TWO Months with the M1 Macbook Air: A Long Term Review

[Music] this is the m1 macbook air one of three apple computers to use the brand new m1 apple silicon processor it looks nearly identical to the macbook air from early 2020 but the similarities are only skin deep the inside of this machine is a new first generation product using apple's own processors so the question today is should you spend your hard earned money on the first generation apple silicon mac i've had both the m1 macbook pro and m1 macbook air so do the differences justify the macbook pro's price premium here are my thoughts on these new m1 max let's get started with a little review straight out of the box you get the macbook air itself a usb c to usbc charging cable a power brick and recyclable papers that for some reason say designed by apple in california on them oh well the laptop looks nearly identical to the macbook air that came out earlier that year the only physical difference are the slightly different function key buttons that's it the rest of the design is exactly the same same aluminum outer shell same scissor keyboard same 720p webcam same speaker placement same great force touch trackpad same four circular rubber feet on the bottom and same 13-inch 2560 by 1600 resolution display overall there's nothing to complain about design wise it looks like they focused on the new chip and software rather than try to change how the laptop looks there's a fingerprint sensor embedded into the power button on the top right corner of the laptop and it works pretty well there's also two usb 4 ports and a headphone jack all the new macs the macbook air macbook pro and mac mini all contain the m1 processor this is the base model 999 dollar macbook air with eight gigabytes of ram 256 gigabytes ssd storage and seven graphic scores but enough about specs that's all completely useless unless it's actually good in usage the screen is nice and bright but the keyboard no longer has the keyboard backlight controls on the function buttons and if you do want to change and adjust the backlight you'll now have to open the quick settings panel by pressing this little sideways looking nintendo switch logo on the top right hand corner the keyboard itself is fine it's one of the nicer keyboards out there especially since they got rid of the butterfly keyboard that everybody hated speakers on the m1 macbook air sound pretty good and detailed i personally feel like it's lacking a little on the bass side but definitely clear enough to use while watching videos or listening to music the touchpad is as fantastic as the force touch trackpad has always been since its inception letting you click anywhere on the track pad but still large enough to fit a grow man's entire fist in or a water bottle for whatever reason the outer shell of the macbook air is a nice feeling aluminum that feels cold to the touch but as a previous owner of a 2016 macbook pro with similar design i'd be careful of the following things number one tsa number two bracelets or watches while this laptop is metal and definitely more durable than plastic laptops that will just crack over time just keep in mind that after i personally went through the airport numerous times without a case on the macbook pro i had dents on the edge of the laptop so my personal recommendation if you're on the go a lot carry the laptop in a case as to not to scratch up the aluminum body as for bracelets and watches metal bracelets that you wear like a charm bracelet or a watch can and will scratch up the edges of the bottom so if you're considering these macbooks just know that while these machines are built really well with very little flexing on their bodies they're not prone to scratching or denting which some people may love or hate it really depends if you're the type of person that thinks to yourself it gives it character either way now you know now let's talk about performance performance wise this thing is great everything is snappy and it normally doesn't get hot despite not having a fan the only time i manage to get it to thermal throttle or get hot is when i export a 4k youtube video kind of like the one you're watching right now that normally happens around the 8 to 10 minute mark into the export and then performance drops it also happens when i'm running games but in everyday usage like say web browsing photo editing or even video editing before exporting it's only warm it's only in those long sustained 100 cpu and gpu usage situations that it ever gets hot or thermal throttles if you were looking at this for schoolwork or general computing then i think you'd rarely throttle it there's also the fact that you can download iphone and ipad apps onto the m1 macbook air like among us monument valley and the dolphin web browser for ipad if you ever need an ipad web browser for whatever reason on your laptop let's be honest having support for ios apps is pretty cool and i'm sure some of them are useful like surfing reddit with apollo is a decent experience but because macs in general don't have touch screen displays it makes it super difficult to use ios apps that were made with touch in mind and definitely wasn't made for me trying to awkwardly move my mouse to every little spot also developers have the option of having their apps removed from the mac app store if they feel like the ios app is not suited for the mac now let's talk about the elephant in the room that's been held off until this part of the review how the m1 chip actually performs in real life scenarios since these laptops are no longer using intel's x86 chips and now using apple's own in-house arm processors these aren't the same computers as last year's at all usually when a situation like this happens you know like a switch to different types of processors like in this case x86 to arm you normally would lose access to using old software it's like if you try to shove your nintendo 3ds cartridge into your nintendo switch these are completely different systems and they don't support the same games despite being from the same company and being handheld devices i know that's probably not the best analogy but it's the best one i can come up with at the timing of the script but in the case of the m1 max they can run old x86 apps and games because they utilize some hardware and software features to convert that old x86 version of apps and softwares to the new arm version through a tool they call rosetta 2. so