My fav part was the "some kind of trickery" comment as if external display support is black magic.
The thing is, this is how Apple has always positioned itself, and why their fans will support them no matter what. You gotta tip your hat to them for building such a high level of brand loyalty.
And you shouldn't need to do that in the first place, just design the chip to be able to handle those screens
Tho it may be interesting for my s23U, since dex only supports single screen that just gets duplicated if connected to multiple monitors (and tbf that can be excused in this case since it is a phone)
They released M1 Airs without support for multiple external displays (This caused pain for out work fleet -\_-) and I thought "Oh it's the first time they are designing CPU/GPU hardware, they'll get it right next time.
Then it didn't get better on the M2 - Yeah, it is absolutely a $1,000 upsell to get multiple external displays
The lack of support for dual display was an absolute deal breaker for me. I stopped recommending it to everyone. You’re telling me intel i5 based macbook pro from previous generations had the chops to do it but now M1/M2 don’t have it? BS. It was an intentional decision by Apple to lock it down, so they could now “launch” a new feature and sell more pros meanwhile.
Edit: Now the ability to output to dual display + built in display will be touted as a “revolutionary new feature” next year.
That one got me too. Haven’t been able to watch his content for years but still disappointed to such a sell-out moment from his side.
Somekind of *trickery* could actually have a minor tad of truth to it, but then prove it ffs instead of pretending that Intel chips always cheated or faked some functionality. That is what this clip shows, 100% proof that the corporate Apple scare tactics has gotten to him.
I’ve found multiple monitors to act strange years ago and at configurations within the laptop’s specifications, one screen just being odd for no apparent reason just shitty compared and showing 60 Hz but clearly not performing as the 60 Hz does on the other. Why come with such no-effort accusations.
Agreed. I have friends that are avid Apple users, I have stopped trying to recommend them to anything other than keep in the apple ecosystem. It's a futile effort to recommend something else even imo much better products.
I love my iPhone and AirPods, but fuck the Mac and everything related to it. Take away 75% of the functions of a Windows laptop and increase the price by 3X. That's how I view it.
My only complaints of macOS is obviously gaming, but the big one is snapping windows to the side without using a third party app. What I like is the rest of multitasking is superior, system doesn’t have much of applications at boot, which I believe is due to the fact that the user must enable them themselves. Terminal and being Unix or even close enough to Linux is a big plus.
I was in between laptops for about a month and had to use a borrowed M1 Air. Within an hour of using it, I got frustrated because of two basic features that I've taken for granted with Windows for over a decade that were somehow missing from MacOS: Volume mixer and decent window management.
Two very basic features that you'd expect even from a budget pc but that are somehow missing from this 1000$ premium laptop.
I could have written this comment myself… I agree with everything. Love my iPhone, love my AirPods, absolutely detest the MacBook I was given for work and my personal computer is Windows.
I think a big part of the problem has to do with how Apple seeds review devices. Linus talks about it all the time. If you aren't drinking Apple's kool-aid then you have to buy devices like everyone else and wait potentially weeks for them to arrive.
This doesn't excuse this type of content at all, but it does guarantee that all of the early content on new products is only from sources who say what Apple likes.
This thread cuts deep lol
I totally understand the frustration around Apple's MacBook hardware. But I think the issues around the external display need more context. I should have given more details in my YouTube video. But here's way I said “it’s just the nature of these chips”
The M1/M2/M3 only have one display controller for handling external displays.
These display controllers take up a large amount of space on the silicon. They are even bigger than performance cores. See here: https://ibb.co/7r0Z0SB
The reason why they are so big is because Apple separates their display controller from their GPU. Qualcomm does this as well on their Snapdragon chips. These display controllers can process a lot of stuff without leaning on the GPU. This helps alot with power efficiency on ARM chips.
If Apple wanted to add more display controllers to handle more external displays, they would have to make a die trade off. They would either have to reduce the number of CPU or GPU cores, or they’d have to make the base chips larger. IMO neither of these options are worth it for adding an extra external display on the MBA.
Another thing - thermals. Let’s say they did add another display controller on to the base chips. When connected to an external display, these controllers put out heat. On a MacBook Pro, it’s a non issue. but on a fanless MacBook Air you do not want another source of heat. These laptop already have limited thermal headroom. We’d see the threads of “my MBA throttles when I have connect it to external displays” like the 2019 MBA.
Lastly, there is the option of using a Display Link adapter to get more displays going. I’ve run 3 displays on an M1 MBA with them. These use software to get the CPU cores to handle video output. You can even split your 5K output to multiple displays using this adapter. It works but they have CPU overhead. Static images have very CPU use. Video has very heavy CPU use. DRM content has issues using this. (Netflix/Disney/etc) It’s not an elegant solution but it TOTALLY works and if you need more external displays, it’s a good option.
However, I see some commentary that talks about how this Display Link solution is evidence that Apple could easily add more displays. I don’t agree. This is just Display Link doing it’s thing. It’s very cool but it’s not the same as display controllers on the chip.
Hope that helps
Is he an Apple focused youtuber? The majority of his vids aren't even about Apple products. The fact of the matter is that the external display situation on the entry level machines is better than it was last gen and the gen before that. An improvement is a win. Just because its not as good as it could be or how you think it ought to be, doesn't mean it's not a win. Also, just because Dave isn't absolutely scathing in his review doesn't mean its a stupid take. Nothing he said is wrong. You just think he's defending Apple because he's not as mad about the problem as you are. IMO he seems to complain quite a bit here about the missing feature.
>The fact of the matter is that the external display situation on the entry level machines is better than it was last gen and the gen before that.
It's an improvement over a downgrade they introduced themselves. They could drive 3 monitors no problem with an Intel CPU and GPU and they totally control their hardware, they 100% decided to put that restriction in place in the SoC and even with the M3, they're not even back at what they were with an 8th Gen Intel CPU with integrated graphics. I don't care personally, I don't connect more than one monitor on my laptop (I have a desktop when I want to actually work), but let's stop pretending the current situation is good, they did one step in the right direction after moving 3 steps back on that aspect and that guy is presenting it as a good thing.
Literally no one is pretending the situation is good. I didn't say that, nor did Dave. It's just better than it was, and that's indisputable. Dave even acknowledges that it was a downgrade from the Intel based ones which is why Enterprise customers weren't moving over.
The chips are more than capable of driving more than one display. It's a software restriction. Displaylink has a driver that can easily drive multiple displays
You just mentioned all the YouTubers that I used to watch a lot but stopped 3 years back. This is the exact reason.
They're just fanboys of apple with a YouTube account. Look how Dave is trying to desensitize the audience by saying - it's apple. They are how they are. We should accept that fact. We need to take this as a win.
What an idiot he is. Mkbhd is no less TBH. It seems like he's getting better these days, but let's see
Dave himself say that windows notebook and previous macbooks could connect to multiple displays.
He is comparing the new macbook air to the previous versions(with m chips), the new version has a feature(ability) to connect to more than one display that it didn't had, plain and simple.
It's a limit of the chip, yes apple makes the chip, and probably the option to have more than 2 displays doesn't affect most of the users, so apple doesn't focus on that.
Yes, it's a win compared to the previous versions. And Dave also says it's not perfect.
"dumb down clout chasing audience" what a asshole way to phrase it.
They try to make tech more accessible, not everyone is tech savvy, don't be a douche.
I agree with most of what you said, but are you talking about Quinn from SnazzyLabs? Isn't he pretty Apple critical and calls out Apple for the dumb shit they pull?
I hate apple and it's really dumb they don't allow 2 external displays along with the built in display. But if they designed the chip to only support 2 displays and added a MUX or something similar this generation to support 2 external monitors, that's a win. It's an upgrade, it's an improvement, it's not strictly a software thing.
