Price Research: Our research indicates that 3.3" MacBook Air (MGND3LL/A) is $50 less than the next best price from a reputable merchant with price from a reputable merchant with prices starting from $949.99.
Costco Return Policy: Eligible for return within 90-Days from the date product was received (details).
Warranty: Includes 2nd Year Warranty.
Reviews: This Macbook receives 4.7 Stars out of 5 Stars based on over 300 Customer Reviews. Also, PCMag gives this a 4.5/5 Score receiving Editor's Choice Badge.
Free Technical Support for Costco Members (details)
At B&H Photo Video: 1-Year Limited Warranty
Details of B&H Photo Video's return policy can be found here.
This collaborative space allows users to contribute additional information, tips, and insights to enhance the original deal post. Feel free to share your knowledge and help fellow shoppers make informed decisions.
Price Research: Our research indicates that 3.3" MacBook Air (MGND3LL/A) is $50 less than the next best price from a reputable merchant with price from a reputable merchant with prices starting from $949.99.
Costco Return Policy: Eligible for return within 90-Days from the date product was received (details).
Warranty: Includes 2nd Year Warranty.
Reviews: This Macbook receives 4.7 Stars out of 5 Stars based on over 300 Customer Reviews. Also, PCMag gives this a 4.5/5 Score receiving Editor's Choice Badge.
Free Technical Support for Costco Members (details)
At B&H Photo Video: 1-Year Limited Warranty
Details of B&H Photo Video's return policy can be found here.
Go with the official apple refurbs instead. Mine arrived like new, with a full warranty. 16GB RAM 256GB HDD for $1019. Thats the sweet spot right now IMO.
I feel like people exaggerate this a bit. You can do a lot more than browsing, watching videos before you run out of 8gb. I use 2012 Mini with 8gb and SSD daily and have no issues running more involved apps for photo and video editing. Yes, it's slow but I don't do this professionally so waiting few seconds longer is not an issue.
Unless you are doing those memory demanding tasks on daily basis which probably constitutes less that 5% of users you will be just fine.
Also, 4 years free warranty on purchase with Costco CC is a nice icing on the cake.
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M2 probably won't come until another 6 or 7 months? This is still a very solid laptop, and you could always trade in if the M2 is that much better. M1 though has been surprisingly good, and 8GB really is more than sufficient (look up reviews or check videos on YouTube). Anyone complaining about 8GB of RAM either hasn't learned about the M1 processor, or hasn't bothered to read/watch anything on it.
It is incredibly fast and some days, you don't even realize you only have 8GB of RAM. I say this, coming from a 2019 16GB MacBook Pro, and I'm currently on a 2020 MacBook Air. Performs as well, if not better, than the 2019 MacBook Pro. I'm the type of user to have multiple tabs open on Chrome at any given moment. I can have all that, open up multiple PowerPoint files (I'm a student), and play something on VLC and the M1 just chugs along, no problem. It even works for light gaming, and loads faster than my desktop (not a high end, but mid-budget gaming desktop), so it is pretty incredible.
At this price, the laptop is hard to beat. I do hate the lack of upgradeability, but most laptops are soldered on at his point, so it's not really a unique knock against the M1.
Costco automatically gives a second year of warranty like most electronics and appliances and then with their credit card you get 2 more years added on.
Mac pricing on RAM and storage is always ridiculous. Great hardware but the cost to upgrade to appropriate amounts of memory is way too high.
M1 RAM isn't comparable to PC counterparts. the ram is unified packed under one chip. so instead of copying textures from RAM to video memory for example, a game can use the textures directly from main system memory, increasing the access speed.
There is a reason only 8gb ram models on sale and 16gb available only select retailers. IMO it takes atleast eoy to solve all the M1 issues as well as software availability. I'll better wait one more qtr to see if they release new models with 2nd gen chip. 16gb+apple care is $2000+ ridiculous price on top of it you need docking station/adapter to connect old devices sd card ,usb,hdmi ..etc
M1 RAM isn't comparable to PC counterparts. the ram is unified packed under one chip. so instead of copying textures from RAM to video memory for example, a game can use the textures directly from main system memory, increasing the access speed.
This is literally true of pretty much every integrated GPU, from AMD, Intel, ARM, etc.
M2 probably won't come until another 6 or 7 months? This is still a very solid laptop, and you could always trade in if the M2 is that much better. M1 though has been surprisingly good, and 8GB really is more than sufficient (look up reviews or check videos on YouTube). Anyone complaining about 8GB of RAM either hasn't learned about the M1 processor, or hasn't bothered to read/watch anything on it.
It is incredibly fast and some days, you don't even realize you only have 8GB of RAM. I say this, coming from a 2019 16GB MacBook Pro, and I'm currently on a 2020 MacBook Air. Performs as well, if not better, than the 2019 MacBook Pro. I'm the type of user to have multiple tabs open on Chrome at any given moment. I can have all that, open up multiple PowerPoint files (I'm a student), and play something on VLC and the M1 just chugs along, no problem. It even works for light gaming, and loads faster than my desktop (not a high end, but mid-budget gaming desktop), so it is pretty incredible.
At this price, the laptop is hard to beat. I do hate the lack of upgradeability, but most laptops are soldered on at his point, so it's not really a unique knock against the M1.
Google: M1 MacBook Pro SSD issue
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Id rather buy from the Apple Store via educational discount, they always get new stock, tends to be newer than retailers and wholesale clubs. Plus, Costco's packaging is not the best
This is literally true of pretty much every integrated GPU, from AMD, Intel, ARM, etc.
