M4 MacBook Air after a month | developer's machine — Transcript

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1. 0:00By now, you've probably already seen a
2. 0:02bunch of M4 MacBook Air unboxings. It
3. 0:04looks almost the same as last year. A 10
4. 0:06core M4 chip, up to 32 GB of unified
5. 0:10memory, wafer thin body, two lonely USBC
6. 0:13ports, and of course, a slick new color.
7. 0:16But the real story this year is under
8. 0:17the hood. Proper Thunderbolt 4 lanes
9. 0:20this time, and a surprise ability to run
10. 0:23two external 4K screens, plus the
11. 0:26built-in screen. I've used every single
12. 0:28Apple Silicon Air machine ever since.
13. 0:32Well, Apple Silicon M1. And after a
14. 0:34month with the M4, I'm here to show you
15. 0:36the real dev results. Docker code
16. 0:38builds, local LLM tests, the stuff that
17. 0:41matters to software developers. And with
18. 0:43Apple giving us more RAM options than
19. 0:45actual ports, which config should you
20. 0:47get? I got some suggestions as we go
21. 0:49through the video.
22. 0:52The short version is that the M4 keeps
23. 0:54boosting single core power while also
24. 0:56speeding up multi-core tasks cuz each
25. 0:58core is now faster. So everything's
26. 1:00going to be faster. Geekbench single
27. 1:02core reflects everyday snappiness,
28. 1:03JavaScript applications in your browser.
29. 1:05Multi-core measures how fast you can
30. 1:08handle actual parallel jobs like Docker
31. 1:10images or heavy code compiles. We've
32. 1:12come a long way since M1 to M2 was about
33. 1:15a 15% jump. M2 to M3 about 17%. And now
34. 1:19the M4 sees around 23% gains over the
35. 1:22M3. That's pretty good news for your dev
36. 1:24environment. This means you can expect
37. 1:25slightly shorter compile times, smoother
38. 1:27multi-container docker spins, and fast
39. 1:30hot reloads. And remember, all these
40. 1:31MacBook Airs, the Apple silicon
41. 1:33varieties, are fanless. The Intel one
42. 1:36had a fan and still has a it's pretty
43. 1:37loud, actually. You've probably seen it
44. 1:39in my videos. Well, that means that
45. 1:40under really heavy marathon loads, you
46. 1:43can lose a bit of that top performance.
47. 1:45When the machine gets really hot, it
48. 1:47starts to throttle. And that means about
49. 1:485 to 10% less speed than the peak
50. 1:51benchmarks would
51. 1:53suggest. All right, let's get practical.
52. 1:55Real developer work is build, run,
53. 1:57break, rebuild. And I did actually
54. 1:59stress this M4 Air for the last month or
55. 2:02so with every coding task that I could
56. 2:04muster. It's actually been more than a
57. 2:05month, but a month looks nicer in a
58. 2:07title. I've actually gone through some
59. 2:08of these in more detail in some of the
60. 2:10videos, but here's the recap. Even
61. 2:11though I'm not a C++ developer, I did
62. 2:13some C++ tests. Quick sort on 10 million
63. 2:16integers took about 2 minutes 34
64. 2:17seconds, and that's 26 seconds faster
65. 2:19than the M3. Makes sense. Single core,
66. 2:22but full core merge sort took about 2
67. 2:24minutes 31 seconds, almost a minute
68. 2:26faster than the M3. Huge gains there.
69. 2:29So, obviously, the more cores you use,
70. 2:30the better gains you're going to see.
71. 2:32Python matter test that I usually do.
72. 2:34It's an interpretive bit of code that
73. 2:35uses all the CPU cores as well. Finished
74. 2:37in 34 seconds, beating last year's time
75. 2:40by 15 seconds. That's crazy. And of
76. 2:42course, speedometer 3.0 single core
77. 2:44operations there. Chrome hit 49.3, about
78. 2:48four points higher than the M3. So,
79. 2:50pretty good. Now, that's not the only
80. 2:51story here. Since this comes with 16 GB
81. 2:54to start and 32 at the maximum, I tested
82. 2:57those machines against each other in a
83. 2:58video, separate video with more details.