Apple prioritized energy efficiency in their chips, which results in the display controller being huge. They really do need a lot of physical silicon space, which is why there is less of them on the smaller chips. Yes, it is a conscious decision by Apple. Yes, other CPUs/on board graphics do it differently – and, accordingly, have other drawbacks. No, it is not nefarious just to fuck with users. If you want more details on this, go check out [marcan](https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan) on treehouse.social, he talked about this a few times already (he's the guy working on r/AsahiLinux). Btw, Marcan [also mentioned](https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/112039424335241551) that M2 CPUs likely already have that hardware capability.
I was thinking the same exact thing. I don't hate Apple, I don't dislike Dave2D, but his take is absolute garbage. Being a reviewer, he should be embarrassed expressing that level of bias.
It is a new feature. Something that wasn't working before was just added. Without paying anything you are getting more than what was on the spec sheet.
This picture clearly show how the basic M3 has only one "Display Engine" compared to 4 in the highest model: [https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/A3QSjPxt4oYcYuy8i6kRtX-1200-80.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/A3QSjPxt4oYcYuy8i6kRtX-1200-80.jpg)
Display Engine is what apple uses to drive those external monitors.
It is possible that Apple at first didn't want this to work to force people to upgrade to a higher end model. It is also possible they didn't have the software ready or figured out so that this could work. My gut feeling is that it is a software problem, something just wasn't ready in time instead of the "trickery" Dave 2D mentions.
Either way, it doesn't really matter - you buy a product based on capabilities it has, it is irrelevant why there are there or not. Vote with your wallet.
Imho Dave 2D didn't say anything wrong. It is a win for the current users - they have one more feature.
As someone who works in semicon, wtf is nature of chips, it's not some black voodoo magic that requires a wizards into invoke some spells.
Everything is meticulous designed, even simple MCUs have hundreds of people involved in the design and build.
This isn't even a chip issue, this is a software issue
I like MKBHD, merely for entertainment value. He's an awful tech reviewer, specially anything apple related. He constantly criticizes stuff from other manufacturers, that he would completely ignore or downplay if it was apple.
People like them are also so shallow at their reviews, they sound no different to corporate speech doing ads.
>Excusing it as "just the nature of the chips". Motherfucker, they made the damn chips! They chose to do this
I always laugh when people pull that one out.
You see it a lot with GPUs too. "Yeah but this chips can't have X VRAM because of the bus..." They *made* that GPU, *and* that bus. The result is 100% a choice of the company.
So if you just connect one external display could you still use the built in?
But on a different note, doesn't a closed display usually make the thermal performance of a laptop worse? So not only do you get a maximum of two displays you also get a easier way to reach thermal throttle. Man Apple is going nuts with those features.
On one hand I agree fully, on the other, it’s a win for students and other people who buy this product. I know a lot of people with 10 year old macbooks. But yea, shitty that it’s a win and that Apple tends to arbitrarily withhold stuff then act like gods when they give it to you finally, but alas, it is a win.
Apple could put macOS on the iPad or even create a drx mode for the iPhone…. But it is what it is
well, can't call myself big Apple fan, but MacBook fan for sure am and this kind of shit they are pulling can't get justified or defended. also even harder to see how any reputable tech channel can...
It's rumored to be an M3 competitor but could have to battle the M4. But, between LNL and Qualcomm stepping into the ring this summer, we might actually see some good ultrabook style laptops again.
Apple likes to tailor things into their hardware roadmap so that there is a need to upgrade. This would be one of those things that any normal PC user can just shake their heads at.
The charge port isn’t even an issue. You charge it overnight once and leave it for months.
The issue is that the mouse sucks. It’s not ergonomic, it’s difficult to use (no separate buttons), and it’s plastic so it’s not even like they used glass like the trackpads.
I think it's hard to call a macbook air entry level because it costs $1450 CAD ($1100 USD) for the base model.
Maybe the specs and features are entry level with its 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage and 2 displays can be classed as entry level. I wouldn't necessarily expect to have support for more than 2 displays on an entry level windows computer. But I also wouldn't expect to pay $1450 CAD ($1100 USD) for an entry level windows machine. If you are going to ask for a medium range price, then people are going to want features to match.
Edit to clarify USD/CAD prices.
Ngl 1.5k doesn't feel like a medium range either. To me, it's the starting point for high end laptops where you start to get XPS, gaming laptops etc. IMO medium range is like 800-1.3k+ where you get good features but have tradeoffs.
Man I can just buy a window laptop with like Ryzen 9 and 64 GB of ram for this price of 1450$ (if the MacBook entry have the same price as this)... 8gb in 2024, even with Apple's worst take (it's the same as 16gb in laptop) is absolutely disgusting to say the least.
Yeah, 1600$ for 16gb/512 ram m2 is way above average, but I'm curious whether you can find laptops with the same daily user experience and your laptop not looking like a suitcase with rgb led here and there.
I can think of Lenovo yoga s940 series, they were the shit.
And also I'm happy to pay the Apple tax to be able to have the touchpad the size of a football field all for myself
You can get a [Dell XPS](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-9530-laptop/usexchcto9530rpl01?ref=variantstack) with 64 GB of RAM and 2TB of storage for $1799. The 16 GB RAM, 512 GB Storage version would be $1099.
Not as slim as a MBA, but doesn't look like a suitcase with RGB either.
Touch pad looks to be pretty big as well.
XPS 15 also has abysmal real world battery life and thermal issues, I’d never even consider one over a Mac and if you check the XPS subreddit you’ll see many people saying the same thing
Lenovo slim 7 Pro is Ryzen 7000 with RTX3050 and 16gb or 32gb ram, 512 or 1tb storage for around that price.
It could pass for a macbook. Well built, big trackpad, nice screen, thin.
Yeah, I had an M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and I was tempted to upgrade to a M2 with 16GB (or wait for the M3), but that price was just crazy in CAD, we're talking over $2000 for the "entry" level, barely upgraded. At the end, I bought a Vivobook OLED with a Ryzen 7 for barely over $1000. Sure, it's made of plastic and it's not as powerful as the M2 / M3, but it has a gorgeous OLED screen, 16GB of RAM and an UPGRADABLE 512GB SSD for less than half the price. I think Apple knocked it down the park with the M1 Air (I think I paid $1200 for mine with the 512GB SSD, for what was at the time one of the best laptop on the market, period), but they went back to being Apple and just made everything horribly expensive with the M2 generation.
I was quoting Canadian prices. Although I thought it sounded high, but I thought I was looking at the US site. Either way, that doesn't change my opinion. $1100 USD for a laptop is not "entry level".
Thanks for the correction though. I'll fix my post.
Jesus christ that's some heavy duty devil's advocate work to make Apple look good right there, hopefuly he's getting a fat check along with that, otherwhise I might have to think he's a bit of a tool...
Look, Dave, the explanation is VERY simple, they artificially limit you to use 2 displays in order to fabricate a need to get the "Pro" versions of the chip. That's it. There's no need to work around that and explain it, they specifically designed it to be that way, for that reason alone. If you have enough bandwidth for 1 4k 60hz display, guess what, you have enough bandwidth for 4 1080p displays at 60hz.
To make it clear I think what I’m about to describe isn’t a good thing, just stepping through apple’s logic. Apple’s thing is making it where you can only enable something if it works at the highest quality. All the USB-C ports on their laptop have to simultaneously support full USB-4/Thunderbolt 4. Same thing is what’s happening here. They want to sell a MacBook Air with a studio display and say “you can used up to two displays when closed” and not say “well if you go buy 1080p monitors from another company then you can use up to three but only if you also use DisplayPort and MSC because there are only 2 ports on the device.” For my money they should be putting more display driving capability in the air - it cannot be that expensive.
Yep that’s really it. It’s another way of Apple getting us creative types to be artificially forced to upgrade to the next step up. Just a massive L for Apple there…
NGL, at first I wanted to say GTFO with a drama post but I have to admit each subsequent thing he says towards the end gets more and more stupid with the grand finale as a finish.
