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Ask HN: Anyone Using MacBook Air M2 24GB for Developement?

25 points by gls2ro ↗ HN
I am planning to change my Macbook as it is old and Intel-based.

Current problems: - Cannot do Video calls with share screen - live coding - because it gets throttled - Cannot use both laptop display and external monitor - because it gets throttled

I have an external fan that I use to be able to do serious work. The current laptop has 64GB of RAM, but I don't think RAM is the issue.

I am considering buying a MacBook Air 15 with 24GB because I want to carry something light as I have back pain.

So my question is: - If you are using MacBook Air M2 for development, what are you running on, and did you encounter any issues?

I am concerned about it being fanless and, thus, probably going easy to throttle.

84 comments

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elliotec
Yes. It's fantastic—the best portable dev machine on the market. My only complaint is the bezel, but it's ignorable.
FirmwareBurner
I think you should specify development of what exactly? Videos? Backend Software? Front end? Firmware? Mobile Apps? Games? 3D assets?

I doubt there isn't already enough information and options online and via HN search about M2 Mac's used for development.

thebruce87m
I just assume web development unless stated otherwise. As an embedded engineer I understand where you’re coming from, but for a lot of people here web is the only thing they know.
gls2ro
Mostly backend development in Ruby (most of the time Rails), some frontend for my side projects.

I use Docker with multiple containers running almost all the time. Local PostgreSQL and MySQL.

I use from time to time Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer.

I mostly use now VScode, sometimes Rubymine.

Video calls: Mostly Zoom, some Google Meet, rarely something else.

slmjkdbtl
I do all these on a 24GB M2 Air, have no problem
benzimmer
I did all of that on an M1 MacBook Air and now on a M2 without any problems whatsoever. Only caveat the Airs have is that you can't attach more than one external screen without some workarounds[1]. If you don't rely on that the machine should be more than capable of what you're looking for!

1: https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...

Alifatisk
I do Rails development (in a docker compose environment) on my MacBook pro with 8 GB of ram without any issues!
gls2ro
Yes. I usually change laptops once every say 6-7 years. This is why four years ago I decided to buy a maxed-out 16" MacBook Pro with 64GB so that it should keep me for at least 8 years or more.

But it seems not to be the case.

Alifatisk
I don't see how more ram would extend the lifetime? Isn't there other factors that matter more?
FirmwareBurner
>I don't see how more ram would extend the lifetime? Isn't there other factors that matter more?

Because RAM is the hard cap (if you ignore SWAP) while here's infinite number of CPU cycles. With a slow CPU things will just take a bit longer, but with not enough RAM then that's it, it's game over for your workloads (again if you ignore SWAP which I don't want to rely on, especially on a system where SSD is soldered).

Alifatisk
What do you do that eats up 20+ GB ram?
FirmwareBurner
Does it matter why someone else does with their ram?

Maybe I run 20VMs at once or 200 Chrome tabs or 3 electron instances.

You buy as little as you need let others buy how much they need.

Alifatisk
I am asking out of curiosity, not to be judgemental.
pritambarhate
I use M2 Air with 24GB RAM for Backend and frontend development using TypeScript and React. Also have a Redis and PgSQL running under docker compose. A couple of browsers running with 20-30 tabs open. Teams and a couple of office programs running too. Didn't face any issues.

Many people in our company use M1 or M2 Air with 16GB RAM for iOS, Android or Flutter development. No one mentioned any productivity issues as such.

arcanemachiner
Flutter development was actually what made me upgrade to 32 GB of RAM, but I think that's the fault of the Dart LSP implementation I was using. Each Vim tab would create a new LSP session that used ~200MB of RAM. And I like having all my tabs open for easily jumping between files (Vim tabs + tmux).
hoschicz
I use one with 16 GB and it's fine, 0 issues whatsoever.
pibefision
Same machine with 16GB of Ram. Everything is great. No issues at all. Best dev machine ever.
pantulis
What you are going to notice is the jump from Intel to Apple Silicon. It's like living in another world.
antigirl
Can you detail your full specs of your current machine? you should be able to handle those tasks. Do you have a dedicated graphics card? SSD?

Have you checked activity monitor to see what the biggest culprit is?

