course.
.. especially since ALL USB-C ports tend to accept power so you have a degree of socket reduncancy as well. I'm quite careful with my gear, but wear is a part of life and the old roomheating MacBook Pro I still have comes with four USB-C sockets which are functionally identical, I'm not sure why not all manufacturers do this.
My work PC is a Dell suffering Win11, and it only really accepts non-Dell PD on one socket. Only the official Dell adaptor box is able to feed it on either USB-C port. The flipside of this is that it has both dual USB-A and USB-C sockets and a HDMI and RJ45 port to boot so you're not having to lug dongles around. Instead, Dell has chosen to lumber you with a power supply with fixed cable, but as it's USB-C it is easily replaced with a pluggable power adaptor and a PD capable USB-C cable.
"The 14" Macbook Pro ... a higher resolution screen,"
I expect if I were comparing the two I'd take the bigger screen over the smaller pixels. And still complain it's too small. I suppose it depends what you're doing but a lot of my time is spent with two documents open side by side, one being worked on, one reference, and 15" is too small for comfort, however many pixels are squeezed into them.
I need a laptop for when I travel but most of the time I WFH and then the laptop stays shut and a pair of 27" monitors does the job nicely. It's somewhat frustrating that for most laptops, to get dual monitor support you seem to have to go to a high end screen I hardly ever use!
The M3 MacBook Pro 14" has a few additional advantages:
- better "high-fildelity" speakers (same as the M3 Pro one) and "studio-quality" 3-mic array,
- much brighter screen (up to 1600 nits in HDR), which is mini LED with many zones ("XDR") - that is a much bigger difference than the slightly higher resolution.
It's IMHO much closer to a Pro than to an Air.
"Apple has made the mistake of placing the headphone jack at the machine's rear."
A mistake? What, as in they included one?
https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/09/apple_lightning_jack/
Pfft... you can't please everyone!
(I almost wonder whether it's some kind of Apple satire "for those at the back"!).
The day I can get Linux Mint, or at least stock Ubuntu with Cinnamon, for Apple Silicon is the day I will buy one. I love the hardware but have never felt comfortable with macOS, even the terminal environment has a few oddities, not least the lack of a Debian feel; if I were a GUI user only, maybe, but much of my stuff is scripted to the nth degree.
I splurged on a 2TB Aura X2 SSD for a second-hand 2017 MBA and put Monterey (magenta mountains), High Sierra (golden mountains), and MX 23.1 (no mountains) on it with rEFIt. High Sierra is the oldest version that handles the SSD properly and it runs most of my old software. Monterey was just out of curiosity, as it of course refuses to run almost all the old programs. (Unfortunately, rEFIt gives both MacOS versions the same logo, so I often don't know which I'm booting.)
It's beautiful hardware but I find that MacOS is just a bit too weird. Instead of having a geat desktop UX or a dumb iPhone UX, it has a chaotic jumble of both. Just getting app notifications working is a journey. Getting software development tools installed and playing nice together is days of trial and error. There are Apple apps on the immutable OS partition that get system updates and there are Apple app-store apps that only update if you sign in to a cloud account. Most apps leave behind a scattered mess of libraries and resources if you attempt to uninstall them. It's making Linux look simple.
It's beautiful hardware but I find that MacOS is just a bit too weird...
Not going to downvote but the thing you're not acknowledging is you're the minority.
I'm a software developer and use MacOS as my primary OS. But most people who use it aren't techies. The reason they use it - put very simply - is because it works without fuss. When you say "It's making Linux look simple" you're overlooking the fact that most people don't have your use-cases. Most people aren't installing dev tools and the vast majority of what they do install will come via the App Store. When it comes to updates it either works, or they don't know/care otherwise.
If you have other i-Devices everything works seamlessly. There will always be people on The Reg who'll disagree with this but if you use Apple's offering as a non techie you'll struggle to find anything else that works quite as flawlessly. Arguments about partitions, security etc... nobody cares in the big wide world. They just want a machine that lets them do stuff and gets out of their way.
Back to me using it as a techie. Given how seamlessly it generally works it's a trade-off I'm willing to accept.
Nobody else has really nailed this which IMO is the reason Apple have done as well as they have. Yes it's also down to marketing, but they are marketing this very point.
Don't discount the raw innate usability of the MacOS UI and applications written for it.
Yes, it has gained a few features here and there but the UI has remained pretty much the same, and a smart dev goes along with the principles because they just work.
If I see the mess that is the transition from Win 10 to Win 11 and the new O365 app layout that is going to hit the MS users world in 2024 I cannot help wonder if there is really nobody who is bothered about the massive loss in productivity every time MS inflicts a new UI on them, usually worse than the one before.
That said, I have the impression that iOS is sadly heading the Microsoft way.
My biggest gripe with MacOS (I've been using it for dev work for a few years) is that you can't do everything with a keyboard shortcut. There isn't even a 'Open the menu on this app' keypress. Unless I'm missing something?
From here - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 - ctrl+fn+f2 is your friend
You can do everything with the keyboard.
If you want to get to something in the menu without a dedicated shortcut, press command+shift+/ to jump straight to the menu search box and type what you want to do.
E.g. in Preview I can command+shift+/ and type 'cr' and already the only option left standing is 'crop', so a quick cursor down and enter, and off I go.
If you don't fancy typing anything, it also acts as a simple 'open the menus' shortcut that starts on the right rather than the left. So cursor away from there.
Totally this.
The majority of computer users in the world don't give a rat's arse about Linux, Debian, BSD or anything 'computery'. They just want a device that they can do social media and shoppping on. Only arrogant computer snobs who are out of touch with reality care...
"I've not used a Mac daily for years, and macOS felt a little frustrating as the navigation elements on windows are too small."
Interesting - that was precisely one of the reasons why I switched from Windows to Mac years ago. Windows UI elements on a big screen were either too tiny, or absolutely massive. I'm guessing MS have done some serious work optimizing their desktop and UI in the intervening years while MacOS hasn't changed all that much.
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