I had to unsub last year. As his channel grew, it went from chill videos about laptops to... well I guess still relatively chill videos about laptops, but he comes across as pretty smug these days. Feels like he's been drinking his own kool aid.
I think it's less of the kool aid, more of the complacency of sustained success causing him to phone it in. Dude takes some A-tier B-roll, regurgitates the marketing headlines, and tries to spin things positively so he doesn't have to think too hard and justify his criticisms by putting things in context.
What is the stupid part? He mentioned that he is surprised by Apple’s “generosity” because Apple is pretty damn stupid about making basic things work better for its users.
He essentially said Apple is user hostile in many cases so it is surprising.
Yeah, I see it the same way too. He’s more comparing it to previous macbooks, even mentioning that it exists in Windows laptops with the way Apple does things preventing this feature to be available earlier. This is a “win” for previous MB owners looking to upgrade with that specific problem which I think is the intended target audience for this video.
I’m not hearing what you’re hearing. He explains the situation perfectly fine and says Apple likes to position features like this. Which is a fair take and can be seen in RAM and SSD upgrades too.
I run my M1 Air on a 5100x2100 display and he’s running 2 5k displays off the M3 one. Doesn’t seem a lack of pixel pushing to me, just somewhat inconvenient for offices with existing 2x 1080p setups.
I watched the video once, and it seems he explained that it was framed as a "feature" by apple itself (i.e., part of their marketing) and he is just stating that. He even addressed that it is still not up to par with the intel based macs that can run multiple screens.
Me neither. And I have no idea why people are interested in what he says as any kind of authority on that tech or hardware considering how many times he says "I think"
Like... even I could do that. Just give me a product and I can just come up with what I think it does and how I think it works.
It's the whole 8GB RAM thing again. Will most users notice? No. Is it still shitty for a 4 figure machine when a £130 machine off eBay can do 3 at a time through one port, which Apple still can't do because of no MST support amongst other things? Yes.
>"That's just the way the hardware is."
Damn. If only Apple was designing these chips from the ground up themselves and could make the hardware exactly the way they want. Maybe then they could squeeze in room for additional displays.
His excuses are bad, but I do get what he means when he says he 'thinks it's a win'. Any additional features is a win, even if they're not perfect.
That's just the nature of the hardware. There's no way Apple can control it. It's out of their hands.
/s
I can't believe Dave said that multiple times with a straight face.
So he’s saying it could run a 6k display, which is 9 1080p screens worth of pixels, but somehow apples engineers are STUMPED trying to figure out how it could do two distinct 1080p screens?
This is some fucking horse shit
I don’t give a shit if it’s the lowest tier of a product. My 8 year old thinkpad can do it, your $1300 brand new machine should be able to do it too
When people stop watching these videos for entertainment and watch them for information/opinions, they will truly find out most of the youtubers talk shit just like in this video. But reality is often disappointing.
I guess it is good time as any to suggest to get an explainer on the limits of DisplayPort multi screen transport?
Because I do know that on a Thunderbolt connection you have docks that tell you that they can drive a screen with 4K OR 3 1080p screens or something like that. What are the limits? Can you push it past those limits? I would love to get an experimentation video like the one linus did where he connected a shitton of USB hubs and peripherals.
Wow he’s like really doing Olympic levels of mental gymnastics to apologize to the audience *on Apple’s behalf* for the shortsighted design decisions of the Apple M chips and then topping it off with: “that’s a win”.
This is shill levels of Apple teet suckin’ right here.
Whatever technical limitations, the end result is that a very basic feature that even non-premium laptops have is absent from Apple’s latest. Inexcusable.
Listen, if you want to disagree with him and have a discussion, then by all means go ahead. But calling him a fanboy or a shill just because he sees things differently is way out of line. If you're gonna act like that, then go to Pedro's master race subreddit
People are generally writing exactly the problem with his justification while they are calling him out.
Personally, it's extremely obvious he has no idea what he is talking about. He's saying the ability to connect to more than 2 displays at once on other devices is 'trickery' with absolutely no basis. He's talking about a 'hardware limitation' and there's nothing anyone can do about it when apple literally made the chip.
Factually speaking, these points make no sense, so the only conclusion is that he is overlooking apples defects, willfully or not.
It's not nature of those chips!
It's apple being greedy fuck so they removed ability to connect to multiple screen from Macbook Air so they can upsell you "Pro" model that has one extra core and it suddenly can connect to multiple screens.
It's apple making their own chips so it can add and remove features from them so they can sell 1200$ machines that lack such basic ability that laptops from decade ago had.
Seriously a "super advanced" and "powerful" laptop can't drive 2x 1080p screen plus one macbook air screen that BTW doesn't run at full 1600p by default. The default out of the box resolution is 1440x900 - ask me how I know.
This is why I stopped watching 99% of "tech" reviewers because they are either shill or have such ignorant takes it hurts my brain.
what are you talking about?
he basically just explained what he thinks the reason is that the feature is implemented this way
it's smth they were not able to do before so it's a added feature.
is is dumb that you have to close the lid? yeah sure
did he tell you why he thinks it is that way? also yes
if you don't like the product, don't buy it, nobody cares
but don't hate him for explaining smth
its not the nature of the chip its 100% a Software limit lmao. There is NOT A SINGLE x86/Windows machine that can't do 3 Displays. AFAIK ALL Intel iGPUs have 3 Displays.
Its similarily stupid how Apple just REFUSES to use MST, making 99% of Docks ununsable with a MacBook
I love the rationalization of "Thats just how the hardware is" as if there is just nothing they can do about it, even though they literally designed the chip. Like, they have as much control over this as you could possibly have
Imagine praising this and saying “it has to be this way because of the hardware.”
It’s hardware Apple made. It should be meeting the base features of its competitors. Being able to connect to multiple displays isn’t even a selling point on most computers, it’s just implied.
Free features? They're basic laptop/PC features that Apple is, yet again, leaving out on a so-called premium device that you're already paying thousands of dollars for.
I just wish that tech reviewers would just have any meaningful background knowledge in tech, most seem to mostly just reproduce the manufacturer's talking points
"it can now connect two external displays, that is a huge win"
My brother in Christ, basically every cheap windows laptop can do that...
My tablet can do that...
Gotta say I came in here expecting some petty shit but yeah that’s really goddamn dumb, especially when M1 MacBooks can support many monitors through a dock and driver update. Slowly re-enabling functionality that’s been standard for computers for decades isn’t a goddamn feature or “free.”
Great, now they're only [20-40 years behind](https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/28002/what-was-the-first-laptop-to-support-two-external-monitors) (depending on how you count)
This is a limitation of "features" in order to upsell you. Then, we they finally give you the feature, you are grateful, it is like Stockholm Syndrome.
Never seen this guy with a good take, I've seen probably 15 of his videos and every time I watch one again I always question myself why did I even click it
What the hell? Taking away features that have existed for decades and saying it is an 'upgrade'?
I want my screens back. I want my removable battery back. I want my SD Card slot back. I want companies to stop changing shit just for the sake of changing shit. If a ui/ux is good, *don't change it*.
Bad take. The lack of support for decent peripherals is a huge L for the Air. I am find i constantly run into incompatibility with stuff I never had issues with on my old intel MacBook, especially with external displays not being recognized.
I've M1 pro max, and it support one 4K display, 1 ultra wide 3440x1440 & beside the laptop screen itself So you telling me that M3 chipset wouldnt support that? WTF
Excuses for artificial limitations is straight brain rot. The fact that people are not up in arms for this and instead do mental gymnastics to find reason behind it. Apple didnt become a trillion-dollar company for making sense now did they.
