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Apple M1 Hands-On Comparison: MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro vs. Mac Mini

The MacBook Pro seems like the best bet if you plan on gaming since you might want a fan. Unfortunately it has the nasty TouchBar.

So I guess the MacBook Air is the best bet. Coming from a Intel MacBook Pro, the M1 Air would be a big upgrade in graphics.
 
Swapped out my Intel Mini to an M1. Got the 8GB of RAM because the shipping time for 16GB pushed it into mid-December, and delayed gratification is not ideal in CoVID times lol Haven't had any issues with the RAM, or speed, or anything, really.

I use my Mini primarily as a home server for Plex, and transferring the folder with all the metadata from the Time Machine back up, with all 17k individual files and 20GB of space, took me about 30 minutes. For comparison, last time I did this into the Intel Mini, it took me an hour and a half.

It's truly a fantastic update.
 
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What does the air offer over an iPad (iPad Pro?); or have iPad‘s suddenly become not good enough for “95% what people use a computer for”. What can you do on an Air that you wouldn’t / couldn’t do on an iPad? I appreciate there will be very specific use cases, but for general email, office work, browsing and consumption, what is the appeal of the air?

It doesn’t seem that long ago (when the new iPad Air came out) that this community was arguing an iPad was faster than any x86 processor and could do 95% of whatever anyone needed.

An iPad is touch friendly, lighter, (as?) fast, all day battery life, cheaper, fanless, more convenient, runs iOS apps perfectly etc.
 
dogslobber said:
There are a few big issues. First the Air is throttled after a short period of time so it isn't as powerful as the MBP due to lack of a fan. The MBP has the dreaded and derided Touchbar for which most people find it horrendous. The Mini isn't portable so you can't use it on the go. All of the laptops have chunky bezels from the 1990s.

So each is neutered in some way or another.
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BREAKING NEWS: It is being reported Apple's Mac Mini is not a portable computer. According to unnamed administration sources, the Federal Trade Commission has recently launched an investigation accusing Apple of deceptively marketing its Mac Mini as a portable on the go computer, through product marketing photographs without a visible power cord, thereby confusing consumers thinking it may be a laptop substitute suitable for on the go use.



/s
 
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cknibbs said:
I’d love a 15” MacBook Air if they made one. I’m also sad they got rid of the space grey Mac mini case for the M1. However the M1 is a beast, and that much performance in the MBA is nuts.
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This is the product that I wish Apple made (a 15" Air). Just because I prefer a big enough screen for my aging eyes to see without changing scaling I have to buy a MBP to get what I consider a proper sized laptop screen (15" or higher).
 
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RumorConsumer said:
"If you need an affordable Mac for everyday tasks, the M1 Macs are a solid choice."

Every day tasks! These things kick the crap out of the maxed out MacBook Pro 16" Im working on AND the maxed out iMac 2020 in the corner of this room. Both these machines were purchased to offer as much performance as possible. The Air, quite frankly, is a video editing monster as it is right now in its puny 8gb configuration.
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Yep, about the heaviest use my 2017 MBP ever sees is the facial recognition process in the Photos app or FLAC file conversion, and either of those still kindle a near-fire in my i5.

I am jealous of the MBA I can spec out $600 cheaper, that will absolutely SMOKE my relatively recent machine in every way.
 
Anyone know if the 256gb air SSD would be slower than the 512gb? I know for many sata SSD's in the past smaller capacities were slower. Not sure if that is true with NVME.
 
citysnaps said:
BREAKING NEWS: It is being reported Apple's Mac Mini is not a portable computer. According to unnamed administration sources, the Federal Trade Commission has recently launched an investigation, accusing Apple of deceptively marketing its Mac Mini as a portable on the go computer, through product marketing photographs without a visible power cord, thereby confusing consumers thinking it may be a laptop substitute suitable for on the go use.



