Apple Silicon Mac Reviews: M1 Chip Delivers Exceptional Performance, Thermals, and Battery Life

[BvizioN]

Hardly surprising. Apple Silicone on Macs is a Leapfrog!
Btw... is there any possibility of spinning this into a negative news? I ask, because I have noticed lot of talent around here.

 

[Velli]

"but... but... but... the Air is fanless so it must be thermal throttling like hell... right? Right? RIGHT??"

 

[Jarman74]

The area most criticized by reviewers was the MacBook Air's camera, which Bohn said was barely improved

No matter how hard I try to justify and rationalize this design decision, it still looks flat-out unfathomable to me.

 

[Sethal]

Sounds like the Mac mini is steal for the price.

 

[neuropsychguy]

What's with Apple's laptops and cameras?? It's like they've decided to hold on to the crappy decade-old cameras until a year when they have nothing else to add. It really is ridiculous.

It's an issue across the board for laptop manufacturers. It's rare for any laptops to have cameras with good optics or even 1080p with any level of performance. Before 2020, most people who regularly did video conferencing just got an external camera. This year is different. Apple should have stepped up and put in a better quality camera (although there are space constraints -- their engineers could have figured it out though). Sticking with a lower quality 720p camera at the end of 2020 is lazy at best.

 

[jezbd1997]

Still no confirmation of how many monitors are supported on the TB ports.

If you check the tech specs it's sadly only 1 over TB, and an extra over the HDMI port on the Mini... MacBooks only support 1. Quite a drawback, these are not for Pros and very early releases... I am quite surprised they were happy releasing these with support for only 1 TB display

 

[0092762]

"but... but... but... the Air is fanless so it must be thermal throttling like hell... right? Right? RIGHT??"

The Verge test shows the Air throttling a little bit, especially the 30 minutes Cinebench test where it falls behind 20% off the Pro. Even the Pro throttles a little bit compared to the mini which has the best thermal headroom.

However I don’t think that’s a huge use case and Air should be perfectly fine for 99% of people. No need to throttle if all your tasks complete in under a minute.

 

[jezbd1997]

It's an issue across the board for laptop manufacturers. It's rare for any to have 1080p cameras. Before 2020, most people who regularly did video conferencing just got an external camera. This year is different. Apple should have stepped up and put in a better quality camera (although there are space constraints -- their engineers could have figured it out though).

No space constraints, they could've if they wanted. It was likely just a cost thing as Apple always does...

 

[JosephAW]

I’m wondering apps on the M1 will relaunch when memory is low like it does on the iOS?
Can anyone check to see if there is a /var/vm folder and swap files?

 

[richman555]

Looks like Apple has knocked this one out of the park! Well done!

 

[coredev]

What's with Apple's laptops and cameras?? It's like they've decided to hold on to the crappy decade-old cameras until a year when they have nothing else to add. It really is ridiculous.

It's because they made the lid so thin that they now cannot find a good camera that will fit in. So sad.

 

[mikentosh]

Looking forward to receiving my M1 Mac Mini today!

Me too!! My 27" iMac (2013) died the night before the keynote.

 

[mannyvel]

Traditionally the mini has been a laptop motherboard in a mini case, so performance should be marginally better than the corresponding laptop model. It's the mbp m1 in a box, which is about right.

 

[arvinsim]

The only disappointment is the 2 ports.

Would have been great if the MBP had 4 ports.

 

[CheesePuff]

Can’t wait to find out how long it takes for the MBP fans to turn on.

One review of both said the MBA starts to throttle at 8 mins in of all core usage so probably around that point

 

[mike...]

I don't get the comment about the Mac Mini's power supply. Apple probably didn't redesign it, that's all. When they do the design refresh I'm sure they will. Just because it has a 150W PSU, doesn't mean it draws 150W. In fact, Anandtech measured it drawing just over 4W at idle, and 31W under full load.

 

[novakk86]

Clearly, this chip with a TDP of less than 10W can be in an iPhone Pro! Apple make it happen!!!!!!!

Why?

 

[dz5b609]

Did not expect these absolutely glowing reviews, GG Apple.

 

[mattopotamus]

It's an issue across the board for laptop manufacturers. It's rare for any to have 1080p cameras. Before 2020, most people who regularly did video conferencing just got an external camera. This year is different. Apple should have stepped up and put in a better quality camera (although there are space constraints -- their engineers could have figured it out though).

I'll completely disagree here. Almost every laptop in the same class has a 1080P camera.

 

[DrV]

What's with Apple's laptops and cameras?? It's like they've decided to hold on to the crappy decade-old cameras until a year when they have nothing else to add. It really is ridiculous.

The camera is beyond any negative adjectives I can imagine. However, the problem is not it being old. The problem is not it being only 720p (the image would’ve be even worse at 1080p).

Apple decided to prefer thinness over image quality. Laws of practical optics tell us that an extremely thin camera cannot have good image quality. (I am not saying “laws of physics”, as non-conventional optics might be able to provide some answers in the future.)

 

[iChan]

Instant on 🤤
Battery life 🤤
Touchbar-less 🤤
Speed 🤤
Dedicated emoji key 🤤
Fanless 🤤

Camera 💩

 

[cult hero]

Only thing holding me back from pulling the trigger is lack of dual monitor support I'm so used to having that on my desk now...such a shame.

Which machine lacks dual monitor support?

 

[arvinsim]

Me too!! My 27" iMac (2013) died the night before the keynote.

You mean you sabotaged it, right? 🤣

 

[iChan]

The camera is literal garbage. Worse looking qualitatively than my 2013 MPB-15 retina.

 

[doboy]

I don't get the comment about the Mac Mini's power supply. Apple probably didn't redesign it, that's all. When they do the design refresh I'm sure they will. Just because it has a 150W PSU, doesn't mean it draws 150W. In fact, Anandtech measured it drawing just over 4W at idle, and 31W under full load.

Haha. I guess they could’ve gone with usb-c power cable with 60W brick If they’ve done that I could’ve powered it directly from my monitor usb-c output.