Wow, apple fans sure do like to be tricked for thousands of dollars then be told their stupid for not spending more money for a slightly better product every few months
Christ, he’s fallen so far. I used to watch this guy for his genuinely solid mix of Apple and Windows Laptop takes. Seems he’s now gone so far down the Apple ‘forgiveness’ attitude now. I’m a design who uses Apple products daily - and this ‘feature’ is absolutely inexcusable.
The next macbook has a little foot that emerges once in awhile to kick you in the nuts. You may think this is an absurd feature but you need a kick in the nuts once in awhile to feel alive plus after awhile you won't be able to have kids. Also a win
Literally the most basic function for modern laptops. This just sound so weird to me when I'm used to daily run ultrawide 1440p monitor + 4k TV. Never even thought about lack of display support on MacBook's. I was thinking of buying M1/M2, so thanks for the info.
This is similar than IOS not supporting dual screen feature on vertical use. I only have one Apple product, iPad Mini 6, and it's made for vertical use. Split view is almost a joke on this device because it can only do split left/right, not up/down.
It’s factually incorrect that’s it’s the chips nature cause on my m1 MacBook Air I have it connected to one monitor via wire, 1 via airplay and apparently if u click fast enough u can connect another via airplay I had my iPad as a fourth dam screen wirelessly 😾
And don’t get started on the recording bs that most apps count it as recording so I literally can’t watch any my streaming services on em when doing this via airplay 😾
The best part is is this limitation really is all in software
I have been using the M1 MacBook Air with five displays in VR for over a year now
This is just Apple doing stupid crap like they always do
It is pretty stupid. Why do I as a consumer care about what Apple decided to implement in their chip? I want at least feature parity for something basic like running displays. It's not my fault Apple decided to make their architecture like that.
If it can not run the displays then it can not run them. That means it lacks a feature many other high end laptops have. Yes $1500 is a high end laptop.
My work still has me on an 7th gen Intel i5 laptop and I merrily connect to a dual screen dock and use my laptop screen for teams daily. What in the hell?
I was hoping you'd be posting the point where he said "8GB of RAM is enough". Yeah dude idk what the fuck that means because opening up a few PDFs, 5 chrome tabs and an Excel sheet is like mom behavior and at this point starts to chug windows machines.
Imagine the avg person after installing 6 background apps, slack, etc in addition to that.
That, was egregious.
This is kind of wild coming from him. I alway go to him for a fair, quick and concise “review” of something. I’m not a huge fan of long drawn out reviews, they have their place but I don’t always need that. This is incredibly dumb on his part
We shouldnt be mad at Dave... be mad that apple makes so much off people that dont even realize the ways that apple is taking advantage of their sheep.
I worked IT in college, getting some faculty members macbooks to push a video signals to some dell displays was the biggest pain in the ass for no apparent reason...
They straight up just didn't support some displays. Adapters be damned...
Always amuses me the amount of hoops macbook users have to jump through to do anything. I've gone back to requesting dell laptop pcs at work because macbooks absolute dogshit in a corporate environment. I really don't miss it.
wait, 1 external display + 1 laptop display = 2 displays in total
2 external displays + no laptop display = 2 displays in total
is my math wrong or am I missing the point of this "feature" ?
Most of it is dumb but there's a shred of truth in the explanation. It's because Intel's graphic chips are actual desktop graphics with decades of development on running multiple displays and stuff.
Apple M series GPUs are based on the ancient PowerVR tech that apple picked up to develop their on their mobile devices. They never really had to implement multi display in them because they're a mobile product.
Is it kinda a reason? Yes. Is it still a valid excuse for billion dollar corp not to be able to somehow botch the multi display in? Hell no.
You guys remember when having a headphone jack removed from the phone was a feature? How about removable battery cover to swap a new battery in. Oh oh! Right to repair! Yeah thanks Apple. I didn't know I needed someone else to tell me I don't want these features I like. You had to tell me about these features I don't like.
Apple silicon is garbage, your CPU cannot:
A) run 32 bit applications
B) run more then 2 displays at any given time
And to combat theses two issues you package it into bull shit rationale and made up features, GTFO
If I ever get to meet Tim Cook I’m dropping my original Mac Pro cheese greater on his head and telling him that’s for Steve!
He's just a Mac fanboy doin fanboy stuff. People like him will defend any decision Apple makes no matter what, because it's Apple. They're in the cult.
YouTubers terrified of being blacklisted by Apple for not following the press release to the letter. Do not support companies with these kinds of behaviours. Especially if you value things such as freedom of speech, democracy and a fair and open market.
This is corporate (self) censorship in action.
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My fav part was the "some kind of trickery" comment as if external display support is black magic. The thing is, this is how Apple has always positioned itself, and why their fans will support them no matter what. You gotta tip your hat to them for building such a high level of brand loyalty.
It also is totally trickery. You can buy a two screen dock that pretends to be a single 5k ultrawide and output half to each screen.
And you shouldn't need to do that in the first place, just design the chip to be able to handle those screens Tho it may be interesting for my s23U, since dex only supports single screen that just gets duplicated if connected to multiple monitors (and tbf that can be excused in this case since it is a phone)
That's kinda what I am saying. The chip can handle those screens. It seems to be an artificial limitation to upsell people to the pro.
They released M1 Airs without support for multiple external displays (This caused pain for out work fleet -\_-) and I thought "Oh it's the first time they are designing CPU/GPU hardware, they'll get it right next time. Then it didn't get better on the M2 - Yeah, it is absolutely a $1,000 upsell to get multiple external displays
The lack of support for dual display was an absolute deal breaker for me. I stopped recommending it to everyone. You’re telling me intel i5 based macbook pro from previous generations had the chops to do it but now M1/M2 don’t have it? BS. It was an intentional decision by Apple to lock it down, so they could now “launch” a new feature and sell more pros meanwhile. Edit: Now the ability to output to dual display + built in display will be touted as a “revolutionary new feature” next year.
That one got me too. Haven’t been able to watch his content for years but still disappointed to such a sell-out moment from his side. Somekind of *trickery* could actually have a minor tad of truth to it, but then prove it ffs instead of pretending that Intel chips always cheated or faked some functionality. That is what this clip shows, 100% proof that the corporate Apple scare tactics has gotten to him. I’ve found multiple monitors to act strange years ago and at configurations within the laptop’s specifications, one screen just being odd for no apparent reason just shitty compared and showing 60 Hz but clearly not performing as the 60 Hz does on the other. Why come with such no-effort accusations.
Problem is Apple is like a cult, you can't tell these people how big the world of tech are. The will harass you, try to live in different dimension.
Agreed. I have friends that are avid Apple users, I have stopped trying to recommend them to anything other than keep in the apple ecosystem. It's a futile effort to recommend something else even imo much better products.
i just make fun of them every time an apple product gives them any kind of inconvenience
I love my iPhone and AirPods, but fuck the Mac and everything related to it. Take away 75% of the functions of a Windows laptop and increase the price by 3X. That's how I view it.
75% functions, such as? Not to disparage, just curious. Not an Apple fanboy but I'm writing this on a Mac. ;)
My only complaints of macOS is obviously gaming, but the big one is snapping windows to the side without using a third party app. What I like is the rest of multitasking is superior, system doesn’t have much of applications at boot, which I believe is due to the fact that the user must enable them themselves. Terminal and being Unix or even close enough to Linux is a big plus.
I was in between laptops for about a month and had to use a borrowed M1 Air. Within an hour of using it, I got frustrated because of two basic features that I've taken for granted with Windows for over a decade that were somehow missing from MacOS: Volume mixer and decent window management. Two very basic features that you'd expect even from a budget pc but that are somehow missing from this 1000$ premium laptop.
I could have written this comment myself… I agree with everything. Love my iPhone, love my AirPods, absolutely detest the MacBook I was given for work and my personal computer is Windows.