No. For Intel Iris, you're reserving a memory pool in the system memory for IGPU. If Intel Iris wants a texture from memory, it must be copied from the main memory area into that memory pool for the GPU. And good luck growing/shrinking the max size of that pool at run time
M1 allows the GPU to access the unified memory with 0 copy.
And you're forgetting about the hardware neural engine/AI functions having direct access to unified memory too.
Id rather buy from the Apple Store via educational discount, they always get new stock, tends to be newer than retailers and wholesale clubs. Plus, Costco's packaging is not the best
No. For Intel Iris, you're reserving a memory pool in the system memory for IGPU. If Intel Iris wants a texture from memory, it must be copied from the main memory area into that memory pool for the GPU. And good luck growing/shrinking the max size of that pool at run time
M1 allows the GPU to access the unified memory with 0 copy.
And you're forgetting about the hardware neural engine/AI functions having direct access to unified memory too.
If by copied, you mean mapped into the GPUs memory space by configuring the GPU's mmu...because that is what ARM and AMD do. I cannot speak to Intel firsthand, have not worked on their drivers or hardware. But I wouldn't assume data must be copied just because you use an API that makes it appear that way.
Also, nobody is forgetting anything. Sharing memory is not a new concept at all. It has pros and cons. The biggest con is shared memory is quite a bit slower than dedicated graphics memory. Higher latency, lower bandwidth, and lacks graphics specific features like channel masking, which cause it to consume more bandwidth for certain graphical tasks.
If by copied, you mean mapped into the GPUs memory space by configuring the GPU's mmu...because that is what ARM and AMD do. I cannot speak to Intel firsthand, have not worked on their drivers or hardware. But I wouldn't assume data must be copied just because you use an API that makes it appear that way.
Also, nobody is forgetting anything. Sharing memory is not a new concept at all. It has pros and cons. The biggest con is shared memory is quite a bit slower than dedicated graphics memory. Higher latency, lower bandwidth, and lacks graphics specific features like channel masking, which cause it to consume more bandwidth for certain graphical tasks.
With Intel Iris, that's not true. Anything that Intel Iris wants from main memory must be copied into the memory allocated for the iGPU. Maybe if you're doing something with OpenCL where you've adopted zero copy buffers, sure. But majority applications still copy to the iGPU pool.
There is a reason only 8gb ram models on sale and 16gb available only select retailers. IMO it takes atleast eoy to solve all the M1 issues as well as software availability. I'll better wait one more qtr to see if they release new models with 2nd gen chip. 16gb+apple care is $2000+ ridiculous price on top of it you need docking station/adapter to connect old devices sd card ,usb,hdmi ..etc
Are really people dumb to downvote my opinion. Wow
If your'e planning to do any kind of video conferencing like Zoom, Google Meet or Skype stay away from this computer. the webcam is absolutely worthless!
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Unless you are doing those memory demanding tasks on daily basis which probably constitutes less that 5% of users you will be just fine.
Also, 4 years free warranty on purchase with Costco CC is a nice icing on the cake.
259 Comments
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It is incredibly fast and some days, you don't even realize you only have 8GB of RAM. I say this, coming from a 2019 16GB MacBook Pro, and I'm currently on a 2020 MacBook Air. Performs as well, if not better, than the 2019 MacBook Pro. I'm the type of user to have multiple tabs open on Chrome at any given moment. I can have all that, open up multiple PowerPoint files (I'm a student), and play something on VLC and the M1 just chugs along, no problem. It even works for light gaming, and loads faster than my desktop (not a high end, but mid-budget gaming desktop), so it is pretty incredible.
At this price, the laptop is hard to beat. I do hate the lack of upgradeability, but most laptops are soldered on at his point, so it's not really a unique knock against the M1.
It is incredibly fast and some days, you don't even realize you only have 8GB of RAM. I say this, coming from a 2019 16GB MacBook Pro, and I'm currently on a 2020 MacBook Air. Performs as well, if not better, than the 2019 MacBook Pro. I'm the type of user to have multiple tabs open on Chrome at any given moment. I can have all that, open up multiple PowerPoint files (I'm a student), and play something on VLC and the M1 just chugs along, no problem. It even works for light gaming, and loads faster than my desktop (not a high end, but mid-budget gaming desktop), so it is pretty incredible.
At this price, the laptop is hard to beat. I do hate the lack of upgradeability, but most laptops are soldered on at his point, so it's not really a unique knock against the M1.
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Id rather buy from the Apple Store via educational discount, they always get new stock, tends to be newer than retailers and wholesale clubs. Plus, Costco's packaging is not the best
M1 allows the GPU to access the unified memory with 0 copy.
And you're forgetting about the hardware neural engine/AI functions having direct access to unified memory too.
Id rather buy from the Apple Store via educational discount, they always get new stock, tends to be newer than retailers and wholesale clubs. Plus, Costco's packaging is not the best
M1 allows the GPU to access the unified memory with 0 copy.
And you're forgetting about the hardware neural engine/AI functions having direct access to unified memory too.
Also, nobody is forgetting anything. Sharing memory is not a new concept at all. It has pros and cons. The biggest con is shared memory is quite a bit slower than dedicated graphics memory. Higher latency, lower bandwidth, and lacks graphics specific features like channel masking, which cause it to consume more bandwidth for certain graphical tasks.
Also, nobody is forgetting anything. Sharing memory is not a new concept at all. It has pros and cons. The biggest con is shared memory is quite a bit slower than dedicated graphics memory. Higher latency, lower bandwidth, and lacks graphics specific features like channel masking, which cause it to consume more bandwidth for certain graphical tasks.
Never said shared memory is a new concept.
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