story
They are awesome, but not perfect.
Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS. Any one of these could be reason enough for people to look elsewhere.
I just want to display on 3 screens. But the base model is the only one that corporate IT will buy. So I have to buy a DisplayLink adapter to do what the Intel macbooks did with zero problem.
Thing that was possible at 300$ windows laptop cannot be done on 2500$ machine with 60$ connector.
I would check your HDMI cable (not all hdmi cables support the resolutions you want), but mine worked perfectly fine using a USB-C thunderbolt 3 cable, as well as an USB-C to DisplayPort cable.
Apple is in the business of selling you hardware, specifically premium hardware. Think car dealership.
To me it’s not really relevant what the old computer models used to do. You have to evaluate what is available today and choose accordingly. Like it or not Intel chips had different strengths and weaknesses. It’s a different design entirely.
I’m split on whether this is a dirty price segmentation trick or a legitimate design limitation where adding more display support is expensive in terms of die size.
Doesn’t matter though, because companies doing serious work are supposed to know to buy the business versions of laptops. They don’t buy Dell Vostro consumer grade PCs, they buy Dell Precision/Latitude/XPS business systems. Apple tells you right in the name of their system: Pro. If you’re a professional you buy the Pro model. If it’s too expensive then buy something else.
There's no excuse for a $2000+ machine to not support more than two external monitors. DisplayLink on MacOS is far from ideal, either: it works alright, but it has to use the screen recording functionality in the OS, which causes anything with protected content to freak out.
The MBA is an extremely close competitor to the Dell XPS line too. And "Pro" doesn't even guarantee you more monitors. The $1600 M3 MBP is just as limited as the "consumer" Air.
Except they crippled it on purpose as a form of market segmentation. Claiming anything else is beyond absurd.
> Apple unveils the new 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with the powerful M3 chip The world’s most popular laptop is better than ever with even more performance, faster Wi-Fi, and support for up to two external displays — all in its strikingly thin and light design with up to 18 hours of battery life
EDIT:
mmmm... no.
>Support for up to two external displays: MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed
FFS Apple.
I guess it's something of an improvement at least :-/
Stuck with macOS: technically not true, Asahi Linux exists.
Connecting multiple monitors: a legitimate negative limitation unusual at the MacBook Air price point, but still something that only a small fraction of consumer laptop buyers care about.
apple products being the perfect exception :)
> Way over-priced storage and RAM upgrades, can't connect multiple monitors unless you pay up, and you're stuck with MacOS.
Basically boils down to "Apple is selling a much better product, and they know it." I.e. your first bullets (over priced storage, RAM, charging for multi monitor support) all just boil down to "Apple charges more because they can". The "you're stuck with MacOS" is obviously true but just highlights that Apple has always been about optimizing hardware and software together.
If anything, I think the "dark times" for Apple laptops was the late teens during the era of stuff like the butterfly keyboard, the touchbar, and too few ports. I think Apple consumers have consigned themselves to paying more for a much better product. What they're not willing to do (as much anyway) is to pay a premium for a crappier product. The butterfly keyboard especially was such a disaster ("We shaved .2 mm off the width, all at the minor expense of any key randomly stopping to work at any time!") Admitting mistakes in big corporations is hard so I'm glad they just jettisoned all that stuff.
Interesting way of thinking about probably the biggest draw of the hardware.
Linux on the Desktop has finally arrived !
but yea, i agree, probably the 2nd biggest draw
Ah this is why technical professionals all use linux, right?