that sounds really cool on paper but how does that work in real life well when you open an older app that isn't on the newer arm platform then the app will do a one-time setup where it kind of bounces up and down on the dock a little longer than usual this can take up to a few minutes but after that moving forward every time you press on it it would open instantly like always and run as if nothing has changed but keep in mind that running old x86 apps and software will drop the macbook air's performance anywhere from 20 to 30 percent until you realize that that would still make the m1 macbook air running software that isn't written for it about as fast as the base model 16-inch macbook pro which costs twice as much that's some stupid fast numbers in terms of cpu performance this thing is fantastic when it comes to gpu performance the same thing applies older x86 apps will run slower shadow the tomb raider a game i feel is always used as a benchmark instead of actually being played is one of the few heavy games i could test on this thing it runs decently at 54 fps on lowest settings after around four runs of the built-in benchmark this isn't great gaming performance i would say it's just okay but it's also very impressive for a laptop with literally no fan built into this thing would i recommend gaming on it though like games like esports titles are probably your best bet battery life is fantastic in mixed usage like in situations where i have plenty of chrome tabs open a youtube video playing and maybe i'm writing the script at the time i get a solid 10 hours of battery life if i'm doing lighter tasks like casual web browsing 12 to 13 hours okay everyone watching this segment is going to hate me because i feel like you've heard this in every single m1 macbook review i'm just going to quickly address video editing performance it handles it pretty well even better than i expected anyway see i edit 4k 60 fps 10 bit xavcs footage from a sony a7s3 for these videos that's a mouthful which the m1 macbook air easily breezes through i love this guy for video editing and it's amazing how portable yet competent it is at video editing okay i know i just said a ton of good things about the laptop and its performance but to be perfectly clear we have to humble this laptop a little bit it's not perfect when a company makes a significant change to their product and how it works and at the same time tries to maintain the same level of features there has to be some sort of issues right well there are i call these the apple silicon growing pains it isn't mature yet it's basically a teenager it has voice cracks and it can't drink this isn't an extensive list but just issues i've personally encountered i've experienced the laptop crashing completely when downloading iphone and ipad apps that restarted the computer by itself when i had the m1 macbook pro there was a large black spot that appeared in the bottom center right of the screen it only went away if i restarted the laptop i've had final cut pro cut the audio randomly while i'm editing which means while it's still playing this hasn't ever happened on any of the previous macs that i've owned the only way to fix it is to either just wait a few minutes or to close final cut pro and reopen it i've had issues with the trackpad going completely unresponsive with the only way to fix it is to well you guessed it was to restart it i'm positive that what time these issues will be fixed but it's also fair to say that these issues exist right now so as a buyer you should be aware of them i know this sounds like a ton of issues in the short time that this machine has been on the market but 95 of the time the m1 macbook air works just as intended it's that small five percent of the time that gets me mad but luckily those seem to be all software issues that can be fixed over time okay quickly i want to compare the m1 macbook air to its older sibling the 13-inch m1 macbook pro and discuss some of the differences because if you're looking to buy a macbook air you're probably also looking at the 13-inch pro or at least considered it the main difference is that the pro is slightly heavier and larger has slightly better speakers a larger trackpad longer battery life a touch bar instead of function row keys a fan that prevents the laptop from thermal throttling at all and an extra gpu core on the base model versus the macbook air's default of seven but just remember that the air starts off three hundred dollars cheaper don't get me wrong both are absolutely great machines but it depends on your own personal needs personally for me i felt the air was a better value proposition but you may feel completely different so what's my conclusion on the m1 macbook air and well m1 max in general the m1 chips are not perfect but it's a great peek into what the future holds for the mac this small apple laptop is a great first step in the right direction the apple macbook air in my opinion is better than ever and pound for pound is the best value macbook for the majority of customers ranging from students professionals without needs for higher end gpu performance and even video and photo creatives it has great battery life the same sturdy apple aluminum chassis fantastic performance for its size and weight and is a pleasure to use day-to-day but you should also keep in mind of the minor issues that plague a new platform because it does exist for me personally when i decided it was time to get rid of my 2016 macbook pro i thought i needed the performance of a 16 inch macbook pro and i was honestly willing to pay over 2 grand to get it but the m1 macbook air exceeded my expectations despite being the cheapest laptop in apple's lineup and it saved my wallet from feeling too unhappy with me if you're looking for a thin and light laptop or more specifically a macbook i'd start my search right here with the late 2020 m1 macbook air anyway guys what do you think are you impressed with the m1 apple silicon chips are you considering a macbook air or maybe your windows person what's your favorite windows machine leave all that down in the comment section below if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and well don't forget to subscribe i'll see you guys next time

Channel: Jimmy Tries World

Views: 668,460

Rating: 4.9034653 out of 5

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Id: hfpUkQ0jjpo

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021