84. 3:00But just to give you a taste, this is
85. 3:01where more memory really counts. I built
86. 3:04a big NX monor repo in 3 minutes and 8
87. 3:06seconds on the 16 GB model, but on the
88. 3:0932 it dipped to 2 minutes and 12
89. 3:11seconds. And I did a huge.net project
90. 3:14compilation with 100,000 name spaces and
91. 3:17classes. Compilation took 94 seconds on
92. 3:19the 16 GB version and 69 seconds on the
93. 3:2232 GB version. Pretty big difference
94. 3:24there. Finally, Docker Compose spinning
95. 3:27up 100 containers took about 20 seconds
96. 3:29on the 16 GB machine and 19 on 32. Not
97. 3:33that much of a difference in that case.
98. 3:35Big difference on local LLMs. Pretty
99. 3:37popular topic these days, especially on
100. 3:40this channel. You all keep asking me
101. 3:41about that all the time. I ran Deep Sea
102. 3:43Coder 1.5 billion. Small model, but
103. 3:45gives us an idea of what happens. It
104. 3:47breezed at 55 tokens per second on the
105. 3:4916 GB model and 63 on the
106. 3:5332. Last year I showed how an 8 gigabyte
107. 3:56machine runs pretty much everything.
108. 3:58There's a few things that didn't run
109. 4:00very well. I have a video on that, but
110. 4:02most of the time you're going to be okay
111. 4:03with 8 gigabytes as long as you're not
112. 4:05running too many things at the same time
113. 4:06obviously. But it's surprising what Mac
114. 4:09OS can actually handle in those cases.
115. 4:11But 16, you've got a lot more room to
116. 4:13move around. But once you push bigger
117. 4:15toNet builds, for example, with giant
118. 4:17monor repos, the extra RAM shaves off
119. 4:19big chunks of time. And of course, the
120. 4:2132 GB machine, which I nicknamed the
121. 4:23MacBook Air Pro. We're getting more and
122. 4:25more Pro every year. Actually, that
123. 4:27one's going to give you a lot more room
124. 4:28to spread out. You can have a lot more
125. 4:30things running at the same time and not
126. 4:32feel the effects of things slowing down.
127. 4:34For example, in my normal dev day is
128. 4:36four terminal panes open running git
129. 4:38commands and npm scripts, a couple of
130. 4:39instances of VS Code. I have Xcode with
131. 4:42an iOS simulator running, and
132. 4:43occasionally I run the Android emulator,
133. 4:46which is a beast. But this year actually
134. 4:48they've done a good job with uh
135. 4:50optimizing it a little bit more and it
136. 4:52runs a little bit smoother than the
137. 4:53previous years. Docker desktop sleeps
138. 4:54until I really need it. But Chrome stays
139. 4:56open with at least 25 taps. And during
140. 4:59this whole time, the OS stays responsive
141. 5:01even on a 16 GB machine. App switching
142. 5:03is instant except those times when I
143. 5:05fire up Android Studio and Docker
144. 5:06containers all at the same time. That's
145. 5:08when I feel a little bit of a half
146. 5:09second hiccup. It's kind of like
147. 5:11cramming too many people into a small
148. 5:12car. Somebody's going to have to wait
149. 5:14for a seat. Come on, let the old lady
150. 5:15sit down, you rude person, you. Now, if
151. 5:17you're expecting marathon loads or
152. 5:19multiple virtual machines, maybe even
153. 5:21the MacBook Air is not enough for you if
154. 5:23you're doing that kind of stuff. In
155. 5:24which case, you're probably going to
156. 5:25want to dive into a MacBook Pro. And I
157. 5:28actually tested the 32 GB MacBook Air
158. 5:30versus the 16 GB MacBook Pro because
159. 5:33they were the same price when they came
160. 5:34out. Same M4 chip. The Pro, of course,
161. 5:36has a few more features like it's a
162. 5:39little thicker, more heat is spreading
163. 5:41around. It has a fan, so it's gonna suck
164. 5:43that air out or
165. 5:45blow, whatever you want to call it. So,
166. 5:47it's got more thermal headroom. It also
167. 5:48has a better screen, of course, with
168. 5:50more hertz. But here's a summary on how
169. 5:52it did on some tests that I ran. C++
170. 5:54quick sort single core. The Pro finished
171. 5:56in 2 minutes 33 seconds, while the 32 GB
172. 5:59Air took 2 minutes and 36 seconds.
