Clarus

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Clarus
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  • M1 MacBook Air review: nearly as transformative as the original

    ClarusClarus
    AppleInsider is somehow one of my favorite Mac sites, yet here I am again commenting about the technical quality of a review.

    No one should be using superlatives to describe the "doubled" SSD speed of the MacBook Air. It is not a result of achievement, it is only a result of catching up! MacBook Pros and other Macs have, for several years now, achieved the very same SSD scores as the M1 Air, so the SSD speed of the M1 Air is absolutely unremarkable. Why do less informed journalists crow about "blistering" "remarkable" M1 SSD speeds? Because they are only comparing it to the old Intel Air, which has been using an older controller that was only half as fast as other Macs and Intel laptops too. It's nice that the M1 Air is in the 2500MB/sec range, but...in 2020, that is exactly where it is supposed to be if it wants to compete.

    Also, the review insufficiently differentiates between the Air and the 13" M1 MB Pro. It isn't just a matter of the 13" M1 MBP being "a hair faster." As other, better reviews pointed out, the entire difference Is in heat management and throttling, which is not borne out until you do a long enough test, which the review doesn't mention ever doing. At full tilt, the M1 remarkably does not throttle until about 10 minutes. For most Mac users that is all they need. For Mac users who will run the CPU at full tilt for more than 10 minutes, that is the reason you buy the Pro, its fan prevents throttling and will sustain extended high loads better. If extended high loads are not part of the use case, the Air is a better deal because its M1 can cope with short periods of high CPU usage without throttling, far better than anything Intel has.

    The M1 Air is absolutely a killer deal for the price, just not for the reasons in the review.
    williamlondonPascalxxbalutyler82anonconformistspock1234watto_cobrarazorpit

  • Apple debuts new MacBook Air with Apple Silicon M1 chip

    ClarusClarus
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    So we pay the same price as the lame Intel MBA, but now we get an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, much longer battery life, much cooler operation meaning maybe less throttling for much faster sustained performance?

    What a...disappointment...?
    docno42MplsPrezwitsmwhiterandominternetpersonRayz2016ronnwatto_cobraBeats

  • The best mobile SSDs for iPad Pro compared

    ClarusClarus
    phred said:
    What are the transfer speeds of the drives? Will they work with other ipads, such as mini 5?       
    We have all the transfer speeds listed in the article. And they may work with different iPads using a Lightning to USB adapter. 
    It's worse than that. The article says "For those who are looking for more, there is also the Glyph Atom SSD Pro. This newer version of this drive has 2800 megabytes per second read speeds and 2600 megabytes per second write speeds." Now hold on here...those speeds are twice what is possible on an iPad Pro, if I'm right that the iPad Pro supports 10Gb/sec USB 3.2 Gen 2. Sure enough, I looked up the Glyph Atom Pro and it is Thunderbolt 3 only. You can use it on a Mac, but this article is about iPads.

    This same mistake was made by commenter Seanismorris above, recommending a Samsung X5 which is Thunderbolt-only, good luck with that on your iPad...

    It's pretty clear how the transfer rates break down in the article. Any drive around 500MB/sec is limited by SATA, any drive around 1000MB/sec is NVMe limited to the 10Gb/sec of USB 3.2 Gen 2, and any drive well above 1000GB/sec is NVMe using Thunderbolt 3 and not appropriate to mention in this article.

    I am also disappointed that the article didn't involve real-world tests, since actual results often vary from what the manufacturer claims. And if they had actually been tested, it would have been more obvious that a drive mentioned simply wouldn't work with an iPad.

    Incidentally, the one I bought is an Oyen Digital Helix Dura, a long slim NVMe USB-C drive not mentioned in the article. In tests it does about 925MB/sec for both read and write. But with all these drives, real world speeds are somewhat lower due to overhead.

    All in all I agree with Marc G that the article demonstrates technical and editorial sloppiness.
    SpamSandwichsellerington

  • Apple to release new 13-inch MacBook Pro in May, leaker claims

    ClarusClarus
    prismatics said:
    With some other irrelevant overheating intel processor and shit graphics right
    Although the last 15-inch MacBook Pros were reviled for a cooling system that could not handle the CPU, and poor graphics value, the fact that you are still saying this means you are out of touch. The reviews of the 16-inch MacBook Pro have praised it for fixing the thermals so that the same CPU performs better at a lower temperature. And the other big fix Apple was praised for in the new 16-inch was including, in the base price, a GPU more powerful than you used to get in the 15-inch upgrade model.

    prismatics said:
    There is no difference between 10th gen and 7th gen. These are stickers meant to mislead the unenlightened into thinking Intel has any value left for their product
    Aha, the same poster makes another technically incorrect statement!

    There is a very very fundamental difference between the 10th and 7th gen Intel CPUs, and that critical difference affected the 13-inch MacBook Pros to a monumental, it would even be fair to say historical, degree.

    Up through the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with the 7th generation CPU, the 13-inch CPU was dual core. It was one reason I always had to get the 15-inch, just for the quad core multicore performance for photo and video editing.

    With the 8th generation, for the first time in history, it was finally possible to spec a quad core i5, in the 2018 13" MacBook Pro. I downsized to the 13" and have been very happy with it.

    I will say that you are correct that Intel has hardly improved their CPUs in general. Their CPU designs are so far behind AMD and Apple it's pathetic. But the factual inaccuracies in your posts would lead many to believe that you are basically just trolling here.
    spheric

  • Apple's new MacBook Air debuts at $999 with 256GB storage, quad-core options

    ClarusClarus

    gatorguy said:
    I did not realize the SSD could not be upgraded. :/ 
    There is no "SSD" as such.

    There is not one big SSD block you can yank out, you won't find it. If you look at the teardowns, internal storage on Mac laptops is multiple chips scattered on the motherboard. Sometimes the chips are not even next to each other, or on opposite sides of the motherboard. These spread out chips are combined, ganged up, managed, and encrypted by the Apple T2 chip to appear as one big volume in your Finder.
    GeorgeBMacwatto_cobra