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 [2020] MacBook Air with M1 Discussion Thread

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SUSlurkingaround
post Dec 15 2020, 11:55 AM

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Fyi, .......

QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 10 2020 @ 04:10 PM)
We need to separate mobile and immobile  device consumers, eg consumers who use mobile battery-powered smartphones and immobile AC-powered desktop workstation computers.
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Actually, data-centers prefer to use less electrical power as much as possible. Data-centers or data-servers are usually not low power consumption devices. .......

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/18...hats-a-problem/ - 2019/06/18/134902/icelands-data-centers-are-booming-heres-why-thats-a-problem/ - Bitcoin miners and data scientists love cheap, green Icelandic processing power. Maybe a little too much.
Life on the North Atlantic island tends to be chilly, foggy, and windy, though hard frosts are not common. The annual average temperature in the capital, Reykjavík, is around 41 °F (5 °C), and even when the summer warmth kicks in, the mercury rarely rises above 68. Iceland has realized that even though this climate may not be great for sunning yourself on the beach, it is very favorable to one particular industry: data.

Each one of those Advania buildings in Reykjanesskagi is a large data center, home to thousands of computers. They are constantly crunching away, processing instructions, transmitting data, and mining Bitcoin. Data centers like these generate large amounts of heat and need round-the-clock cooling, which would usually require considerable energy. In Iceland, however, data centers don’t need to constantly run high-powered cooling systems for heat moderation: instead, they can just let in the brisk subarctic air. Natural cooling like this lowers ongoing costs.

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https://www.t4.ai/industry/server-operating...em-market-share - server-operating-system-market-share - 30 April 2020
user posted image
The chart above shows the Server OS market share of global shipments for enterprise Server Operating Systems in 2018. Microsoft Server was the market leader with a 48% share of the total server Operating System shipments while 34% of the shipments were for Red Hat's Linux based Server OS. Red Hat is far and away the leader within the Linux Server OS market. While Red Hat and Microsoft are the most popular operating systems in the server OS market, the "Other" section contains additional well known products and brands. They include Apple's OS X Server to manage Mac computers and iOS devices on a network, and many Linux kernel based operating systems such as Ubuntu and Chrome OS for servers.

Servers = data-centers or data-servers = nearly all of them are powered by x86/CISC processor-based OS.
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QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 10 2020 @ 05:27 PM)
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ARM/RISC processors have been around since the early 2000s, eg .......

https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_7650-288.php - The 2002 Nokia 7650 SymbianOS handphone(no touchscreen yet = failed).

If ARM/RISC processors could replace the x86/CISC processors in data-centers/servers, they would have done so long ago, eg from 2010 onward.

Note that during the 2000s, the ARM/RISC processor was purposely invented and designed for mobile battery-powered, fanless and small smartphones = the processor had to be power-sipping(= purposely crippled) so that the battery would last longer, it produced less heat and could fit inside a smaller space.
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QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 12 2020 @ 10:54 PM)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDgiyV4OV0 - M1 Macs: I Tried to Switch...and FAILED - Dec 11, 2020

TLDW = M1 Mac computers are not for Professionals, yet(.?). They are good for Casual users, eg web-surfing, video-streaming and emailing.
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QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 14 2020 @ 04:18 PM)
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https://squid.substack.com/p/do-not-buy-the...cbook-pro-heres - Do NOT Buy The M1 MacBook Pro. Here’s Why: - The Thoughtful Squid - Dec 8, 2020
... Word About Tech Reviewers

At this point you might wonder why this lonely individual is going against ALL the professional tech reviewers recommending you buy this device - why I think I’m right about this. Tech reviewers who make a living from reviewing tech products have a vested interested in positively endorsing a product. It’s not just about commission on sales (which can net some Youtubers millions per year) but it’s something much, much simpler - Early Release.

Apple, Microsoft, Dell and many more tech giants have a long list of reviewers, influencers, Youtubers who they give their products to about a half a month before the public. This is so that reviews of their products from prominent individuals come out on launch day. However for a tech reviewer this is crucial - because who ever gets their article or video out first will usually make the most amount of views and clicks.

In a lot of cases, the rule of thumb is, if four people have released their videos/reviews, you’ve already missed the train and the youtube algorithm will favour those four vids over yours. And you can see this for yourself, a handful of videos on any device will see millions of views whilst the rest will be lucky to break 100k views, most hovering around 40K. As such, tech reviewers will always want to finish their review on a positive note, telling their viewers to buy - no matter how critical they are in the first half of their review, so that they remain on the Early Release lists. Ask yourself, when was the last time someone reviewed a major tech product and told you not to buy? 

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QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 14 2020 @ 04:41 PM)
https://towardsdatascience.com/new-apple-si...rs-a1590fbd170f - Apple Silicon, run Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow on the new Macs M1 - Run Machine Learning tools natively compiled for Apple Silicon - Fabrice Daniel - Dec 6, 2020

... Two weeks after the launch of Apple Silicon, Anaconda 2020.11 is not yet compatible. The installer asks for Rosetta. On the other hand installing Python 3 is quite easy. Simply open a terminal and call python3. This installs the XCode command line tools including Python 3.8.2 compiled for Apple Silicon. But this is quite useless for the moment as trying to install numpy fails with a compilation error. JupyterLab can be installed but fails to run any notebook, causing kernel issues. ....

Regarding TensorFlow, it’s too early for doing any reliable testing today as there is still too many issues, especially on GPU. Even on CPU we observe a strange underutilization with only 4 cores used at 50% or less each. ...