173. 6:01Obviously, they have the same cores,
174. 6:03same chip, so very close. But maybe that
175. 6:05fan and the Pro helped the clock speeds
176. 6:07just a little bit. C++ merge sort all
177. 6:10the cores all at once. 2 minutes and 18
178. 6:12seconds on the Pro versus 2 minutes and
179. 6:1326 seconds on the Air. Here we saw the
180. 6:16Pro's cooling actually give an edge to a
181. 6:18sustained load. That huge net
182. 6:19compilation with 100,000 classes, 69
183. 6:22seconds on the 32 GB Air and 87 seconds
184. 6:25on the 16 GB Pro. Wow, that extra RAM
185. 6:28saves you from swapping. So, the Air
186. 6:30crushed that test. The Air beat the Pro.
187. 6:32The Manroad Python test, 29 seconds on
188. 6:35the Pro, 34 on the Air. Again, this is
189. 6:37using all the cores and it's pretty
190. 6:39intense. So, I think the fan helped out
191. 6:42here again. So, if your job is mostly
192. 6:43huge CPU sprints, the Pro's fans keeps
193. 6:46higher speeds under load. If you need
194. 6:48more than 16 GB of memory and do mostly
195. 6:50short builds, the 32 GB Air can outrun a
196. 6:53Pro on RAM heavy tasks and it stays
197. 6:55silent. Okay, real talk. Dropping 2
198. 6:58grand on a MacBook up front, that's a
199. 7:00whole car repair or a vacation or half a
200. 7:03Thunderbolt dock. So, here's a smarter
201. 7:05move. upgraded. They let you pick the
202. 7:07exact MacBook you want. Custom specs,
203. 7:10more RAM, extra storage, and instead of
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205. 7:14it out over 36 months. Interest starts
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207. 7:19Even better, after 24 months, you just
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219. 7:47in the description. Use code alex40 and
220. 7:49get 40 bucks off your next MacBook.
221. 7:51That's
222. 7:52getupgraded.com. Code
223. 7:56alex40. There was a few days when I went
224. 7:58on a trip and I spent full work days
225. 8:00relying only on the 16 GB M4 Air. Even
226. 8:03with VS Code, Xcode, Chrome, Notion,
227. 8:06Docker, Compose running, I saw no real
228. 8:08lag. At worst, Mac OS swapped out about
229. 8:101 GB. That's when it's using the SSD
230. 8:12instead of the RAM when everything
231. 8:14doesn't fit into RAM. Not a good thing
232. 8:15to have happen. So, keep an eye on that
233. 8:17if you have a low memory machine and
234. 8:19you're using a lot of applications at
235. 8:20the same time. But nonetheless, Windows
236. 8:22switching felt smooth. Programs pop back
237. 8:24in pretty easily. Now, I did notice that
238. 8:26after 10-minute full core compile, the
239. 8:28palm rest warmed up to around 46°. Not
240. 8:31painful, but definitely toasty compared
241. 8:33to older models. In fact, coming back to
242. 8:35the M4 Air and putting your palms on it,
243. 8:37it's always a little bit surprising
244. 8:39because the palm rests are warm. Whereas
245. 8:41in the previous models, they're kind of
246. 8:43cool. So, you expect that. So, that's
247. 8:45something new. Not great, but it's new.
248. 8:47As far as battery goes, it seems like I
249. 8:49could leave this thing on for days and
250. 8:51it'll just keep working and not running
251. 8:52out of battery. But, I wanted to be a
252. 8:54little bit more scientific about it. So,
253. 8:57I said a little bit more scientific, not
254. 8:58a lot. Okay, just calm down. calm down.
255. 9:00I did my developer loop, which I call it
256. 9:03now. It's a dev test that I run that
257. 9:05simulates what a dev would do, what I
258. 9:07would do actually. Not all devs do the
259. 9:09same stuff, but it has a bunch of
260. 9:11programs open like things that I use,
261. 9:13notion. It's got a little bit of music
262. 9:15playing. The screen is set to full
263. 9:16brightness, to-do list, uh 15 browser
264. 9:19tabs. I have a couple of instances of
265. 9:21terminal open and VS code and it runs
266. 9:23through a loop. A half an hour loop of
267. 9:25things that we do like coding, building
268. 9:27code, running interpreted code.