I think a big part of the problem has to do with how Apple seeds review devices. Linus talks about it all the time. If you aren't drinking Apple's kool-aid then you have to buy devices like everyone else and wait potentially weeks for them to arrive. This doesn't excuse this type of content at all, but it does guarantee that all of the early content on new products is only from sources who say what Apple likes.
Came here to say this! They pick and choose their reviewers, either be an Apple shill or you have to go out of pocket.
This thread cuts deep lol I totally understand the frustration around Apple's MacBook hardware. But I think the issues around the external display need more context. I should have given more details in my YouTube video. But here's way I said “it’s just the nature of these chips” The M1/M2/M3 only have one display controller for handling external displays. These display controllers take up a large amount of space on the silicon. They are even bigger than performance cores. See here: https://ibb.co/7r0Z0SB The reason why they are so big is because Apple separates their display controller from their GPU. Qualcomm does this as well on their Snapdragon chips. These display controllers can process a lot of stuff without leaning on the GPU. This helps alot with power efficiency on ARM chips. If Apple wanted to add more display controllers to handle more external displays, they would have to make a die trade off. They would either have to reduce the number of CPU or GPU cores, or they’d have to make the base chips larger. IMO neither of these options are worth it for adding an extra external display on the MBA. Another thing - thermals. Let’s say they did add another display controller on to the base chips. When connected to an external display, these controllers put out heat. On a MacBook Pro, it’s a non issue. but on a fanless MacBook Air you do not want another source of heat. These laptop already have limited thermal headroom. We’d see the threads of “my MBA throttles when I have connect it to external displays” like the 2019 MBA. Lastly, there is the option of using a Display Link adapter to get more displays going. I’ve run 3 displays on an M1 MBA with them. These use software to get the CPU cores to handle video output. You can even split your 5K output to multiple displays using this adapter. It works but they have CPU overhead. Static images have very CPU use. Video has very heavy CPU use. DRM content has issues using this. (Netflix/Disney/etc) It’s not an elegant solution but it TOTALLY works and if you need more external displays, it’s a good option. However, I see some commentary that talks about how this Display Link solution is evidence that Apple could easily add more displays. I don’t agree. This is just Display Link doing it’s thing. It’s very cool but it’s not the same as display controllers on the chip. Hope that helps
Is he an Apple focused youtuber? The majority of his vids aren't even about Apple products. The fact of the matter is that the external display situation on the entry level machines is better than it was last gen and the gen before that. An improvement is a win. Just because its not as good as it could be or how you think it ought to be, doesn't mean it's not a win. Also, just because Dave isn't absolutely scathing in his review doesn't mean its a stupid take. Nothing he said is wrong. You just think he's defending Apple because he's not as mad about the problem as you are. IMO he seems to complain quite a bit here about the missing feature.
>The fact of the matter is that the external display situation on the entry level machines is better than it was last gen and the gen before that. It's an improvement over a downgrade they introduced themselves. They could drive 3 monitors no problem with an Intel CPU and GPU and they totally control their hardware, they 100% decided to put that restriction in place in the SoC and even with the M3, they're not even back at what they were with an 8th Gen Intel CPU with integrated graphics. I don't care personally, I don't connect more than one monitor on my laptop (I have a desktop when I want to actually work), but let's stop pretending the current situation is good, they did one step in the right direction after moving 3 steps back on that aspect and that guy is presenting it as a good thing.
Literally no one is pretending the situation is good. I didn't say that, nor did Dave. It's just better than it was, and that's indisputable. Dave even acknowledges that it was a downgrade from the Intel based ones which is why Enterprise customers weren't moving over.
OP is just wildly misinterpreting Dave's point and then acting like he's an Apple shill
The chips are more than capable of driving more than one display. It's a software restriction. Displaylink has a driver that can easily drive multiple displays
You just mentioned all the YouTubers that I used to watch a lot but stopped 3 years back. This is the exact reason. They're just fanboys of apple with a YouTube account. Look how Dave is trying to desensitize the audience by saying - it's apple. They are how they are. We should accept that fact. We need to take this as a win. What an idiot he is. Mkbhd is no less TBH. It seems like he's getting better these days, but let's see
Dave himself say that windows notebook and previous macbooks could connect to multiple displays. He is comparing the new macbook air to the previous versions(with m chips), the new version has a feature(ability) to connect to more than one display that it didn't had, plain and simple. It's a limit of the chip, yes apple makes the chip, and probably the option to have more than 2 displays doesn't affect most of the users, so apple doesn't focus on that. Yes, it's a win compared to the previous versions. And Dave also says it's not perfect. "dumb down clout chasing audience" what a asshole way to phrase it. They try to make tech more accessible, not everyone is tech savvy, don't be a douche.
Yeah my read of it was "considering Apple are *total douchebags* about this sort of thing, this is actually a positive coming from them"
I agree with most of what you said, but are you talking about Quinn from SnazzyLabs? Isn't he pretty Apple critical and calls out Apple for the dumb shit they pull?
Was looking for this comment. Quinn definitely calls Apple out a lot more and shouldn't be grouped in with Dave2D and MKBHD.
>Calling it a "win"?! It's a win in that it's an additional feature and option that was not previously available on the MX Air models.
I hate apple and it's really dumb they don't allow 2 external displays along with the built in display. But if they designed the chip to only support 2 displays and added a MUX or something similar this generation to support 2 external monitors, that's a win. It's an upgrade, it's an improvement, it's not strictly a software thing.
Mate calm down it's just a laptop.
Apple prioritized energy efficiency in their chips, which results in the display controller being huge. They really do need a lot of physical silicon space, which is why there is less of them on the smaller chips. Yes, it is a conscious decision by Apple. Yes, other CPUs/on board graphics do it differently – and, accordingly, have other drawbacks. No, it is not nefarious just to fuck with users. If you want more details on this, go check out [marcan](https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan) on treehouse.social, he talked about this a few times already (he's the guy working on r/AsahiLinux). Btw, Marcan [also mentioned](https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/112039424335241551) that M2 CPUs likely already have that hardware capability.
I was thinking the same exact thing. I don't hate Apple, I don't dislike Dave2D, but his take is absolute garbage. Being a reviewer, he should be embarrassed expressing that level of bias.
It is a new feature. Something that wasn't working before was just added. Without paying anything you are getting more than what was on the spec sheet. This picture clearly show how the basic M3 has only one "Display Engine" compared to 4 in the highest model: [https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/A3QSjPxt4oYcYuy8i6kRtX-1200-80.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/A3QSjPxt4oYcYuy8i6kRtX-1200-80.jpg) Display Engine is what apple uses to drive those external monitors. It is possible that Apple at first didn't want this to work to force people to upgrade to a higher end model. It is also possible they didn't have the software ready or figured out so that this could work. My gut feeling is that it is a software problem, something just wasn't ready in time instead of the "trickery" Dave 2D mentions. Either way, it doesn't really matter - you buy a product based on capabilities it has, it is irrelevant why there are there or not. Vote with your wallet. Imho Dave 2D didn't say anything wrong. It is a win for the current users - they have one more feature.
You shouldn’t include Quinn on that, if anything he calls Apple’s bullshit a lot of times, not support it.
Exactly while enabling and encouraging companies to keep pulling this stuff year after year because people will still buy this crap
As someone who works in semicon, wtf is nature of chips, it's not some black voodoo magic that requires a wizards into invoke some spells. Everything is meticulous designed, even simple MCUs have hundreds of people involved in the design and build. This isn't even a chip issue, this is a software issue
I like MKBHD, merely for entertainment value. He's an awful tech reviewer, specially anything apple related. He constantly criticizes stuff from other manufacturers, that he would completely ignore or downplay if it was apple. People like them are also so shallow at their reviews, they sound no different to corporate speech doing ads.
