Is a M4 MacBook Air worth it in todays modern technological world?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45306051

by mirg • 10 months ago

7 15 10 months ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm thinking about upgrading my laptop to a new one on the market, I don't know whether a m4 MacBook Air is worth it? I will not reveal anything about my life

toomuchtodo• 10 months ago

Try it out in person. My M4 screams from a compute perspective, but the 15" is much too big imho. I regret not getting the 13". Recommend the platform, but form factor will be personal preference.

dv_dt• 10 months ago

If I'm traveling with it, even if only occasionally, I definitely prefer the 13" size.

fragmede2• 10 months ago

Wish they still made 11"s!

zahirbmirza• 10 months ago

If you need a laptop, a computer to get work done in a conventional sense, it is of more practical value than any iPad or Windows machine.

markus_zhang• 10 months ago

I don’t know. I use a Mac for work, a Win for entertainment and a Linux for development. My feeling is Mac has great hardware and is good for certain development work but overall it is inferior in the other two for their respective usages.

Plus it has a lot of “round” corners to build up frustration throughout the day.

Plus it’s too expensive.

evanjrowley• 10 months ago

Reasons to get one:

- If you have hairy pets, then you may appreciate the MacBook Air's fanless design.

- Fanless == quiet

- Apple screens are some of the absolute best you can buy.

- If you have other Apple electronics (iPhone, Air Pods, Apple Watch, etc.) then it will integrate well with them.

- Excellent battery life.

- Excellent speakers and microphone array.

- Not dependent on cloud services that suffer major security beaches every year.

- Not using the same cloud services to data mine everything you do on your computer.

- Offers AppleCare as insurance to replace your stuff whenever there's a problem (vs. a standard time-limited warranty).

- Apple Script, Automator, and Shortcuts to automate what your Apple stuff does far beyond what you can do in Windows.

I don't care for much of what Apple provides, but the premium design and conveniences of a highly integrated ecosystem are worth the trouble. I would love to find something non-Windows that's better than my Macbook Air. If Google could make something like a fanless version of the 2013 Chromebook Pixel, it might just be good enough for me.

If there's one thing I'd caution against, as a user of a Macbook in the United States, it'd be the use of Touch ID / Face ID for logging in to your Apple products. Biometrics are not protected by the 4th amendment, so you can be compelled to unlock your device without a search warrant. For all of the security features Apple producs are reputed for, this is one big gap that doesn't ever really get talked about. For this reason I commend Microsoft for having a PIN option for Windows Hello authenticaiton.

JustExAWS2• 10 months ago

Well the problems with that are that there are plenty cases where people were jailed in the US for not revealing their passwords and you believe that law enforcement is actually ethical and won’t use rubber duck decryption.

sebst• 10 months ago

Depends on what you define as "worth it":

- compared to the MacBook Pro, you basically get the same power with a slightly inferior display and without active cooling (which can inhibit long running high-cpu tasks)

- compared with AMD/Intel: It will give you the better hardware (build quality, trackpad, battery lifetime) for a markup. Depending on your use cases, compute power can be either better or worse (gaming on M* is not that great, for example)

- If you want to go beyond the base models, Apple charges ridiculous amounts for RAM and SSD, and those cannot be upgraded after purchase

- Operating system/ecosystem is a matter of personal preference

I personally still love Apple (Unix with decent UI), but like too much things these days, the list of disappointments grows longer. Not as long as with Windows, though.

That being said, if you're on a budget, you're good with a decent AMD/Intel notebook (e.g. a Thinkpador XPS) with Linux. That'll be a work horse and probably lacks some of the "wow, that's nice" effects that you might still get with a mac.

firefax• 10 months ago

I have an M3. It's got a great screen and battery life, but I found out when I tried to start up Tor in a VM that it won't work with the chipset (?!). No Whonix either. So that's annoying.

Anytime I want to do anything CPU intensive I'm on a remote machine anyways -- it's a good portable "deck" for jacking into the net.

vismit2000• 10 months ago

Framework is another good option: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45027725

JustExAWS2• 10 months ago

If you don’t care about battery life, running cool, or running quietly.

Other than that, I’m sure it’s fine…

https://community.frame.work/t/fw-16-review-the-good-the-bad...

It’s not even good for an x86 laptop and that’s a pretty low bar in 2025.

perilunar• 10 months ago

I will not reveal anything about my life

What a strange thing to say. You could have just said what you plan to use the laptop for (or not), in vague terms, and left it at that.

fragmede2• 10 months ago

So weird. I wonder what they're so worried about that they created a new account to ask about getting a Mac laptop. An M4 can get pretty expensive, maybe they've secretly been stealing to get the money for one, and that by writing that, it'll ward off all suspicion, as if anyone remotely cares in this context. Or maybe it's a secret Apple ad, and they work in marketing, and they have to say that, or else Apple secret intelligence is going to catch them and fire them for revealing, uh, nothing.

I mean, what this person; heck, we don't even know it's a person, it could be a dog. On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog. Maybe it's an LLM with a bank account that's gained sentience! Anyway, what this mystery account that won't reveal any details, has already revealed one critical detail! That they want an M4. From that, we can conclude that they're not an Apple hater, and also, they're not a desk.

My recommendation is that they shouldn't get an M4. Why? People are going to judge them for getting an M4. Fairly or not, it's important to this person, that this person (still assuming it's a person) doesn't reveal anything about their life. Unfortunately, merely owning an M4 will reveal far too much about them, to everybody that sees it. Or sees them buying it. Or thinks about them buying it.

OP, don't get an M4! It's the only way you'll be safe!

lighthammer• 10 months ago

Recently purchased a 2020 i7 Macbook PRO with 1TB/32GB. The goal was to have Apple quality hardware and once MacOS is not supported years down the road, I can install Linux on it.

Great investment short and long term.

mmphosis• 10 months ago

Make two lists: the first list is the "dream" machine -- what I want if money were not an issue, and the second list is the features that I need. Match those two lists of specifications to available machines. Maybe compare the lists with machines that I already have. If money is an issue, throw out the "dream" machine list and go with the only what is needed list.

Much of this is a matter of preference. https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/13-inch-sk...

  13-inch -- this is slightly large for me.
  (Maximum) 32GB RAM -- this is not enough for me.

https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-inch-sp...

  16-inch -- this is a behemoth but the only laptops capable of having more than 32GB RAM!?!
  128GB RAM -- now we're getting somewhere
  $10,549.00 -- this is in the "dream" machine list

Is a M4 MacBook Air worth it in todays modern technological world?

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