Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “MacBook Air M1 Review: 6 months later”.
So i’m just gon na go like use it for a couple months. That’S cool i’ll, be right back, so we’re going to get into the m1 macbook air. Before we do. I want to thank this video sponsor setup more on them later on the video this revisited. Six months later, whatever you want to call it it’s more about a user experience less than raw benchmark scores.
I think those only get you so far. That’S the computer that i own and i’ve been using every single day is pretty much my only computer, so my use case might differ than yours, but i think you’ll find some similarities. Okay, so i opted for the macbook air for probably a silly reason uh. I was using a macbook pro and i wanted a computer that, just like looked different um at least a macbook air was a different design. That was the main reason and functionally processor wise.
The computers are almost identical, say for some brightness uh differences with the pro and the fans that can sort of make the processor work a little bit harder and get more performance. So here’s my use case for the macbook air. I am not doing video editing on it.
That’S not our beauty, editing machine. I don’t do mostly editing anymore anyway. I did try it and it was surprisingly fast and close to as quick as rendering as what was a cutting-edge 15-inch macbook pro with relatively top specs. These are very capable computers, that’s probably because we had it in final cut and that’s apple. First party software, but my main use case has been email. It’S been web browsing, it’s been social media messaging with slack and telegram all those apps running.
Now i had a pretty big concern when i first got this was how was rosetta going to work with x86 apps or apps that were not made for the m1 and, quite frankly, there hasn’t been an issue at all. I was actually shocked at first. How well rosetta worked to the point now. I honestly have no idea what apps are native and what apps are sort of being emulated uh through apple software.
That’S how good the experience has been and for the first couple weeks i cared a lot about which app was what, if i update it to the native version, but honestly now i don’t care, i don’t doesn’t occur to me anymore. I don’t worry about it. It has handled that transition extremely well when i did go back and just look which apps were native and not.
I was actually surprised at how many apps have been updated for the apple silicon. So that’s probably a good sign of how many machines apple selling developers are seeing it’s worth putting their time in. So i’m going to talk more about, what’s been really good, but there are some problems that i’ve run into over the past six months and most of these things i knew going in and i should have known better going in this – isn’t sort of necessarily the faults.
These are things that existed when i bought the computer, so i knew the brightness wasn’t as bright as the macbook pro i knew going in. This only had two thunderbolt ports. Those are things that i again i knew i was going to have to work around and there’s been times when regularly. When i wished.
I had more ports when i wish the screen got a little bit brighter and i guess i could be upset at the computer for not being brighter, but also i got it it’s kind of on me. I bought it and i knew that going in now. These aren’t giant concerns. These are things that i can easily work around with dongles and adapters and turn their brightness all the way up and hoping it’s going to be fine.
One thing that has been a bit disappointing, which actually was the strength of the computer, was battery life. Um and disappointing is maybe a strong term, the first like month or two of using this computer. It seemed to last for months and months before it had to be charged. I was really surprised at how incredible battery life was and we’re talking two or three times better than what i was getting on.
My previous generation macbook pro and i went through and checked here my battery health selled 100. I don’t have that many cycles uh in there as well battery life, seems about 20 to 25, worse than it was a few months ago. Now, in all fairness, i am still using chrome and when i switch away from chrome battery does get better and i’m sure that’s a big sort of issue with the battery drain. Despite this version of chrome being native for apple silicon. But it’s still it’s hurting and when you use a computer there are going to be apps you’re going to use that may not be optimized.
So it’s the overall experience now it is still amongst the best battery life i have ever experienced on any computer. For some reason, it just doesn’t seem to be as good as it was when i first got it, and all these little criticisms are like very nitpicky, and i think it boils down to this is what i’m focusing on for negatives. We have a very, very good computer here, and none of this should be a barrier to getting an m1 computer.
In fact, if i could go back six months ago, i would still buy exactly the same computer and i think that’s probably the most telling it’s really good, but like anything, it’s it’s not perfect and i think all those points that i’ve mentioned should not hold you Back from wanting to buy an m1 if battery life is a concern to you, i wouldn’t even install chrome, you’ll, probably get better battery life uh than i have. If ports are an issue for you get adapters and get docks from day one. I can’t do much about the brightness, but as long as you’re not gon na work outdoors, it should be plenty bright for you again.
Small nitpicks, and certainly none of them are a reason to not get the computer. So while the m1 macbook air or really any of the m1 computers has proved to be an absolute beast, the computer could only do so much if it doesn’t have the apps to accomplish the tasks that you need, and that brings us to this video sponsor setup. It is a suite of applications that can help you accomplish pretty much any task. You want on your mac, so for less than ten dollars per month, you are getting access to over 200, specially curated productivity-focused apps at once.
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So, as i mentioned, i’m not using this for more of the pro apps, but i do want to show you how it performs with those and those are sort of what i consider to be sort of the three main ones. So your final cut your lightroom and your photoshop. So for comparison, we’ve got my macbook air. With the eight cores.
We have an entry level, m1 macbook pro that has the seven cores and obviously the fans. And then we have a really well specced 15-inch macbook pro from 2018 that we still use for a lot of editing. In fact, this video was edited on that computer. So, as you can see, this is like a surprisingly capable machine and one that’s punching like very, very far out of its weight class and you can decide if the slight speed increase on the 15 is worth it for you for the price or you just want To wait for whatever m version processor comes to larger macbook pros, but still i’ve been very impressed with the macbook air can do so listen despite having some issues and there being some accessories that aren’t compatible. I’Ve looked pretty much every second with the macbook air and, like i said i don’t regret buying it. I’M happy with the spec that i bought and i would buy this computer again a hundred out of a hundred times, what’s exciting to me about the macbook air.
Isn’T necessarily what it can do now, despite being very capable it’s what this computer is going to be able to do in the future, so this is an m1 chip. It’S a one! It’S the first iteration of apple silicon, while at its core it’s uh a14 chip that apple’s been working on for a while. It’S still a first generation of sort of a desktop processor use, and it’s really good and i’m excited to see what magnitude of order difference and better m2 m3. We start having more graphics cores for the more powerful macbook pros and what the mac pro is going to offer the future for apple. Silicon is glowing very, very brightly and i think for a company – that’s relatively new to this at least and again in the desktop space. It’S awesome.
It’S amazing! It’S going to drive the whole industry going forward. So, if you’re looking to get a new computer right now and you’re doing sort of things that i talked about, the macbook air is perfect. If you’re a student get a macbook air right now, i wouldn’t even worry about m2. What’S coming next, i wouldn’t even upgrade to the 8 core 7 core will be fine, you’re, going to be great for probably many many years, but if you’re looking for pro apps, maybe you’re an editor or you’re doing a lot of work in final cut.
It’S a harder question to answer right like if i’m going to be editing, i could totally do it on the macbook air or i can buy a 16-inch macbook pro right now with an intel processor, that’s very, very capable, or i can wait and see what apple’s Going to do with that 16-inch computer when it gets its m, whatever merchant chip it’s going to get, who knows what it’s going to be? It could be june. Wwdc, it could be later could be sooner, but i think for me, if i was buying computer for pro use, i would want to know what my options were and if you need to get a computer today, then jump in on whatever’s going to work for you. If you have the option of waiting a few weeks a few months, or at least if we get to june, i think i would do that and see what the pro version of apple’s laptops are going to offer it’s an m1x if it’s an m2 whatever it Might be if the macbook air is this good? A fully specced 16-inch macbook pro is going to be an absolute beast and i’m really excited to see what the future is going to hold. .