269. 9:29Basically, things that I covered
270. 9:30already, but in a loop. And of course,
271. 9:32watching videos is one of the things
272. 9:33that we do. I know you do that. I just
273. 9:36know it. I I have a feeling. How do I
274. 9:37know this? I don't know. You tell me. I
275. 9:39actually ran this one twice and it got
276. 9:41about the same results on both the uh 32
277. 9:44GB version and the 16 GB version. Now,
278. 9:47the M4 MacBook Air actually has a
279. 9:49slightly bigger battery,
280. 9:5153.8 watt hours as opposed to 52.6 from
281. 9:55last year, the M3. And look at these
282. 9:57two. The M3 MacBook Air and the M4
283. 9:59MacBook Air are very close to the number
284. 10:03of minutes that they lasted under my
285. 10:05test. About 330 minutes for the M3. The
286. 10:08M4 lasted just a little bit less. 315
287. 10:11maybe. If you interpolate that line
288. 10:13down, it's going to be like 328 or
289. 10:16something like that, but very close. How
290. 10:18does this compare with some of these
291. 10:19other machines that I tested? There's
292. 10:20the Galaxy Book with the X Elite. The
293. 10:23MacBook Pro 14, the M4 version lasted a
294. 10:26little bit longer than both of those.
295. 10:28It's got a slightly bigger battery.
296. 10:29Here's the M4 Pro lasted quite a bit
297. 10:32longer. The M2 Max is over here, a
298. 10:352-year-old machine that I've been daily
299. 10:37driving. So, yeah, the battery is going
300. 10:39to go down a little bit. And here's the
301. 10:40MacBook Pro 16 M4 Max. That's my current
302. 10:43daily driver. Just about the same as the
303. 10:45M3 MacBook Air. If there's anything that
304. 10:47lasted a significant amount longer,
305. 10:49here's a Surface Laptop 7 with the X
306. 10:52Elite chip inside of it. That one lasted
307. 10:54the longest. But we're all in a
308. 10:56territory now where we don't really need
309. 10:58to care about charging our laptop
310. 11:00throughout the day. If you're working
311. 11:02normal days and you're not Elon Musk who
312. 11:04works 18our days, then you may be okay.
313. 11:06That's what he said. Anyway, I I don't
314. 11:08know. Maybe that he said that. Don't
315. 11:09quote me on that. So, let's talk about
316. 11:11who benefits from this
317. 11:14upgrade. The M4 Air is still a paper
318. 11:17thin laptop that slips into a backpack
319. 11:19easily. With Apple's latest chip, it can
320. 11:21handle serious deaf tasks on the go, no
321. 11:24problem. So, for students and general
322. 11:26developers, if you're in class or
323. 11:27meetings all day, coding, note-taking,
324. 11:29or Zoom calling, you last 8 to 10 hours
325. 11:31on battery, no problem. You also won't
326. 11:33distract the room with fan noise. A
327. 11:36second benefit, people that are
328. 11:37traveling, this is really nice. I've
329. 11:39been really enjoying carrying something
330. 11:41like this as opposed to the large
331. 11:43MacBook Pro, especially when I'm walking
332. 11:46around with my backpack. It really makes
333. 11:47a big difference. It also will fit on
334. 11:49cramped airplane trays. I brought a
335. 11:52prop. This is the size of a typical
336. 11:55airplane tray. Here's the MacBook Pro
337. 11:5716in. Where do you put your mouse? Where
338. 11:58do you put your food? Where do you put
339. 12:00your coffee? And here is the MacBook
340. 12:02Air. M4, M2, M3. Same size. you have a
341. 12:05little bit more room to work with. Candy
342. 12:07bar goes here. I don't know, your
343. 12:08chicken nuggets go here. You can also
344. 12:10charge it with a smaller USBC adapter, a
345. 12:13power brick that perhaps you're
346. 12:14borrowing because you forgot
347. 12:16[Music]
348. 12:17yours. If you crave more ports, built-in
349. 12:20HDMI, or need that 120 Hz display, the
350. 12:23MacBook Pro is the one to go with, of
351. 12:25course. But I'm going to tell you this.
352. 12:26If you're used to 60
353. 12:28Hz, don't spoil yourself. Don't try the
354. 12:31120 Hz MacBook Pro display. It's going
355. 12:33to ruin you. It's going to spoil your
356. 12:35day cuz you're going to want it.