[I now have M1 max, 64gb 14 inch - and don't have any issues. But previously I had Intel i7 mac, 13inch, 16gb ram - no dedicated graphics card and I never had issues with development, i upgraded for video editing]

gls2ro
Full specs:

2.3 GHz 8-core Intel i9

Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB

64 GB 2667 MHZ DDR4

1 TB HDD

16 Inch Monitor

Currently running macOS Sonoma

windowsrookie
That is a very capable machine and should not be having issues. I suggest trying some of the tips others have suggested here before purchasing a new machine.

1. Remove the bottom panel and clean the fans. Here is a guide to remove the lower panel. Then take a look at the small gap between the fans and the heatsink fins. I suspect there is dust clogging the heatsink fins.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+16-Inch+2019+Lower+...

2. Reset the SMC. Follow the steps here. You would use the steps for "Laptop Computer with T2 Chip" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

gls2ro
Thank you! Will redo the cleaning steps. I did not used the guide so maybe I missed something.

I did not yet reset the SMC! Hope this will work well!

JCharante
I use my M2 Air 16GB for app development. Runs Webstorm, xcode simulator, node servers pretty smoothly. llama.cpp also runs fast enough. It runs some games okay (like KSP).

I have a dock & external monitor to switch between my Air and M1 MBP and I don't notice a difference in performance when doing the same tasks that I normally do, but games run smoother.

gls2ro
What kind of dock are you using?

I was looking for a solution to switch between two machines (one personal and one from work) while having one single monitor so that I don't need to change the monitor cable between them (monitor is LG Ultrafine 4K)

JCharante
I use a CalDigit TS4 dock. I love only plugging in a single cable to get everything at my work station. My old company bought it for me.
huijzer
> I am concerned about it being fanless and, thus, probably going easy to throttle.

I recently made the switch from a laptop with a modern Intel chip to an M1 and can tell you the difference is night and day. It can compile LLVM in half the time and you won’t even notice that the laptop is busy.

As alternative, from a review I read that new AMD chips are also pretty steady. Also no throttling in laptops.

My theory is that Intel has optimized for short benchmarks at all costs.

huijzer
I have an M1 with fan but have only heard it once. Most of the time it’s off. In reviews online the air also doesn’t quickly throttle.
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selectnull
I use M2 with 24GB and in a nutshell, it's fantastic machine.

I do backend and frontend, most of my dev time is spent in terminal and browser. Before buying it, I was worried about being fanless and was considering the Pro. I'm so happy I went with the Air. It's light, the battery lasts all day with no problem: when I go for an all day out of office work, I simple don't even think about bringing the charger with me. And if I really need to charge it (didn't happen yet), USB-C works.

Docker is always on, occasional ffmpeg transcoding, some Rust compiling... the machine does not care.

CafeRacer
I had, 13" version. Wonderful machine.

The only downside, if you drown it in the rain, you'd need ti replace it.

I'm back to 16" 2019 intel with 64gb of ram, and it's very noticeably worse.

fredsted
I'm using a 24GB M2 Air running a development environment in Docker, and no problems here. Running several containers, MySQL, elastic search, redis. It feels really fast compared to a 2020 i7 6-core with 32 GB. It doesn't get hot. It's silent. Running the environment cuts battery life, though I still get around 8 hours on a full charge.
Alifatisk
Don’t you use the laptop while charging? I only disconnect the charging cable when I need to head somewhere quickly
vardump
That'll wear out the battery quickly.
Alifatisk
I thought that was fine for MacBooks because it will only charge to 80% and won’t increase the battery cycles?

I also disconnect the charging cable during the night because that stresses the battery.

vardump
My M1 and M2 Macbooks will happily charge to 100%. How to make them to stop at 80%?
out_of_protocol
I've seen checkbox somewhere in settings, checked by default. If checked and OS decides that device is connected constantly, it limits change to ~80%
Condition1952
Look up: “Aldente”. Not tested. discovered yesterday for my future laptop as soon as they become affordable
Condition1952
In alternativeto.net you can find FOSS alternatives for Aldente
jitl
No, battery life is measured in change cycles. If you don’t discharge the battery, it doesn’t age as much as if you do discharge and then recharge the battery. At least that’s the case for batteries with reasonable charging controllers like those found in $500+ gadgets.
Alifatisk
That's what I'm saying, keeping the charger connected reduces the amount of battery cycles therefore keeping the battery health for longer compared to charging and discharging multiple times.