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https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5064813/+260 - MacBook run x86 app faster than Intel cpu - 28 Nov 2020
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SUSlurkingaround
post Dec 15 2020, 04:17 PM

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QUOTE(faizalmzain @ Dec 15 2020, 12:24 PM)
ok but i use my personal laptop only for web browsing occasionally and minor video editing if i feel like it, for work use office laptop biggrin.gif
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For such a casual use case, most people do not need to buy the over-priced or price-gouging high-end/specced Apple Mac laptops, ie they only need a budget Intel/AMD laptop or Chromebook.

Macbook Pro laptops are supposed to be for Professionals or power-users, ie not for Casual or non-power or non-Professional users.
....... Imagine an office-worker foolishly buying a 4WD vehicle, eg Isuzu D-Max and Mitsubishi Triton, to commute to work daily in the city.
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SUSlurkingaround
post Dec 15 2020, 08:13 PM

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QUOTE(faizalmzain @ Dec 15 2020, 12:24 PM)
ok but i use my personal laptop only for web browsing occasionally and minor video editing if i feel like it, for work use office laptop biggrin.gif
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QUOTE(lurkingaround @ Dec 15 2020 @ 04:17 PM)
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For such a casual use case, most people do not need to buy the over-priced or price-gouging high-end/specced Apple Mac laptops, ie they only need a budget Intel/AMD laptop or Chromebook.

Macbook Pro laptops are supposed to be for Professionals or power-users, ie not for Casual or non-power or non-Professional users.
....... Imagine an office-worker foolishly buying a 4WD vehicle, eg Isuzu D-Max and Mitsubishi Triton, to commute to work daily in the city.
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QUOTE(faizalmzain @ Dec 15 2020, 05:34 PM)
But screen is very important for me. I'm not into low resolution laptop so surface or MacBook are my only option.
Other than that it has to be able to edit video. I can edit 4k video using iPhone but not surface pro laptop.
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https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-IdeaPa...e.506062.0.html - Lenovo IdeaPad S540 13-inch Laptop Review: Ryzen has turned this small office laptop into a real powerhouse - 26 Nov 2020
Comparable 13-inch laptops usually cost more than the S540's 750 Euro (~$900) price tag. ...

Display = 13.30 inch 16:10, 2560 x 1600 pixel 227 PPI, Chi Mei CMN13B0 (N133GCA-GQ1), IPS, glossy: yes, 60 Hz


https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook...D.508057.0.html - Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 Entry Review: Apple M1 CPU humbles Intel and AMD - 5 Dec 2020
Price = 1129 Euro ...

Display = 13.30 inch 16:10, 2560 x 1600 pixel 227 PPI, IPS, glossy: yes, 60 Hz

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For a similar Display/screen, the Lenovo AMD x86 Ideapad S540's 750 Euro price is 379 Euro cheaper than the Apple M1 Macbook Air's 1129 Euro.
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SUSlurkingaround
post Apr 10 2021, 01:03 PM

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Fyi, .......

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-bad-is-th...ailure-problem/ - How bad is the M1 Mac's SSD failure problem? -
If your M1 Mac's SSD fails, you can't boot off an external drive, a change from past decades. Here's the problem and strategies to manage the risk. - By Robin Harris for Storage Bits | April 8, 2021
"All storage fails. The only question is when. For critical data: LOCKSS. Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.

I've relied on daily bootable backups to keep my business running for over 15 years. But the new M1 Macs have eliminated that option. The M1 Mac SSD is a Single Point of Failure (SPOF) ...

But no more. Your M1 Mac may not boot at all if the system drive fails, external drive or no. And, as I noted earlier, all storage fails.

Locking down the boot

To keep malware off Apple Silicon macOS (& iOS), Apple is locking down the macOS boot process. The M1 boot process requires a working SSD to boot macOS. The SSD contains a Signed System Volume that is cryptographically sealed by Apple. No seal, no bootable System.

So if the internal drive on your M1 Mac fails completely, even an external bootable drive won't boot. Yep, your Mac is bricked. ..."

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Looks like if the internal SSD of the M1 Macbooks fail, the laptops "change or progress" to become bricks. Maybe the only way to unbrick the laptops is by sending them to Apple for internal SSD replacement. Buy costly Apple Care.?
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SUSlurkingaround
post Jul 27 2021, 11:14 PM

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Fyi, .......

https://wccftech.com/microsoft-windows-11-w...us-performance/ - Microsoft Windows 11 Will Boost Intel Alder Lake (And Other big.LITTLE CPUs) Performance - 20 June 2021

The 12th-gen Intel Alder Lake x86 CPU, coming this Fall, is a hybrid CPU with a mix of high-performance(= power-hogging) Cores and energy-efficient(= power-saving) Cores (6+8 or 8+8), similar to Apple's M1 ARM CPU inside the latest Mac Mini, Macbooks, iMac and iPad.

Intel and M$ are responding to the Apple M1 ARM("-twisting") threat. smile.gif
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SUSlurkingaround
post Aug 24 2021, 03:00 PM

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Fyi, .......

https://www.zdnet.com/article/m1-macs-exper...erious-crashes/ - Is your M1 Mac crashing? You're not alone
First a crackling sound, then a sudden reboot. More and more users are experiencing strange crashes on their M1 Macs. So far, Apple has no comment. - 18 Aug 2021

Such complaints have been cropping up since Feb 2021(edited from 2020).

ARM chips and Desktop apps/programs are not very compatible, compared to Intel/AMD x86 chips.?
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This post has been edited by lurkingaround: Aug 25 2021, 01:23 PM

 

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