/s
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can i bring ipad mini to be main monitor .hehe:)
 
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california_kid said:
Article is incorrect. It is not the 512 GB Air that comes with 8 core GPU, but rather the 16 GB RAM version that comes with 8 Core. It just so happens that 16 GB RAM has a base 512 GB SSD, but you can get a 8GB RAM version and upgrade it to a 512 GB SSD, but still stuck with 7 core GPU.
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Not sure what you're getting at... you can do a 16GB computer with 256GB and a 7-core GPU as well. Basically, Apple's "Choose your configuration" is convoluted and there a number of ways to arrive at any given SKU. Not a new thing. 2020-11-23_21-03-34.png
 
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dogslobber said:
There are a few big issues. First the Air is throttled after a short period of time so it isn't as powerful as the MBP due to lack of a fan. The MBP has the dreaded and derided Touchbar for which most people find it horrendous. The Mini isn't portable so you can't use it on the go. All of the laptops have chunky bezels from the 1990s.

So each is neutered in some way or another.
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Great article.

@dogslobber I for one have gotten used to the Touch Bar and use it quite a bit. I also use Mac mini's in their current form factor all the time. Coupled with a Sonnet rack mini, I can rack mount two Mac minis side by side in a single rack space. Getting a solid powerful machine that runs quiet, and cool is great in my work flow. Currently we are using close to a dozen Mac minis in our production. Might seem neutered to some but right sized for a lot of the market.

Once Apple made the retina MBA, we chose to make it our standard staff issue. Most of our employees only need a great web browser, email and O365. The added efficiency and longer battery life will be a huge asset to us. Honestly I can see my company purchasing every one of these new models multiple times over. All that to say I completely disagree with each of your points. Haven't been this excited about a line of new products from Apple in a while. Pumped all the M1 reviews are so positive.
 
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Chompineer said:
I don’t think you were using computers in the 90’s if you think that’s what the bezels were like, lol. For one, they were like 10x larger and covered in beige plastic.

Also the air throttles after what, 8-10 minutes of 100% load? Big deal. I’m not using it for anything that would generate a load so large and for so long, nor are 99% of laptop users.
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MacBook Air is solely purchased by engineers to simulate dark matter in 5D /s
 
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hot-gril said:
Cinebench is a better way to compare the three. Thermal throttling on the Air will make a big difference, and Geekbench doesn't run long enough for that to come into play very much.
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Correct.

In a nutshell, this is why the PC guys ignore Geekbench. The Geekbench test duration is laughably short.

Also, there is no measurement of acoustics. The user experience isn't just a bench score from a pitifully short test.

This is simply bad testing methodology.
 
Macbookprodude said:
I will wait for the 15 inch to come out.. but I have my doubts about the validity of Apple's claims that these are really faster than Intel.. Maybe they are, maybe they arent. I am sure the pricing is a lot lower.
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Now that it's in the hands of consumers it's a bit more than just Apple's claims. There has to be at least 20 videos on YouTube being posted every day showing different metrics. You can find stuff on just the M1 breakdown to every day app usage.
 
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dogslobber said:
There are a few big issues. First the Air is throttled after a short period of time so it isn't as powerful as the MBP due to lack of a fan. The MBP has the dreaded and derided Touchbar for which most people find it horrendous. The Mini isn't portable so you can't use it on the go. All of the laptops have chunky bezels from the 1990s.

So each is neutered in some way or another.
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Big resolution. the Air only throttles if you consistently partake in power user activities. If you are not a power user, it will not throttle in the sense that performance will be the same.

If you consistently throttle you are not a casual user but a power user which by default means a MBP not MBA
 
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applicious84 said:
I like how you say neutered with a dog avatar, lol. But, you're right about those bezels. The throttling won't matter for most people, I don't think--at least not anytime soon. It's def a 1st gen machine, so I guess they wanted to keep with their tried and tested (if aging) design to minimize other issues. I'll need a new one in a couple years.

Hopefully, they'll have ditched the touchbar at that time. Or maybe someone has made it useful with VSCode. Actually, I just thought of that. Does any one know if that's a thing, the touchbar with VSCode?
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Yeah there are a couple of extensions and have been around for over a year now. Just search TouchBar
 
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SuperCachetes said:
Not sure what you're getting at... you can do a 16GB computer with 256GB and a 7-core GPU as well. Basically, Apple's "Choose your configuration" is convoluted and there a number of ways to arrive at any given SKU. Not a new thing.View attachment 1678205
Click to expand...

Yeah you're right. That's changed from when I purchased on launch day. Still, article is not correct, you can configure 512 GB but still end up with 7 cores at $50 less than same config with 8 cores.
 
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