Apple’s MacBook Pro memory problem is worse than ever

Comments

• 3aqn5k6ryk@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Then stop buying it.

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  • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wish I could. I hate working on Macs, but it seems like half of my mission-critical programs at work are Mac exclusive for some reason. Apple really pushed the “we’re built for art and artists” thing, so there are a lot of programs in the fine arts world that are Mac exclusive. Digital art, music, live entertainment, etc are all wholly dependent on Macs, purely because the programs needed to make those things are Mac exclusive.

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    • NoMoreCocaine@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Wait what? I’ve been using windows exclusively for art and music. Not specifically for live music and nothing stops me from that. What are these exclusive Mac apps that can’t be replaced with something else?

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    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Look up what a “hackintosh” is. You’re welcome.

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    • daq@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Could you name a couple? I’m not aware of any industry standard applications that are exclusive to macos. Or is this some custom designed stuff?

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  • egeres@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I have the feeling that a big chunk of apple consumers (I know there are many professionals and developers that love apple) don’t even know what RAM is used for and will just buy it because it’s the “cheapest version of the newest thing” without much critical consideration

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    • Gljvf@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How much ram do you need to pretend to be a writer at Starbucks? 64k ?

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• qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The base models (the air’s, not pro’s), should have shipped with 12-16GB standard, and the pro’s should have shipped with 16-24GB standard. I’d argue that a minimum of 24-32GB should really be the standard on something named a “pro” model.

  Apple’s M-based laptops are really great - excellent display, best-in-class speakers, good keyboard, industry-leading trackpad…But 8GB of RAM for $1600? Get out of here.

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  • iopq@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Do they still solder the SSD?

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    • Player2@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Of course

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    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nope - technically they don’t even have an SSD anymore. They just have a bunch of NAND chips.

      The drive controller is in the CPU. Which is great for performance… but a bit of a headache when it comes to upgrades.

      The band chips are on a daughter board on their larger desktops. And soldered on laptops and the tiny Mac Mini.

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    • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes. There is no internal upgradable parts. I believe you can only replace the battery cells, the fans, and the mainboard (motherboard with soldered CPU/RAM(VRAM)/SSD, and all connected modules like the USB chipsets, audio chipset, etc.).

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    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Everything is soldered these days, RAM included, hence the issues and complaints. I find it extra comical that they tried to cheapen on the solder as well, but when that resulted in issues with GPU splitting away from PCB, they glued shoe rubber on top the chip so case pushes it to make contact and called it a “solution”. Haha. Imagine the amount of savings they made on such a wast amount of solder per PCB. It might even approach range in pennies.

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  • fiah@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    32gb might have been “pro” 5 years ago but not anymore, not when a run of the mill 32gb DDR5 kit can be had for $100

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    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Apple won’t even offer that for the 8GB models, the best you can do is pay $400 to get them with 24GB included.

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    • de_lancre@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Also, have in mind that main memory shared with igpu, so if we talking about memory heavy tasks like 8k video render with masks, effects and stuff, then this memory will be eaten not only by app, but also with gpu encoder. 64gb would be more close to “bearable minimum” but oh well, magic apple memory I guess.

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    • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I meant as a base spec for a “pro” system.

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• redcalcium@lemmy.institute ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  People could rage about the memory cost all they want but as long as people keep buying the expensive upgrade, Apple wouldn’t give a fuck. Why would they voluntarily shut down the money hose?

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  • lud@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Raging about it can stop people from buying it, so I say carry on.

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• roht@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I will be the devil’s advocate here and say that having the 8 Gb ram config on their cheapest machines (MBA, Mac Mini) is perfectly fine, but having it as the base config on the MBP is borderline false advertising.

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  • Tattorack@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    For the price of a Mac Book Air you can literally get a better, more powerful laptop with 16 GB of RAM.

    And if you don’t need 16 GB of RAM you can get a significantly cheaper laptop.

    Apple isn’t worth its price. You’re literally paying for the name.

    My Dad’s wife said she wanted the iPhone. Me and brother tried to tell her it’s not worth it. She said she wanted the new iPhone because it’s trendy and she can show it to all her friends. THAT is why people buy Apple.

