Was asking myself the same question.

Another annoyance is that all products on the market are labelled in VA and not Wh, which makes it very difficult to compare and understand how long they’ll last at a 20W draw of the standard networking equipment.

They’re missing USB, so when other options in the same price range can be had for the same under-40, like RT1800, then it’s kind of a bummer to be paying the same price for no USB.

RT1800 and RT3200 are pretty good candidates as far as pricing goes. (RT1800 is 39$ on Walmart 3rd party right now.)

Note that RT1800 actually has USB3, whereas RT3200 is USB2, but RT3200 has better OpenWrt support.

Both have been $50 and under at Walmart.

Another possible option for a super router is $79 Dynalink; if it was an Asus or Netgear with these same specs, they’d probably be selling it for $200.

Out of these 3 options, the RT3200 is the most well supported, so if you want it to work, probably get that one.

Also, WAX202 has been on sale for $29 or $39 often enough, but I think those may be gone; no USB, so, not the best unless you get it super cheap.

As far as Cudy goes that someone else recommended, I’d advise against it, because it’s missing USB and the specs are often the most barebone compared to alternatives on sale at the same price.

If I had a strict $40+tax budget, I’d probably investigate if RT1800 is supported properly, and get that one.

There should also be a rule that a device weighing more than 1kg (2.2lb) and having MSRP above $999 USD must have a user replaceable storage.

I’m not aware of any other devices beyond MacBook Air and Pro being affected by such a rule.

ThinkPad Nano and ThinkPad Snapdragon X13s each weigh just slightly above 1kg and have MSRP above 1k, so they’d also be required to comply, but they already do have removable 2242 NVME storage! Same for LG gram that weighs just 1kg, and many other products.

The weight of user-replaceable 2280 2TB modules? About 7g, that’s 0.007kg, so you won’t be notice on an MBP that weighs 2.1kg.

Apple seems to be the only manufacturer that solders SSD, and sells $100 2TB upgrades at $800, for a clear 8x markup. This also means that people will have to throw the entire machine away once they need more storage than 256GB, instead of simply proceeding with a simple 4TB@$100 upgrade in 2025.

What matters is IOPS, and IOPS is half.

Literally even the YouTube reviewers noticed M2 256GB was slower! Even those who claim 8GB is enough!

Oh, yeah, and the weight of the 2280 sticks themselves is like 7g. That’s 0.007kg, so it basically wouldn’t even register on a weight scale.

For memory, the excuse is LPDDR5 which has to be soldered.

But for storage, there’s no excuse, except that they started soldering before 2280 NVME became mainstream, so initially Apple’s storage was way faster than the older non-NVME sticks, but that time has long gone.

I think EU ought to create legislation to combat this digital waste and monopolistic pricing. If the computer retails at or above 1k and weighs above 1kg, it has to have removable storage support via NVME 2230, 2242 or 2280. Apple would probably be the only one that’s affected by such rules, and it’s be dubbed MacBook tax.

That’d actually would be better, because then your boss wouldn’t be able to buy you a “Pro” machine that’s complete shit.

MacBook Air M2 is worse than M1 in almost every way, because now you actually have to pay $200 extra to upgrade to 512GB storage just to get the same speed as the old M1 256GB!

It actually highlights just how much slower is swap compared to the main memory once they made swap slightly slower, and how little is 8GB, causing swapping very easily.

There’s literally no reason to charge $200 for 8GB and sell 1.8k laptops with only 8GB unless profits and planned obsolescence is all you care about.

Or to not include NVME 2280 slots on laptops weighing 2kg, when even 1kg ultraportables Windows laptops and tablets have removable and upgradable storage.

History repeats itself.

Good riddance.

As a professional, I keep my fingers on the keyboard at all times.

Then came the touchbar. Phantom key presses all the time, having to be conscious where your fingers are at all times. A true nightmare. So glad to have the function keys back.

Disappointing that M3 still maxes out at 24GB.

I want a fanless 32GB Mac. I don’t need the extra CPU power consumption from M3 Pro just to go above 24GB.

Seems like a good direction.

These things already had incredible performance, I’m not sure why Apple would choose to sacrifice battery life for more performance? The people buying these machines, myself included, are pros that need battery life.

What I’m actually disappointed with, is that M3 is still limited to 24GB RAM, just like M2.

Yes, that’s much better than just 16GB in M1, but, come on, what is this, enough for like 10 browser tabs in Chrome?

They’re basically forcing me to get M2 Pro if I need more than 24GB; well, at least I don’t have to sacrifice the battery life as much as with M3 Max, but it’s still extra CPU I don’t need.