357. 12:37However, after working on the MacBook
358. 12:40Air for that trip that I did for a
359. 12:42while, you kind of get used to 60 Hz.
360. 12:44Again, there is a little bit of a
361. 12:45difference. You notice it, but it's
362. 12:47something you get used to, especially if
363. 12:49all you're doing is just looking at
364. 12:50code. That's not all we're doing, is it?
365. 12:52We're watching YouTube, too. Also, the
366. 12:54MacBook Pro, the fan gives you better
367. 12:56sustained speeds. So, if you got large
368. 12:58compilations to do, it's going to be a
369. 13:00little faster. If your tasks are small
370. 13:02and fit inside two-minute bursts, the
371. 13:04Air can match or beat the Pro,
372. 13:05especially with that 32 GB version. So,
373. 13:08if you are going with the Air, here are
374. 13:09some recommended builds for everyday
375. 13:11work. 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, that's
376. 13:14fine. Apple charges a lot for those
377. 13:17upgrades of the storage, and it just h
378. 13:19you can get something like this easy.
379. 13:22It's another thing to carry around, I
380. 13:24know, but if you want to just throw it
381. 13:25in your backpack, and if you already
382. 13:26have a backpack, then it's not such a
383. 13:28big deal to carry extra stuff with you.
384. 13:30But data only, not programs of course.
385. 13:32So if you have a lot of programs like
386. 13:35Xcode is a honker, right? Android Studio
387. 13:37is big, Docker, all those programs are
388. 13:39going to add up. 256 GB that I have on
389. 13:43the base model here, it's a headache.
390. 13:44After Xcode, Android SDKs, Docker
391. 13:47images, node modules, you're already
392. 13:49almost out of space after installing all
393. 13:51that stuff. Forget virtual machines. 512
394. 13:54GB works if you move large assets to an
395. 13:56external drive, but you'll also be
396. 13:58worried about constant space management.
397. 14:001 TB right now is pretty good. Gives you
398. 14:01enough room to breathe. You can stash
399. 14:03multiple virtual machines plus local git
400. 14:06clones, maybe a couple of small LLMs.
401. 14:08For heavy multitasking, 32 gigs of RAM
402. 14:11is a really good option this year,
403. 14:13especially on a MacBook Air. It's pretty
404. 14:14amazing that Apple added that option.
405. 14:16There's also the 24 GB option, and I'm
406. 14:19not too sure about that one. I don't
407. 14:20know. Yeah, it's there, but if you need
408. 14:22RAM, get 32. If you don't need that much
409. 14:25RAM, go for 16. 24 is like it's like you
410. 14:28can't decide. But if you get more RAM,
411. 14:29you're not going to be sorry. If you get
412. 14:31less RAM, you might be sorry. So, the M4
413. 14:34Air keeps its single core supremacy. If
414. 14:36your compiles stay under 2 minutes, it
415. 14:38actually rivals a 16 GB MacBook Pro. It
416. 14:40runs warm enough to notice, but not too
417. 14:42hot enough to harm performance. It will
418. 14:44throttle if you go push it too hard. But
419. 14:46also, in the winter time, you can think
420. 14:47of it as a built-in hand warmer. The
421. 14:50thing has silence and stamina. Eight
422. 14:52coding hours, still near half the
423. 14:54battery, and no fan noise is a beautiful
424. 14:56thing to see at the end of the day. So,
425. 14:58the sweet spot is 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of
426. 15:01storage. Go 32 if you can. You won't be
427. 15:04sorry if you do, and avoid the 256 GB
428. 15:07storage tier if you value your sanity.
429. 15:10If that profile matches your workflow,
430. 15:11the M4 Air might be the most portable
431. 15:14dev laptop you can buy. Also, don't
432. 15:16forget if you do need more ports, you
433. 15:17can always get a little gadget like
434. 15:20this. I have a couple of other docks.
435. 15:22This one is easy cuz it doesn't have a
436. 15:24power plug. It's not Thunderbolt, but it
437. 15:26just gives you more stuff, even an HDMI
438. 15:29port. I'll leave a link to that one down
439. 15:30below. It's pretty nice. I think that's
440. 15:32going to wrap it up, folks. Thanks for
441. 15:33watching, and I will see you in the next
442. 15:35video.
443. 15:37[Applause]
444. 15:38[Music]