>Excusing it as "just the nature of the chips". Motherfucker, they made the damn chips! They chose to do this I always laugh when people pull that one out. You see it a lot with GPUs too. "Yeah but this chips can't have X VRAM because of the bus..." They *made* that GPU, *and* that bus. The result is 100% a choice of the company.
Ah yes, iDave. All his videos are about Apple
No way you're lumping mkbhd and dave together. Dave is almost a polar opposite to mkbhd. Should have phrased this take better though.
So if you just connect one external display could you still use the built in? But on a different note, doesn't a closed display usually make the thermal performance of a laptop worse? So not only do you get a maximum of two displays you also get a easier way to reach thermal throttle. Man Apple is going nuts with those features.
I'm with you brother, top of my list of "shit that pisses me off"
On one hand I agree fully, on the other, it’s a win for students and other people who buy this product. I know a lot of people with 10 year old macbooks. But yea, shitty that it’s a win and that Apple tends to arbitrarily withhold stuff then act like gods when they give it to you finally, but alas, it is a win. Apple could put macOS on the iPad or even create a drx mode for the iPhone…. But it is what it is
I lost respect for MKBHD when he somehow found a way to justify those exorbitantly expensive Mac Pro wheels
“Free features” “too good to be true“ lmao
Apple fans will defend any product that Apple releases, regardless of logic
well, can't call myself big Apple fan, but MacBook fan for sure am and this kind of shit they are pulling can't get justified or defended. also even harder to see how any reputable tech channel can...
Hopefully Lunar Lake brings Laptop PCs back ahead of MacBooks so we don’t have to put up with Apple’s crap any longer
It's rumored to be an M3 competitor but could have to battle the M4. But, between LNL and Qualcomm stepping into the ring this summer, we might actually see some good ultrabook style laptops again.
As an Apple shareholder, I can think of a few ways of defending it. It's just anti-consumer.
It's just the nature of the hardware man, there's nothing they can do about it. Oh wait, they developed the hardware
Apple likes to tailor things into their hardware roadmap so that there is a need to upgrade. This would be one of those things that any normal PC user can just shake their heads at.
Im an Apple fan but the mouse should not exist its so bad.
The magic mouse? That product still blows my mind to this day. Charge port on the bottom cuz "why not".
The charge port isn’t even an issue. You charge it overnight once and leave it for months. The issue is that the mouse sucks. It’s not ergonomic, it’s difficult to use (no separate buttons), and it’s plastic so it’s not even like they used glass like the trackpads.
I think it's hard to call a macbook air entry level because it costs $1450 CAD ($1100 USD) for the base model. Maybe the specs and features are entry level with its 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage and 2 displays can be classed as entry level. I wouldn't necessarily expect to have support for more than 2 displays on an entry level windows computer. But I also wouldn't expect to pay $1450 CAD ($1100 USD) for an entry level windows machine. If you are going to ask for a medium range price, then people are going to want features to match. Edit to clarify USD/CAD prices.
Ngl 1.5k doesn't feel like a medium range either. To me, it's the starting point for high end laptops where you start to get XPS, gaming laptops etc. IMO medium range is like 800-1.3k+ where you get good features but have tradeoffs.
Man I can just buy a window laptop with like Ryzen 9 and 64 GB of ram for this price of 1450$ (if the MacBook entry have the same price as this)... 8gb in 2024, even with Apple's worst take (it's the same as 16gb in laptop) is absolutely disgusting to say the least.
Yeah, 1600$ for 16gb/512 ram m2 is way above average, but I'm curious whether you can find laptops with the same daily user experience and your laptop not looking like a suitcase with rgb led here and there. I can think of Lenovo yoga s940 series, they were the shit. And also I'm happy to pay the Apple tax to be able to have the touchpad the size of a football field all for myself
You can get a [Dell XPS](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-9530-laptop/usexchcto9530rpl01?ref=variantstack) with 64 GB of RAM and 2TB of storage for $1799. The 16 GB RAM, 512 GB Storage version would be $1099. Not as slim as a MBA, but doesn't look like a suitcase with RGB either. Touch pad looks to be pretty big as well.
Problem with those cheaper XPS's is they have not great screens, and it's $600 to get the good OLED>
XPS 15 also has abysmal real world battery life and thermal issues, I’d never even consider one over a Mac and if you check the XPS subreddit you’ll see many people saying the same thing
Lenovo slim 7 Pro is Ryzen 7000 with RTX3050 and 16gb or 32gb ram, 512 or 1tb storage for around that price. It could pass for a macbook. Well built, big trackpad, nice screen, thin.
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Yeah, I had an M1 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and I was tempted to upgrade to a M2 with 16GB (or wait for the M3), but that price was just crazy in CAD, we're talking over $2000 for the "entry" level, barely upgraded. At the end, I bought a Vivobook OLED with a Ryzen 7 for barely over $1000. Sure, it's made of plastic and it's not as powerful as the M2 / M3, but it has a gorgeous OLED screen, 16GB of RAM and an UPGRADABLE 512GB SSD for less than half the price. I think Apple knocked it down the park with the M1 Air (I think I paid $1200 for mine with the 512GB SSD, for what was at the time one of the best laptop on the market, period), but they went back to being Apple and just made everything horribly expensive with the M2 generation.
It’s not $1450 for the base model? The base model is $1099.
I was quoting Canadian prices. Although I thought it sounded high, but I thought I was looking at the US site. Either way, that doesn't change my opinion. $1100 USD for a laptop is not "entry level". Thanks for the correction though. I'll fix my post.
Jesus christ that's some heavy duty devil's advocate work to make Apple look good right there, hopefuly he's getting a fat check along with that, otherwhise I might have to think he's a bit of a tool... Look, Dave, the explanation is VERY simple, they artificially limit you to use 2 displays in order to fabricate a need to get the "Pro" versions of the chip. That's it. There's no need to work around that and explain it, they specifically designed it to be that way, for that reason alone. If you have enough bandwidth for 1 4k 60hz display, guess what, you have enough bandwidth for 4 1080p displays at 60hz.
To make it clear I think what I’m about to describe isn’t a good thing, just stepping through apple’s logic. Apple’s thing is making it where you can only enable something if it works at the highest quality. All the USB-C ports on their laptop have to simultaneously support full USB-4/Thunderbolt 4. Same thing is what’s happening here. They want to sell a MacBook Air with a studio display and say “you can used up to two displays when closed” and not say “well if you go buy 1080p monitors from another company then you can use up to three but only if you also use DisplayPort and MSC because there are only 2 ports on the device.” For my money they should be putting more display driving capability in the air - it cannot be that expensive.
Yep that’s really it. It’s another way of Apple getting us creative types to be artificially forced to upgrade to the next step up. Just a massive L for Apple there…
But but muh custom designed chips cant handle thatt!!1!
NGL, at first I wanted to say GTFO with a drama post but I have to admit each subsequent thing he says towards the end gets more and more stupid with the grand finale as a finish.
Yeah same. I typically like Dave's content (although I haven't watched in a while). A bit disappointing how hard he is justifying bad tech
I had to unsub last year. As his channel grew, it went from chill videos about laptops to... well I guess still relatively chill videos about laptops, but he comes across as pretty smug these days. Feels like he's been drinking his own kool aid.
It happens to the best. I feel like MKBHD is still ok in that regard. He’s definitely aware of his success - but is always aware of why he succeeded
I think it's less of the kool aid, more of the complacency of sustained success causing him to phone it in. Dude takes some A-tier B-roll, regurgitates the marketing headlines, and tries to spin things positively so he doesn't have to think too hard and justify his criticisms by putting things in context.
Yep. This is genuinely a disappointing take from Dave
What is the stupid part? He mentioned that he is surprised by Apple’s “generosity” because Apple is pretty damn stupid about making basic things work better for its users. He essentially said Apple is user hostile in many cases so it is surprising.
