Firstly I am mostly plugged in, so battery life is secondary.
Secondly I am a heavy Excel user, and it just isn't as good on Apple
Thirdly I use PowerBI which isn't available for Apple
Lastly I have hybrid Active Directory, and can deploy SSO trivially to my remote Windows users, which I can't on Mac. During Covid I could mail someone a PC and get them signed on to AD resources in minutes. My Windows users are first class citizens, easier to support, and happier with their IT.
I’m advocating Windows/Linux users should have the choice of a machine roughly as good. Doesn’t have to 1:1, but clearly there is a lot of space for “better” past what everyone is selling today.
And I don’t see that improving much after 2 years and I find it kind of sad.
Why should you have to switch OSes and everything to have a fast computer with good battery life that’s quiet and cool?
You shouldn’t.
Apple:- “Mere paas M1/M2/MAX,A16, Hain “ and looks at MSFT and asks “Tere paas kya Hain”?
MSFT:- Shoulder shrugs and says “Mere Paas Excel Hain”.
Apple has nothing on Excel. And Numbers languishes Excel by a few generations. Esp after the boatload of updates that Excel APIs got last year. I guess it’s all about priorities and what’s important for that business at that time.
I know there is Windows only software. I know there is software that’s better on Windows.
I don’t care if people switch to Mac.
They should all have the choice of a chip as good (or reasonably close) to the M1.
But they don’t. And it doesn’t look like that’s changing. And I find that sad.
For $1000 one can buy a Windows laptop with 32GB RAM and 1TB SDD, that can cheaply be upgraded to 64GB memory and 10+TB SSD (2x SO-DIMM slots + 2x M2 PCIe slots).
I’m trying to say I think people should have the option of something like it on Windows, not just the hot/power hungry stuff out there today.
Can the M1 MBA run Windows?
EDIT: Or can it run GNU/Linux natively (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33320765)?
We’re far far from the dual booting days, running a mac VM on a Windows machine is probably the holy grail of running every OS on a single machine at this point in time.
Honestly it’s kind of one of the worst. The 2010 was pretty great. If you ignore they keyboard issues (a BIG DEAL) they got better for a few years.
In the last few years it became very clear Apple just couldn’t do what they wanted as the Intel chips kept getting hotter and more power hungry.
I’m sorry you got that experience. It was and now is so much better. You kind of lucked into a low point.
My (largely useless in this context) personal anecdote is that I spent $1029 for a gaming laptop. AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (8-cores, 16 threads), 16GB, 1TB, RTX 2060 6GB. Gets about 4-5 hours of battery doing normal stuff. Plugged in for gaming. (Yes, it runs all of my Steam collection!) It's very fast for everything I use it for. (I mostly work on my desktop, but I've used it for various development, etc. - Visual Studio Community, SQL Server Management Studio, VS Code, WSL/WSL2 and all Linux-based development I've done, photo editing, etc., of course it can run web browsers and be used to check email!)
Why wouldn't I buy a laptop that costs this much and can do so many things well? Because it doesn't work away from plugs for a day? But I live and work at home. Near lots of plugs!
But I've tried a lot of laptops over the pandemic and nothing has come close to the Apple silicon ones in terms of responsiveness, power efficiency, and just plain reliability. And in terms of sheer battery life and weight, the MBA is king of the hill. Sure, I'm not gaming on it - but then again, I can't stand gaming on a laptop to begin with, as the heat and fan noise really bother me. A typical consumer picking out a laptop for college or for use around the house would be better solved with an M1 MBA than almost any Windows laptop unless they have an absolutely mission critical software need.
The MBA isn't for everyone - heck, it can only support 1 external monitor - but it 's the right fit for that middle part of the bell curve.
https://store.steampowered.com/macos
Had they not pushed Metal so hard over Vulkan - then things would be different. There's time yet for Apple to change course. (Seems Valve open sourced MoltenVK, so that's one barrier removed at least!)
I don’t have actual experience on a windows machine right now, but if the linux subsystem is getting good enough, switching there could be worth the hardware and price penalty.
It would surprise me if my mother, grandparents, sister, etc. have ever sent more than $800 on a computer.
