Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash

Don’t Buy A MacBook In 2023

So the rumour is that there will be a new 15 inch MacBook Air. Possibly as early as WWDC. And some people are excited. I’m excited.

[embed]I Can’t Wait For A 15 Inch MacBook Air So there are a lot of rumours about a 15 inch MacBook Air.andrewzuo.com

And it’s going to be using the M3 chip based on the 3 nm process. This will bring efficiency and power gains. Although I think it may be a little overhyped.

[embed]Don’t Hold Your Breath For 3nm Chips Apple is rumoured to be releasing the M3 chip. And it’s rumoured to be a 3nm chip. The M1 and M2 chips are both built…medium.com

And you may be tempted to pick up this 15 inch MacBook Air. If you don’t have an Apple Silicon Mac yet you might as well. Then you can use my RSS reader Echo on your Mac. And I guess Apple Silicon is a lot quieter and faster than Intel. That too.

But if you already have an Apple Silicon Mac… you may want to hold off buying it. Because something even better is coming.

OLED

There is a rumour that Apple may be planning to introduce OLED to the MacBook range in 2024.

[embed]MacBook Pro with OLED display rumored to arrive in 2024 | AppleInsider AppleInsider may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made through links on our site. Apple Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo…appleinsider.com

And it’s about time. OLED was introduced on the iPhone X in 2017. Yes, over 5 years ago, and it never came to any other devices. Well, the watch. But you know what I think about the watch.

[embed]Apple Watch Series 8: 7 Years On And Still An Embarrassment So the Apple event just wrapped up and it was pretty impressive. There’s a lot to say about the new iPhones. It’s not…andrewzuo.com

And I guess technically the touchbar is OLED. But it’s not on many devices.

And this is when companies like Samsung have been putting OLED on everything. Heck, it seems like every other major flagship laptop now has an OLED model. Asus has an OLED model, Lenovo has one, HP has one, Dell has one. Where is Apple’s OLED model? It is overdue.

And if Apple just ignored OLED it wouldn’t be that annoying. But they have the audacity to use their Mini-LED panels which are inferior to OLED in every way.

[embed]Why I Hate Apple’s Mini-LED Displays I wrote this article before.andrewzuo.com

I just don’t understand. Maybe it’s burn in. Because Windows laptops don’t tend to last as long as Macs. So you can get loosy goosy with burn in on Windows because by the time users notice the device will have failed or been replaced. Macs last forever. When I was in University I’d see tons of Macs, some which are one or two generations old.

But I do think that the OLED burn-in problem can be fixed on Macs. For one if you’re using a full screen app there is no UI element permanently on your display. Well, unless you have the notch. Which is just one of the reasons why I hate it so much.

[embed]The MacBook Pro’s Notch Is Worse Than Useless It Is Decidedly Non-Proandrewzuo.com

Hey, wouldn’t it be weird if the 13 inch MacBook Pro was the only MacBook to get OLED because it didn’t have a notch? Then maybe tech reviewers would finally shut up about this thing being ‘bad’.

[embed]Why The 13 Inch MacBook Pro Is Secretly The Best MacBook Another day another article on Medium attacking the 13 inch MacBook Pro.andrewzuo.com

Why You Should Wait For It

I used to think that OLED was so much better than LCD. But if you put a really good IPS LCD panel next to a really good OLED panel you can’t tell the difference… in good lighting. The power of OLED is when you urn off the lights. Then OLED has incredibly deep blacks that you just can’t reproduce on an LCD display. In fact I’d say blacks look bad on an LCD display in pitch darkness. They look grey. Gross.

This is something that Apple tried to improve on with their Mini-LCD displays. And they almost did it, but you get terrible response times and blooming and in my opinion they are just not a proper upgrade over LCD panels.

OLED would finally improve on LCD in a meaningful way for the first time since… the first Retina Macbook Pro in… 2012. Over 10 years ago. This is a long overdue upgrade and one worth waiting for. And that is why you should not buy a MacBook in 2023. Wait for the OLED model in 2024.

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