BUT, you have to disconnect the charger when not using the laptop, for example when you're going to sleep.

vardump
Not all charge cycles are equivalent. By limiting charge to just 80%, your battery will last many times longer versus to letting it charge up to 100%.

That's also the reason why EV manufacturers set charge limits to similar numbers.

fredsted
I often sit on the couch or bed while working.
kbar13
yep it's the perfect choice for dev in 2023. performance is off the charts and almost makes me quetion why the pro exists (yeah its probably for heavier workloads like video editing). if you're worried about fanless you can install some thermal pads for cheap https://9to5mac.com/2022/08/11/m2-air-thermal-pad-mod/ but you likely will not need to.
heeton
It’s a very capable machine (I’m still on the M1, powering an ultrawide screen and a variety of intensive apps).

If you care about new models coming out soon, you can check https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

(There’s a chance the M3 is about to be released)

gls2ro
Oh maybe I will wait a bit more to see what's happening until the end of the year
throwmemoney
I am thinking about getting an M2 with 32GB RAM.

On a side note for back pain - have you tried acupuncture?

gls2ro
> have you tried acupuncture?

Did not try that.

Currently, I am doing it twice per year kinetotherapy, and in the last 6 months, I lost around 10 kg - making the pain a bit more supportable. I even have days without feeling any pain at all.

vardump
I have a 16" 32 GB Macbook M2 and I generally feel 32 GB is too little for development tasks.

M2 chip itself is very, very fast and requires little power (and thus is cool), so I don't think performance or cooling will be an issue.

YMMV.

chedabob
What's your dev stack?

I have the M1 Air 16GB, and if I'm bimbling around in NodeJS and VSCode it runs fine, but if I need to do mobile work, the Xcode UI previews and Jetbrains IDEs cause it to run warm and throttle.

It's not slowing me down, but it does make it a bit uncomfortable to use on my lap.

gls2ro
I don't do mobile work.

I mostly use either VScode or Rubymine while working with Ruby (mainly using Rails) while running multiple docker containers (some setups required multiple projects to run in the same time)

If I don't do video calls or screen sharing the actual development works fine - with an external fan under the laptop. But in general it gets warm even if I don't do video calls.

walthamstow
I've used an M1 Air with 16GB for over a year and had absolutely no issues whatsoever. I've never hit any noticeable throttling limit. It simply does not need active cooling, ever, IME. It's a wonderful machine.
larsnystrom
I have the 15" M2 with 24GB. It's fantastic. I'm mostly doing web dev, and was thinking I'd use GitHub Codespaces if local Docker didn't work out (either because of performance or because of arm vs intel issues), but turns out that Docker runs very well on the M2. So well in fact that it's pretty nice to do dev work locally again (I used to do my work on the dreaded 2016 MBP, butterfly keys and all).

So I can recommend the M2. The things I miss are more than 2 USB ports and to a little extent an HDR screen (the screen is good, but it's not as good as, say, an iPhone Pro or the MacBook Pro). I also haven't tried using it with more than one monitor, and I've heard that's not possible. I'm also not a fan of magsafe and would have much rather been given a USB-C cable to charge. I hope the new EU legislation kills magsafe but I doubt it (hot take, I know).

If you're looking at the 16" MBP, then you should probably go to an Apple Store and just try lifting it up first. It's super heavy. I wouldn't want to carry that thing around.

CamJN
You can use usbc to charge, as well as MagSafe.
larsnystrom
I know, so why produce all that MagSafe e-waste?
thrill
It's not waste to the vast majority of us.
gls2ro
The current one is 16" MBP and based on my experience with carrying it around I don't want such a big laptop anymore.

This is why I was thinking about Air. Really having a light laptop to carry does a big difference.

BoorishBears
I used an M1 Air with 16 GBs without issue for everything from Unity3D to multiple IntelliJ products without issue

I did eventually move to an M1 Max MBP with 64 GB of RAM, but that was mostly from severely underestimating the uselessness (for my purposes) of locally hosted LLMs: as you said, 24 GBs is plenty for most usecases

yanko
Back pain is the important topic here. Regular cycling will help a lot.
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jasonvorhe
I'm using a Macbook Air M2 mit 24GB for freelance SRE some and lightweight software engineering work as well. I'm also playing around with local LLMs, Stable Diffusion, some virtual machines, Kubernetes/k3s, docker-compose and I sometimes build go software. Haven't had it struggle even once, battery easily lasts all day and some more. It's the best laptop I ever owned.