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    • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The Apple M processors really are game changers. Not only are they fast but generate little heat and sip power. I’m a software developer and use an M1 Pro for work. When I went on the road with it the first time I forgot to get out the charger and plug it in when I setup at a table. Realized it at lunch and shocked I still had plenty of battery left it unplugged. I worked the entire 8 hour day on battery. You won’t find an Intel or AMD processor that’ll do that.

      I still have my home-built AMD 5950x PC with Windows that I use for gaming and personal projects. I have Linux Mint on my home server. If I was in the market for a laptop that I was going to be using a lot away from my home desk, I’d get a Mac laptop just for the incredible battery life and performance. Apple takes advantage of people for what they charge for memory and storage but the Apple silicon is quality.

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    • alansuspect@aussie.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I used to use Windows a long time ago, it was always slow and crap. I also tinkered with Linux but I don’t want to spend my free time (and some of my work time) troubleshooting. I like the idea of Linux, but for most people it isn’t there yet. Windows is just bad.

      Apple has created a situation where, for better or worse, they are both the software and hardware. Yes, you’re locked in and pay for the name, all of that, but also they work. Really well. No troubleshooting, no bloat or slowing down. That’s what people pay for.

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    • BURN@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I could buy a different laptop, but then I’d have to use Linux or Windows, which are not great experiences on mobile devices.

      I could buy a different laptop and get a quarter of the battery life, because ARM and the M-Series chips are incredibly power efficient.

      I could buy a different laptop but then it wouldn’t work with my phone, tablet, TVs, AirPods, etc, again, making it not worth it.

      Complain about Apple all you want, but their hardware and overall UX aren’t even close to being matched by other manufacturers.

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    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nothing competes with MacBook performance/battery life. Not even close. The M series chips are ahead of everything intel and AMD offer.

      If you compare like for like with apple laptops you can’t get an equivalent for close to the same price. Especially weight, battery life, processing and screen quality.

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    • theangryseal@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I have personally never met anyone who would admit to using something just to show off to their friends. I’m a hillbilly though so maybe it’s a bit different here. That type of talk is almost universally despised in hillbilly honor culture.

      I use an iPhone because I like it. Plain and simple. They’re easy enough for me to do basic repairs (screen and battery replacement), and I have no interest in tinkering with it or anything like that.

      I transitioned from the iPod to the iPod touch and the phone was a no brainer for me. I have photos going back over a decade and everything transfers easily.

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    • Woovie@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is peak blind ignorant hate

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    • darreninthenet@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nice generalising there… given all my friends are Android/Windows users I wasn’t trying to show off when I switched over, I just wanted an ecosystem that works when I want to do something… too many times in both Windows and Mint did I have to spend time setting up the system to do something instead of just getting on with it.

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  • modcolocko@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This is exactly what the article said

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  • nomecks@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This guy has never used Powerpoint on a Mac.

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• 4grams@awful.systems ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I mean, I get why people don’t like it but at the same time, no one forces you to buy one. I like Macs, I enjoy using OS X and would use it as my primary OS. I don’t because I don’t find the value proposition of their hardware worth it.

  Their loss, they have a market, they just aren’t interested in it.

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  • garretble@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m kinda of in the same boat.

    My “main” computer is a M1 iPad at this point. It’s fast, and I can do all my day to day things on it. If I want to play games I do have a PC for that, but Windows isn’t that “pleasant” to use so I don’t spend much time with it beyond games.

    I was reminded how much MacOS is just a pleasant experience a couple months ago when I found a sale for old mac minis. They had a 2014 model for $60. I put a new SSD in it, and I’m typing on that machine right now. It can get Monterey, but nothing newer, but that still lets me send texts, and the machine unlocks with my watch when I wake it up.

    All that to say is: I’ve now been looking at buying a brand new Mac Mini, but the memory and hard drive charges are insane. They always have been, but it’s just ridiculous at this point.

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    • neinhorn@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You can look into this if you want to upgrade to a newer macOS.

      dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

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  • SinningStromgald@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Their loss, they have a market, they just aren’t interested in it.

    They are very interested in your money and parting your money from you.

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    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Capitalism is as capitalism does

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  • catastrophicblues@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah. I use a MacBook for its build quality and being UNIX (cough Windows cough), plus some niceties like iCloud, but the RAM cost is insane.

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  • cerevant@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The whole thing boggles my mind. Keep in mind that a good number of “Pro” users are corporate types running PowerPoint and Excel but certainly wouldn’t stoop to using a consumer model.