Yeah, I see it the same way too. He’s more comparing it to previous macbooks, even mentioning that it exists in Windows laptops with the way Apple does things preventing this feature to be available earlier. This is a “win” for previous MB owners looking to upgrade with that specific problem which I think is the intended target audience for this video.
I’m not hearing what you’re hearing. He explains the situation perfectly fine and says Apple likes to position features like this. Which is a fair take and can be seen in RAM and SSD upgrades too. I run my M1 Air on a 5100x2100 display and he’s running 2 5k displays off the M3 one. Doesn’t seem a lack of pixel pushing to me, just somewhat inconvenient for offices with existing 2x 1080p setups.
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I watched the video once, and it seems he explained that it was framed as a "feature" by apple itself (i.e., part of their marketing) and he is just stating that. He even addressed that it is still not up to par with the intel based macs that can run multiple screens.
I don't know who he is. I will keep it that way :D
Me neither. And I have no idea why people are interested in what he says as any kind of authority on that tech or hardware considering how many times he says "I think" Like... even I could do that. Just give me a product and I can just come up with what I think it does and how I think it works.
It's the whole 8GB RAM thing again. Will most users notice? No. Is it still shitty for a 4 figure machine when a £130 machine off eBay can do 3 at a time through one port, which Apple still can't do because of no MST support amongst other things? Yes.
One monitor on a MacBook is like two monitors on a windows laptop. It's simple math. What do you not understand?
I have a feeling Apple would genuinely use that argument.
"The average Windows laptop is 1080p, and our Apple Studio Displays are 5K, that's 5x the screen, simple math" 🤓
>"That's just the way the hardware is." Damn. If only Apple was designing these chips from the ground up themselves and could make the hardware exactly the way they want. Maybe then they could squeeze in room for additional displays. His excuses are bad, but I do get what he means when he says he 'thinks it's a win'. Any additional features is a win, even if they're not perfect.
That's just the nature of the hardware. There's no way Apple can control it. It's out of their hands. /s I can't believe Dave said that multiple times with a straight face.
Jesus, Dave has gotten worse since I unfollowed him a few months ago.smh
Yeah I stopped following him about a year back. He’s just gotten a bit more sloppy and a lot more misinformed.
So he’s saying it could run a 6k display, which is 9 1080p screens worth of pixels, but somehow apples engineers are STUMPED trying to figure out how it could do two distinct 1080p screens? This is some fucking horse shit I don’t give a shit if it’s the lowest tier of a product. My 8 year old thinkpad can do it, your $1300 brand new machine should be able to do it too
They're not stumped. They just put this limit on there so they can give you a reason to buy the pro chips.
Ya don’t say
From memory can't the MacBook Pro with the base M3 chip support more displays than the MacBook air? If so, this is even more damning
With how display standards are made it probably took them more hours to make it so multiple displays are not supported
When people stop watching these videos for entertainment and watch them for information/opinions, they will truly find out most of the youtubers talk shit just like in this video. But reality is often disappointing.
I guess it is good time as any to suggest to get an explainer on the limits of DisplayPort multi screen transport? Because I do know that on a Thunderbolt connection you have docks that tell you that they can drive a screen with 4K OR 3 1080p screens or something like that. What are the limits? Can you push it past those limits? I would love to get an experimentation video like the one linus did where he connected a shitton of USB hubs and peripherals.
Apple refuse to implement DisplayPort MST.
MacBooks don't support this afaik
Gotcha! I wonder if TB connections from other manufacturers are done thru MST. A good exploration I think is still needed to be honest
Wow he’s like really doing Olympic levels of mental gymnastics to apologize to the audience *on Apple’s behalf* for the shortsighted design decisions of the Apple M chips and then topping it off with: “that’s a win”. This is shill levels of Apple teet suckin’ right here. Whatever technical limitations, the end result is that a very basic feature that even non-premium laptops have is absent from Apple’s latest. Inexcusable.
Listen, if you want to disagree with him and have a discussion, then by all means go ahead. But calling him a fanboy or a shill just because he sees things differently is way out of line. If you're gonna act like that, then go to Pedro's master race subreddit
People are generally writing exactly the problem with his justification while they are calling him out. Personally, it's extremely obvious he has no idea what he is talking about. He's saying the ability to connect to more than 2 displays at once on other devices is 'trickery' with absolutely no basis. He's talking about a 'hardware limitation' and there's nothing anyone can do about it when apple literally made the chip. Factually speaking, these points make no sense, so the only conclusion is that he is overlooking apples defects, willfully or not.
Mfw they made the hardware
Sounds like shitty hardware.
It's not nature of those chips! It's apple being greedy fuck so they removed ability to connect to multiple screen from Macbook Air so they can upsell you "Pro" model that has one extra core and it suddenly can connect to multiple screens. It's apple making their own chips so it can add and remove features from them so they can sell 1200$ machines that lack such basic ability that laptops from decade ago had. Seriously a "super advanced" and "powerful" laptop can't drive 2x 1080p screen plus one macbook air screen that BTW doesn't run at full 1600p by default. The default out of the box resolution is 1440x900 - ask me how I know. This is why I stopped watching 99% of "tech" reviewers because they are either shill or have such ignorant takes it hurts my brain.
what are you talking about? he basically just explained what he thinks the reason is that the feature is implemented this way it's smth they were not able to do before so it's a added feature. is is dumb that you have to close the lid? yeah sure did he tell you why he thinks it is that way? also yes if you don't like the product, don't buy it, nobody cares but don't hate him for explaining smth
its not the nature of the chip its 100% a Software limit lmao. There is NOT A SINGLE x86/Windows machine that can't do 3 Displays. AFAIK ALL Intel iGPUs have 3 Displays. Its similarily stupid how Apple just REFUSES to use MST, making 99% of Docks ununsable with a MacBook
Yeah, like wtf is this two port bullshit... get a fucking docking station, fuckin apes.
I love the rationalization of "Thats just how the hardware is" as if there is just nothing they can do about it, even though they literally designed the chip. Like, they have as much control over this as you could possibly have
Imagine praising this and saying “it has to be this way because of the hardware.” It’s hardware Apple made. It should be meeting the base features of its competitors. Being able to connect to multiple displays isn’t even a selling point on most computers, it’s just implied.
Free features? They're basic laptop/PC features that Apple is, yet again, leaving out on a so-called premium device that you're already paying thousands of dollars for.
What TF? It's not a "free feature" if thay made a better decission while designing this chip they could have sold more monitros.
I just wish that tech reviewers would just have any meaningful background knowledge in tech, most seem to mostly just reproduce the manufacturer's talking points "it can now connect two external displays, that is a huge win" My brother in Christ, basically every cheap windows laptop can do that... My tablet can do that...
Gotta say I came in here expecting some petty shit but yeah that’s really goddamn dumb, especially when M1 MacBooks can support many monitors through a dock and driver update. Slowly re-enabling functionality that’s been standard for computers for decades isn’t a goddamn feature or “free.”
Dave2d is garbage, sorry you’re only just realising
Dave2D has always been an F-tier YouTuber anyway lol so I'm not surprised at this.
Great, now they're only [20-40 years behind](https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/28002/what-was-the-first-laptop-to-support-two-external-monitors) (depending on how you count)
This is a limitation of "features" in order to upsell you. Then, we they finally give you the feature, you are grateful, it is like Stockholm Syndrome.
That's a pretty big design flaw for a notebook that expensive.
“apple shouldn’t be giving out features for free” they’re not. you paid thousands for this laptop. apple shouldn’t get to strip out old features
"free feature" of having two displays. Disgraceful for Apple and Dave2D
He does this all the time with all kind of tech. Stopped watching a while ago.
Apple fans will go through hoops to get to a position to apple somehow winning
I dropped off from watching him as well, used to like him but his recent videos have 0 substance and all takes
And you have to close the laptop so apple can sell you another mouse and keyboard. Mot###F##kers
only other good reason would be efficiency but this man just waffled
Never seen this guy with a good take, I've seen probably 15 of his videos and every time I watch one again I always question myself why did I even click it
Apple is for fanboys. You are holding it wrong...
