How can I use a MacBook Air as a screen and Mac mini pro as a computer?

6 points by optimussupreme 1 year ago | 9 comments
Not sure if this is appropriate to ask on HN, but I'll try (I couldn't find anything meaninful on the internet). I have been trying to decide whether I should buy a macbook pro 14 m2/m3 or macbook air m3/m3. MBA is very lighweight for travels but it can't withstand heavy computing for very long periods of time, it starts trottling and heating oscillation damages soldering of a soc over time. MBP can compute anything anytime however i want but it is very bulky and heavy to carry in a backpack for me as i have backache. SO i stuck in between both worlds, and I was wondering, maybe i can use MPA as a travel computer and when i need more power when i come home, i just attach macmini pro or macstudio to a macbook air and use macmini's compute power instead of a mba?
  • thijsvandien 1 year ago
    Back in 2011, I was doing the inverse where I connected my MBA in Target Disk Mode for my iMac to boot from. It was like a fancy external display that also provided excellent performance. Rather exotic, but no headaches of maintaining two installs, synchronizing files, and so on. A fun anecdote from the same line of thinking. Nowadays there is no reason to overcomplicate things. To use the MBA as a screen, you'd need a capture card. Hard to recommend that.

    If you're really worried about throttling, at home you could put the MBA on a cooling pad. Naturally that only makes sense if otherwise it's fast enough for you. Perhaps just get the MBP, based on your reply to another commenter. In any case, a couple of pounds are not worth the hassle of having two machines. Do consider offloading some work to the cloud.

    • smoldesu 1 year ago
      > MBP can compute anything anytime however i want

      I wouldn't set your hopes that high. It won't manifest CUDA or Vulkan drivers for you magically, nor extend your battery life by having more cores and a larger screen.

      You're ultimately looking at a set of tradeoffs. There are a lot of options, but none of them are really perfect. If Macbooks are my only option, I would probably be content with a Macbook Air with a high enough memory config. If you really need that much more power, you could purchase a separate Mac for home and VNC/SSH into it when you need the extra power.

      There is no silver bullet here. I would reconsider how much power you actually need though; even the most intensive programming jobs can fit comfortably on a regular multi-core processor.

      • zamadatix 1 year ago
        There is a 13" MacBook pro nearly identical in size and weight to the 13" MacBook Air but it has active cooling so you can run it at 100% all day long without throttling.
        • akg_67 1 year ago
          First, You need to investigate whether MBA can be used as an external display for another Mac. Not all combination of Apple devices can be used in target display mode.

          I also have spinal issues and can’t carry too much weight. I find only a 14” MBP + iPad, even without chargers and accessories, in my backpack to be heavier than what I can handle.

          Just buy an MBA for the road, and another computer (Mac/PC) and a proper display for home/office use.

          • Someone 1 year ago
            > Not all combination of Apple devices can be used in target display mode.

            Target display mode is dead, isn’t it?

            https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592:

            “Target display mode is a feature available with certain older Mac models.

            The following older iMac models can be used as an external display when plugged into another older Mac model. iMac models introduced in 2011, 2012, 2013, and mid 2014”

        • warrenm 1 year ago
          I've got an M2 MacBook Air

          Per the Advanced... screen under Displays in System Settings, you can link to a Mac or iPad to control it a la Synergy[0]

          I have not done it myself, but I do not see why you could not do it with a current-gen Mac Mini

          ---------

          [0] https://symless.com/synergy

          • ActorNightly 1 year ago
            This is some weird post trying to find confirmation to buy as much Apple stuff as possible.

            Firstly, in no way and hell 2 lb difference between MBA and MPB is going to matter for comfort when carrying in a backpack.

            Secondly, MBP is decent in processing for a laptop, but it absolutely is shit compared to what even a mid grade desktop with desktop cards can put out.

            If you actually want to have processing power on tap (for ML I assume) you need to build a desktop with a few gfx cards and a good desktop chip, and then set up ssh to it. Then you can use literally any computer or even your phone to run models.

            On the flip side, if you are trying to find reasons to get a Mac, just get whatever Mac looks the best to you and stop pretending you need processing power.

            • optimussupreme 1 year ago
              Thank you for your response. 2lb is not a lot, but there also a lot of stuff I need to carry around when I travel, so I need to pack as much stuff as possible into limited space and weight which airlines would consider as a hand luggage. There are reasons I need apple stuff. I often need to test and publish iOS apps, so there is no option for linux / windows machines, although I have regular acer linux laptop for torrenting, automation and so on. Also I'm planning to learn developing for vision pro, so thats also requires mac machine. As of as much apple stuff as possible, I seek the opposite, as less apple stuff as possible, and also as less as possible heavy stuff overall, I move a lot, so I'd like to have just a laptop, instead of several laptops and pc's, so I definitely won't buy a mac, and having 20kg pc with rtx 4090 would be a problem, because I would need to transfer this machine when I move. I need computational power for game dev, ML, and for running monstrous enterprize projects, eg with 500gb database. In the end I think I'll give up and'll have to carry around MBP 14, if it is not possible to use MBA as a screen for macmini