I have just bought my new macbook air m4 today. Actually I've got 2 questions.

1) Are there essential settings that I should definitely apply to my pc?

2) Currently I've got S24 Ultra. So I was wondering if anyone else uses this kinda mixed-ecosystem? Any tips for me?

Hi guys!
I am a productive student who loves to code and use apps like obsidian as my own workspace. I use this really old macbook pro 2017 (without a Touch Bar) with the following specs in the image and I am surprised it handles discord, VS code, google classroom, gemini, Obsidian, and chrome with 5-6 light to moderate tabs without overloading RAM or CPU power dropping or even fans turning on. Everything is incredibly smooth except the fact that my 128GB SSD is too small and the battery sucks.

But I still don't know whether to upgrade to a new macbook or not. I need your advice.

I recently got a MacBook Pro 14" with the M5 chip, and I find myself loving it.

I've always been a Windows guy myself, but switched to Linux recently, because the laptop I had before this Macbook was crap (4GB of ram, 128 of SSD, an Intel Celeron N4100 and inegrated graphics). I've never used any kind of Apple OS (iOS, iPadOS, macOS...) as I have an Android phone. To connect my phone and my MacBook, I use KDE Connect.

I also find myself loving iCloud, it's the first time I used it, I love the web for iCloud, and it feels so satisfactory to have the iCloud.com domain on my email. I also love the office suite, which I can also use on my phone via the iCloud website, it all connects so seamlessly!

MacOS is also easy to use, the user interface is so user friendly, and works so good overall.

Overall, I love this MacBook, its 16GB of ram, 1TB of storage, and its M5 chip are so good, performance unlike anything I've ever used before, and battery life is impressing as well!

So glad to have made the change!

Is it just me or someone out there who still loves the ventura as the screensaver? I have moved on from Sequoia, Tahoe to Golden Gate Beta but I still like ventura as my screensaver.

I hope this post is MacBook enough

I've dabbled with Linux for 30 years just becasue i liked the reliability. I don't do anything tricky and i never really learned the linux-nerd stuff. But i could get a tired old Lenovo to run Ubuntu pretty happily.

A couple years ago i switched to MacBook and it's been nice but my current Machine is stuck at Monterey and i did not want to upgrade so i looked at htthe e Linux option again.

This is where Chat GPT really made a difference. There are a lot of problems to solve in getting Linux working and if you'tr just a user it can be a big lift.

But this is where ChatGPT really shines. It just spits out the commands you need to run to get everything working: partitioning, wifi, BlueTooth etc.

I hope someone finds this post useful

I have it plugged into the wall but the magsafe port isnt showing a green/amber light and i've tried different chargers but its just not charging i need help. I recently swapped the LAS and did the system set up (showed it was a genuine apple part) and i'm wondering if theres anything related to that. I have a macbook air m2 2022

Hello, friends. I’m a computer enthusiast, and computers have been my hobby for more than 15 years. I’ve never tried a Mac before, but I really want to. The only thing stopping me right now is that I genuinely don’t know whether it’s worth the money.

I’m not a programmer, and I don’t make videos. I would mainly use it for YouTube, browsing the internet, working with documents, and playing the occasional light game. I already have a gaming PC, but I don’t really play games on it anymore.

Overall, I think I would simply enjoy the convenience of having a laptop that I can take with me anywhere. But please tell me, do you think a MacBook is worth spending the money on?

They are at the same price
The MBP is used but it has 40 cycles
They are both 16 GB RAM and 512 SSD
Should I get the newest or the pro, even if its older?

Edit: I meant 13 on the title for the air

I got the crack a year ago from accidentally leaving a pen in my laptop while closing it. It’s a Macbook Air 13” (8gb) and i’ve had it for almost 4 years. The screen hasn’t really been affected by the crack in any way. I also have about 20 days to renew my applecare on my mac for $95 cad/year. I’m considering renewing my apple care so i can get the crack fixed at a lower price maybe (not sure what that price would be with or without apple care). I’m also considering just ignoring it since it hasn’t really affected my screen yet, and apple will probably charge me an arm and a leg to fix it. I don’t have a lot of money which is why i’m leaning on ignoring it but if it’ll affect my laptop in the long run, i can borrow some money to fix it.