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    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      We’ve got a “pro” Mac that runs lighting for a theatre. It only has one piece of software installed (QLab) and isn’t even connected to the internet.

      QLab needs about 250MB of RAM.

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  • ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I really do one want but can’t justify €1800-2000 for one or even €3500 if I actually get the one (14 inch screen).

    I can get probably a better laptop or PC with lower costs. Plus I have been told that unfortunately MacBooks don’t do well with Excel (still sad about this).

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    • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      MacBooks don’t do well with Excel

      I’m curious about this. My past experience with Office 365 is that the apps works better on MacOS, but maybe it’s short on more advanced features, like complex macros?

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• ChojinDSL@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Laughs in ThinkPad running Linux.

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  • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Cries in soldered RAM

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    • ChojinDSL@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s a trend that needs to die. I blame MacBook airs and ultrabooks for this nonsense.

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• carl_dungeon@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah I’m a fan boy but I agree with this 100%. In the old days I’d just buy list ram config and then replace with after market but obviously we dont have the option anymore. It sucks because I could use at least 64 in my m3 but it was cost prohibitive.

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  • Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Gonna have to try pricing up a laptop for next year. Want to get a MacBook next year for Final Cut after having tried it on a Hackintosh. Not looking forward to pricing up the memory lol

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    • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ram price aside, the m3 MacBook pros are fucking monsters. My handbrake encodes went from 35fps to about 200fps (from an 8core i9), stable diffusion tasks that took 70 seconds now take 5, LLMs are spitting results out at 30+ tokens a second, even baulders gate 3 runs great. Battery life is SICK. Handbrake and BG3 are about the only things that even turned on the fans which are normally totally off, just passive cooling. The whole thing is cool on my lap. The i9 was a leg burner pretty much all the time. Bring MagSafe back with 140watts was a real win. The screen is beautiful. The speakers… shit I dont remember the last time I was impressed by laptop speakers- this is one of those times. It’s worth it, even if your wallet cries buying ram.

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• fox2263@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m positive the minimum went up to 16gb like a generation or two back. It’s sickening that they went back over.

  I have a couple of work MacBooks with 8gb for managers and they often complain of them going slow as molasses when having a good few tabs open in chrome. I’m talking less then 10 though, but heavy sites like email and AdWords and other horrible sites.

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  • just_about_now@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Less than 10 ? Sounds a bit far fetched. Any modern OS with 8 gb ram can handle 10 tabs. It is probably for other reasons may be

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    • fox2263@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Don’t underestimate the black hole of ram that is Google AdWords and Google analytics. And chrome.

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    • currycourier@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I noticed the other day that each jira cloud tab takes about 250-350MB of ram. For just viewing a single ticket too! Still doesn’t add up to 8GB but ten tabs of that would eat up a good chunk of that.

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• MeanEYE@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That’s okay, because their 8GB is the same as 16GB on other machines. They are just that better. /s

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• Wander@yiffit.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t buy Apple. As simple as that. You know when a company gives you the creeps? That’s how I feel about Apple.

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• Rizoid@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think what Apple has done with their M series of chips is actually incredible and very interesting. However actually purchasing their hardware is just out of the question when I’m just going to run a Linux distro on whatever I purchase.

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  • aard@kyu.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I recently had the need for some apple hardware due to customer projects - and ended up buying an air with 16GB of RAM when it was available relatively cheaply.

    The keyboard is shit - but keyboards are shit on pretty much any notebook nowadays unfortunately.

    Both memory and storage are a problem - the rest is surprisingly nice. I also have a Windows arm notebook from HP, same 16 GB storage issue, but at least the SSD is user replacable.

    We should get rid of 8GB base models in general - that’s pretty much what you’d expect in a phone nowadays, but not in a computer.

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    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If you think the keyboard is shitty now, the keyboard is even shittier during the butterfly keyboard era. If you get a mac 5 years ago you’ll probably curse the keyboard daily. Their current keyboard is basically the best mac users can get in the past 8 years.

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    • ABCDE@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What don’t you like about the keyboard? It’s quiet, low profile, easy to type on quickly, lights up… not sure what else you’d want.

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• nostradiel@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Apple has surpassed its peak age. Downfall is coming.