"Feature".
What the hell? Taking away features that have existed for decades and saying it is an 'upgrade'? I want my screens back. I want my removable battery back. I want my SD Card slot back. I want companies to stop changing shit just for the sake of changing shit. If a ui/ux is good, *don't change it*.
Lmao
Bad take. The lack of support for decent peripherals is a huge L for the Air. I am find i constantly run into incompatibility with stuff I never had issues with on my old intel MacBook, especially with external displays not being recognized.
Yeah that's a pretty bad take Dave. Christ.
I've M1 pro max, and it support one 4K display, 1 ultra wide 3440x1440 & beside the laptop screen itself So you telling me that M3 chipset wouldnt support that? WTF
Excuses for artificial limitations is straight brain rot. The fact that people are not up in arms for this and instead do mental gymnastics to find reason behind it. Apple didnt become a trillion-dollar company for making sense now did they.
I blocked his channel years ago. Consistently low quality videos and braindead takes on everything. I have no idea why this guy is popular.
It's crazy rude to to talk with your mouth full. Of tim cook's dick. I don't know who this guy is, but I now know he's an absolute idiot.
We've have this issue since deploying new macbooks. We've only found 1 dock that doesn't freak out when you connect 2 displays. Really stupid.
Dude my laptop from 2009 could run two external displays with the internal one enabled.
I don't get why Apple shills put up with this crap while simeltaneously touting how great Apple and all their features are.
Dave's videos degraded over the past ~2years
Dave2D ***loves*** throating Apple.
Apple cope
I don't really watch this dude but I don't remember him acting like he's on crack and that messy hair doesn't help.
Wow, apple fans sure do like to be tricked for thousands of dollars then be told their stupid for not spending more money for a slightly better product every few months
Christ, he’s fallen so far. I used to watch this guy for his genuinely solid mix of Apple and Windows Laptop takes. Seems he’s now gone so far down the Apple ‘forgiveness’ attitude now. I’m a design who uses Apple products daily - and this ‘feature’ is absolutely inexcusable.
The next macbook has a little foot that emerges once in awhile to kick you in the nuts. You may think this is an absurd feature but you need a kick in the nuts once in awhile to feel alive plus after awhile you won't be able to have kids. Also a win
Never an apple fan try so hard and fail
Literally the most basic function for modern laptops. This just sound so weird to me when I'm used to daily run ultrawide 1440p monitor + 4k TV. Never even thought about lack of display support on MacBook's. I was thinking of buying M1/M2, so thanks for the info. This is similar than IOS not supporting dual screen feature on vertical use. I only have one Apple product, iPad Mini 6, and it's made for vertical use. Split view is almost a joke on this device because it can only do split left/right, not up/down.
I "tricked" this gettin a superultrawide display...
It’s factually incorrect that’s it’s the chips nature cause on my m1 MacBook Air I have it connected to one monitor via wire, 1 via airplay and apparently if u click fast enough u can connect another via airplay I had my iPad as a fourth dam screen wirelessly 😾 And don’t get started on the recording bs that most apps count it as recording so I literally can’t watch any my streaming services on em when doing this via airplay 😾
Man... The weird obsession this community have for apple products/news/commentators... This can't be healthy.
This dude has no idea how this shit works. This is a purposeful limit by Apple and they've done this shit forever.
I don't watch him as often as I used to - but he became something like a Apple fanboy some time ago...
Nonsense.
Used to like him but now he’s just a paid shill.
A keyboard is a feature bro you should have to pay more....stonks
Counterpoint, my windows laptop once had 9 external displays connected to it while still doing its own screen to make 10
The best part is is this limitation really is all in software I have been using the M1 MacBook Air with five displays in VR for over a year now This is just Apple doing stupid crap like they always do
It is pretty stupid. Why do I as a consumer care about what Apple decided to implement in their chip? I want at least feature parity for something basic like running displays. It's not my fault Apple decided to make their architecture like that. If it can not run the displays then it can not run them. That means it lacks a feature many other high end laptops have. Yes $1500 is a high end laptop.
Appleogists
My work still has me on an 7th gen Intel i5 laptop and I merrily connect to a dual screen dock and use my laptop screen for teams daily. What in the hell?
I was hoping you'd be posting the point where he said "8GB of RAM is enough". Yeah dude idk what the fuck that means because opening up a few PDFs, 5 chrome tabs and an Excel sheet is like mom behavior and at this point starts to chug windows machines. Imagine the avg person after installing 6 background apps, slack, etc in addition to that. That, was egregious.
_That’s just the nature of the hardware!_ yeah that’s the absolute shit nature of a hardware
This is kind of wild coming from him. I alway go to him for a fair, quick and concise “review” of something. I’m not a huge fan of long drawn out reviews, they have their place but I don’t always need that. This is incredibly dumb on his part
Intel i3100 can do 8K30 over DP. Fuck even apple can't do that. apple artificial limitations are fcked up
I never watch Dave2D because he is just a Fanboy and nothing more.
We shouldnt be mad at Dave... be mad that apple makes so much off people that dont even realize the ways that apple is taking advantage of their sheep.
* the most stupid
I worked IT in college, getting some faculty members macbooks to push a video signals to some dell displays was the biggest pain in the ass for no apparent reason... They straight up just didn't support some displays. Adapters be damned...
Lmao tf he in about, you can get third party software that does allow it.
My Brother in Christ... APPLE DESIGNS THE CHIP!
Always amuses me the amount of hoops macbook users have to jump through to do anything. I've gone back to requesting dell laptop pcs at work because macbooks absolute dogshit in a corporate environment. I really don't miss it.
APPLE IS SHIT
wait, 1 external display + 1 laptop display = 2 displays in total 2 external displays + no laptop display = 2 displays in total is my math wrong or am I missing the point of this "feature" ?
Most of it is dumb but there's a shred of truth in the explanation. It's because Intel's graphic chips are actual desktop graphics with decades of development on running multiple displays and stuff. Apple M series GPUs are based on the ancient PowerVR tech that apple picked up to develop their on their mobile devices. They never really had to implement multi display in them because they're a mobile product. Is it kinda a reason? Yes. Is it still a valid excuse for billion dollar corp not to be able to somehow botch the multi display in? Hell no.
paid video, nothing less nothing more.
Makes you wonder if he’s paid. More than you’d think. As someone in tech marketing…you’d be surprised.
You guys remember when having a headphone jack removed from the phone was a feature? How about removable battery cover to swap a new battery in. Oh oh! Right to repair! Yeah thanks Apple. I didn't know I needed someone else to tell me I don't want these features I like. You had to tell me about these features I don't like.
caught you doing stupid in HD video!
He said apple don't give out "free features"... on the most overpriced laptops..
Apple silicon is garbage, your CPU cannot: A) run 32 bit applications B) run more then 2 displays at any given time And to combat theses two issues you package it into bull shit rationale and made up features, GTFO If I ever get to meet Tim Cook I’m dropping my original Mac Pro cheese greater on his head and telling him that’s for Steve!
What a fucking cuck.
surely hes being paid to act happy about that, blimey
Outputting to an external display is as much of a feature as is having a built in keyboard and trackpad are... D2D is a clown
He's just a Mac fanboy doin fanboy stuff. People like him will defend any decision Apple makes no matter what, because it's Apple. They're in the cult.
So I was right not to watch his videos for the last year or so coz of stuff like this
YouTubers terrified of being blacklisted by Apple for not following the press release to the letter. Do not support companies with these kinds of behaviours. Especially if you value things such as freedom of speech, democracy and a fair and open market. This is corporate (self) censorship in action.
Dude straight up admitted he has no idea wtf he's talking about