Hi guys, it's gonna be my first MacBook, so I have no clue whether the change is big or small with the new gen, and how pricing works. Will the previous generation become cheaper as the new one drops, or will nothing change much and I should just get M5 now? Thanks!

Hello,

I have a older Mac book pro 13 in. I honestly cannot tell you what year, it is probably from 2016.

It has been off for about three months. Never had any issues with it before. It is stuck at 1% now for about an hour. The charging cable just shows a steady green, but occasionally blinks. Any thoughts? Is the battery completely done for? Or was it just off for way too long and will take a full 24 hours to charge?

I manage a few e-commerce stores and work extensively with various cloud-based AI tools. I also do quite a bit of graphic design work—generating graphics with AI, fine-tuning them in Photoshop and Affinity, etc.
I just landed an awesome opportunity through a local grant where I can pick up a new MacBook for only 10–15% out of pocket.
Now I’m stuck on a few things:
Air vs. Pro: Should I go for the M5 MacBook Air or M5 Pro?
RAM: How much RAM should I configure it with to keep it smooth?
I want to keep this machine for the long haul. If you were in my shoes with a deal this good, which config would you pull the trigger on?

I've been using a 2019 MB Pro for the last few months. Intel i5, 8gb/128gb.

I just got in a 2021 MB Pro w/ M1 Pro, 14-inch display, 16gb/512gb. I got it from Back Market in good condition. No visible scratches anywhere, I just had to clean it with a damp cloth and it was good. Ran all diagnostics, and everything finished with green checks.

The battery is the only thing I'm semi worried about. 258 cycles which seems pretty good for a 2021, but capacity is at 87%. Battery health is normal, it seems to be charging pretty fast. I haven't tested it out yet to see how long it'll last off of charge. I sit at my desk at home most of the time so it'll be plugged in a lot. I assume I can still get about another 5 years out of this thing. I was sent a thunderbolt cord instead of a MagSafe which is fine since it can use either one to charge.

Some wear on the keyboard which is whatever, all the keys work so it doesn't matter to me.

It's a beautiful machine so far. Love the 14" screen and it looks great. I'll be using for my MBA and casual stuff. Maybe some xbox cloud/remote gaming. I'll be using it over the few weeks to make sure it's all good.

The price...$607 USD before tax.

Yes, I know it's older but it's still a good machine I can get years of use out of. I also, did not want to spend in the thousand dollar range.

Let me know what you think and any tips would be great.

I've been using an M1 MacBook Pro (2020 model, 13" with the touchbar) and it's been (mostly) great. I had some screen and battery damage a few years back though and that has permanently wrecked my battery to the point that it doesn't charge over ~10%.

I was looking to upgrade and was considering just going with an Air. I've realised that the Pro is probably unnecessary as my work is in theoretical physics. Mostly I use Zotero/Safari for reading papers and editing Latex files, but I do sometimes need some scientific computing tools. No fancy coding, but MATLAB, Mathematica and the occasional Python (no local LLMs or anything that needs a crazy amount of RAM so 16 GB is fine). Sometimes in the past using the parallel computing toolbox my fans have kicked into high gear though. I also do occasional music production on FL studio and some recording but nothing crazy.

The Air is lighter to carry around and travel with so I figured that'd be a nice change. My only concern is that the M5 Air won't be much of an upgrade compared to MBP M1, and so for the sake of future-proofing I should buy an M5 Pro. Zotero spikes my CPU load like crazy (sometimes up to 320% CPU load in activity monitor with other apps open) and idk if it'll get better with M5 or if I should just switch from Zotero until they optimise for Apple Silicon. Wanted to get opinions on whether M5 Air or Pro would be best for my purposes.