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  • modcolocko@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Pretty sure people have said this for like 10 years

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• inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s absolutely nothing wrong since their ultra zealous base will continue to buy their complete asinine bullshit products at their shitty premiums and anti consumer practices.

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• TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The base model isn’t really the base model. If you are buying a Mac you just have to accept you are spending $2k on it

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• dukk@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  11GB idling?? Maybe not as optimized as it seems…

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  • huginn@feddit.it ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s just cached memory. Pretty common practice for any modern OS to retain memory until 60% usage or so. Costs nothing and is snappier performance.

    11GB idling is only after having done other things. When you launch it’ll be less than 2 in my experience.

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    • dukk@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ohhh right, I totally forgot about that. Remember reading about it somewhere. In that case, I guess it makes more sense.

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• tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Remember the G4 iBook? I used the crap out of that machine, it was built like a tank. I upgraded the ram, installed a new wifi card, swapped the broken keyboard and bought a new battery, all by myself. The little beast still runs, albeit suffering a lot with new modern, web based tasks.

  The new Macbook M1 I got from work makes me terrified to even use it, because if anything breaks that would mean a trip to the sanctioned repair shop and a long downtime. Thank God I exorcised Apple from my private life.

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  • BURN@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Is it a MBP M1? The ones they’ve been handing out at my office are tanks compared to the pre-2017 (modern) MacBooks.

    I think that’s also just part of how laptops are made now. How Thin/Light a laptop is can be a major selling point

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• ianovic69@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Wow, people here hate Apple don’t they?

  It’s fair if you’re a pro and need the latest new hardware. If not, like me, I got an 18mth old MBP for about a third of the new price. It’s incredible, best thing I ever did. And Apple don’t get my money!

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  • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I mean, jacked up prices, lots of anti-consumer crap, questionable ethical practices in foreign markets…

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    • Mongostein@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What’s the ethical alternative?

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  • tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The thing about used macbooks is that you don’t know if the drive is trashed. If the SSD dies, it will take the whole machine down, and you can’t even boot with an external drive because the “Bios” is stored on the SSD. So the machine is bricked.

    youtu.be/RYG4VMqatEY

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• onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  If you have a problem with Apple hardware, don’t buy it. Simple as.

  They do this because they know people will buy it. If less people bought it, they would stop doing it.

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• XTL@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And still no ecc?

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  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    What consumer grade laptop has ECC? Only high end workstations have ECC, and even then it’s usually an expensive option that probably very few opt for.

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  • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, not gonna happen. The only real reason Mac Pros had ECC was because it was standard with Xenon. ATPs latest episode goes over why we’ll probably never see ECC on the M series Macs and why it’s not actually as useful anymore (lookup linked ECC).

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• biannualmantis@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Try Linux won’t regret! But needs time like every new learning

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  • johnlobo@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    nah, linux is too much for this people.

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• RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Is it not still dead simple to add more RAM yourself?

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  • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nope. Soldered directly onto the motherboard now and no expansion.

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  • WindowsEnjoyer@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Or do some kind of research if there are any other company making computers. 🙆

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  • And009@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Lmfao. But no

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  • pkpenguin@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They’ll get to that when they add a microSD slot to their phones, that being when hell freezes over.

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• soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have the base M1 MacBook Pro, but I’m seriously considering eventually switching to a framework laptop with Linux if I ever get the chance. I love the processor and OS on this thing, but it feels like I’m hitting a wall with doing some of the more advanced stuff I want to do.

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• Fuzzypyro@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Honestly 8GiB is not a problem at all on the m1. I personally use mine about as hard as I use my 2018 razer blade advanced with 64 gb of ram. The fast storage in the first Apple silicon laptops allow for swap so fast that it just doesn’t matter. (Swap being kind of like using your storage as ram for folks who don’t know) the only time I found myself wanting is when I was running any servers for hosting local games or for extra gpu capabilites while viewing large intricate sliced files in cura. I can’t speak much for m2 or m3 but m1 it was a solid option to go with the base considering you were getting the best speakers and some of the best build quality out of such a thin and battery efficient device.

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  • Tom_bishop@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Ssd has limited TBW. Swapping kill your ssd faster isn’t it? Dead ssd means dead M1 laptop. Planned obsolescence.

    I have the m1, its a good laptop. But i read the the ssd issues killing m1 within 1 year of usage after I purchased it. Now i only used it sparingly

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