Edit 1: Current storage specs on M1 MBP are 16 GB RAM + 256 GB SSD

Edit 2: I'm looking at the M5 MacBook Pro with the base M5 chip, not the M5 Pro/Max chip

I purchased a MBA 15" M5, arrives in a few days. I own fishing boat, with a cabin. I have long drives to the islands where I fish, but cell signal most of the way. I want to be able to do some work on the drive across, but my concern is boats rock, I need a case that will stand up to an occasional bump or smack. Suggestions on anything that you recommend, I found one, but it's $75.

No, I don't get seasick while using a computer on a boat, have years of experience.

My new Starlight MacBook Air just came in the mail, and it’s absolutely beautiful. This color is so, so underrated. I love that it’s warmer than silver and has that hint of champagne, while not looking yellow or worn down. I used to have a Silver MacBook Pro and thought it was a “safe” color, and almost got the Silver in my new Mac, but I’m never going back. If you’re debating between the Starlight or Silver, I highly recommend the Starlight! Gorgeous! Great job, Apple 🍎

A little over a month ago I switched my main work laptop from Windows one to a MacBook, and so far the experience has been surprisingly smooth.

That got me thinking about long-term reliability.

On Windows, pretty much everyone knows the classic BSOD, random freezes, failed updates, drivers suddenly deciding they don’t want to cooperate, etc.

But what’s the Mac equivalent?

Have you ever had your MacBook completely crash, randomly restart, show a kernel panic, or become unusable because of some macOS issue?

I’m especially curious about people who’ve been using Macs as their main work machines for several years.

How often do you actually experience serious crashes?

And what’s the worst Mac/macOS failure you’ve ever had?

Coming from Windows, I’m genuinely curious if Macs are really that much more reliable long-term, or if I’m still in the honeymoon phase. 👀

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on which MacBook would make the most sense for my use case.

Most of what I do is related to web development, app development, programming and AI-assisted/vibe coding. I use AI tools quite heavily while building projects, and I usually have multiple browser tabs, development tools and other applications running at the same time.

I may also do some light video editing in the future, but that’s definitely not my main priority right now.

I was considering a MacBook Pro M5 with 28 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, but I’m not sure whether that configuration is overkill, underpowered, or actually the sweet spot for what I do.

I’m also wondering whether a MacBook Air could realistically handle this kind of workload well, or if the Pro would be the better long-term choice.

One important thing: I’m not in a rush to buy it. My current laptop is still working well, so I could easily wait until the next MacBook generation if there’s a meaningful upgrade expected later this year or early next year.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts:

• Which MacBook/configuration would you choose for this workload?
• Is 28 GB RAM + 1 TB a good choice?
• Pro or Air?
• Would you buy now or wait for the next generation?

Thanks!

So i am on a fairly tight budget. I have a 2017 macbook air that still works ok but it getting slow now and seems to always run out of memory and I have to restart firefox or some of my other apps. I also only have 250gb of memory which is too little for my needs so looking at 500gb-1tb. Is there a particular macbook model or internal processor model that is a few years old now that I should be focusing on buying that is better than others? I know a number of years ago I purchased an iphone X and it continued to have impressive numbers and display for years after it was released compared to the latest iphone of the time, so something like that. I do a little bit of everything like some mild video editing, photo editing, and research to write a book but nothing that is super graphics demanding, just need a good solid all around laptop on a budget. Thanks so much

Hey dears,
both of my Macbooks don't see WD MyPassport HDD 4TB, even though Windows Laptop sees it, so I assume the problem is about MacOS, the HDD is intact. It's unsolvable in Google.

I tried Disk Utility, nothing is seen.
Does it have anything to do with adapter? It worked before with no issues.

Does anyone know what I need to do to make it visible and so that I can interact with it on Mac?

Thank you!

I have a macbook air M5 15in.

I love it, except I find the battery life a bit lacking, especially when I run virtual machines on it.

Is there a battery pack that one can buy to supplements its battery? Something like a thin slab battery, of the same dimensions as the macbook that I can permanently attach to either its top lid, or the bottom, so that say give 100% more battery life it?