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It’s my favorite laptop I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned a bunch.
My only slight regret is buying the 8GB variant rather than 16 which would have made it more future-proof.

I took it on a trip for the first time recently and if that was even possible I love it even more since it’s so light and small and you can hardly feel it in the bag.
 
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I still wish I waited for the newer MacBooks. M1 is amazing and all, but it slows down a bit when you leave all the adobe apps open. Still amazing that it can run all the adobe apps at all I guess.
 
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After one month, my M1 MBA surprised me with these "superpowers":
1. Medium editing on DaVinci Resolve for 3.5 hrs and the battery only downed 35%
2. Rendering ~4mins of 1080p on DaVinci Resolve only took 1:03 mins
3. 4+ hours on YouTube streaming in Safari took only ~20% juice (all with 50+ tabs open, split into 3 tab groups) + WhatsApp Desktop and Telegram running in background
4. 12+ hours of standby won't budge the battery from 100% (attached screenshot of proof)
5. Batch editing on Polarr Photo app took seconds to complete
6. 3 hours of vector design in Vectornator only brings the battery down ~30%

Seriously, this small fanless ultrabook almost feels like a product of black magick witchery.
 

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BanjoDudeAhoy said:
It’s my favorite laptop I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned a bunch.
My only slight regret is buying the 8GB variant rather than 16 which would have made it more future-proof.

I took it on a trip for the first time recently and if that was even possible I love it even more since it’s so light and small and you can hardly feel it in the bag.
Click to expand...
8GB is still fine for even 4k video editing and 50+ MP photo editing. Although, you have to consider non-Adobe apps for those jobs.
Mine is a 8GB + 512GB combo. That baseline spec RAM M1 MBA still smoked the 16" base Intel MBP for that and this thing won't even get hot.
 
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eicca said:
Just picked up an M1 Air from Costco for $850. Now I intentionally got the very base model because my old warhorse Mac Pro serves as my command center for data storage and media production and all that stuff. So I'm going entirely iCloud-based here. I'm using this MBA as a replacement for my old iPad. Portable power.

HOLY CRAP this thing is incredible. I've never once thought my Mac Pro was slow, and it has all the upgrades, but this little fanless heatless laptop utterly destroys it, even in just casual use. EVERYTHING is instantaneous.

And all the benchmarks I've seen say this will easily beat my Mac Pro in things like Logic and Final Cut. And at 20 times less wattage with a circuit board the size of a postcard??

Technology is amazing.

If you're on the fence about this laptop, just get it.
Click to expand...
It’s amazing that my M1 MacAir can run most everyday tasks which I can throw at it with utmost speed and absolutely silent .
My brother who works at an Apple store in Alberta Canada , sold me on this one after upgrading in 2020 only months after purchasing my previous Mac Air Intel 2020 version .
Best Apple decision I EVER made !!!
 
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Studio Max owner here, 32/32/2TB. Also very recent owner of an 8/8/512GB MBA which I purchased from UK Apple Refurbished for a silly low price two weeks ago. The Studio is phenomenal, but the the MBA is so good I'm already wondering if the additional £2800 I blew on the Studio would have been better spent on something like having the absolute night of my life with a bunch of prozzies.
 
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Is there any difference between the base model 256gb and the 512gb besides storage size?
 
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eicca said:
Just picked up an M1 Air from Costco for $850. Now I intentionally got the very base model because my old warhorse Mac Pro serves as my command center for data storage and media production and all that stuff. So I'm going entirely iCloud-based here. I'm using this MBA as a replacement for my old iPad. Portable power.

HOLY CRAP this thing is incredible. I've never once thought my Mac Pro was slow, and it has all the upgrades, but this little fanless heatless laptop utterly destroys it, even in just casual use. EVERYTHING is instantaneous.

And all the benchmarks I've seen say this will easily beat my Mac Pro in things like Logic and Final Cut. And at 20 times less wattage with a circuit board the size of a postcard??

Technology is amazing.

If you're on the fence about this laptop, just get it.
Click to expand...
Great machine!

Good luck with iCloud though. Extremely unreliable. Often it doesn’t finish to sync and gets stuck. If you need files on the go reliably, you are better off looking at other options unfortunately
 
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eicca said:
HOLY CRAP this thing is incredible. I've never once thought my Mac Pro was slow, and it has all the upgrades, but this little fanless heatless laptop utterly destroys it, even in just casual use. EVERYTHING is instantaneous.

Technology is amazing.

If you're on the fence about this laptop, just get it.
Click to expand...

Nice. The MacBook Air is one of the models I’m considering next year. My late 2018 Mac mini i7 will be a server when I finally get an M-powered Mac.

However, I’m on the fence, it’s either the MBA, MBP 13” or iMac. Not considering the mini (yet), so I’ve narrowed my future choices to those three. Just got the new iPad Air 5 back in March, so I’m okay with my setup for now and see what changes Apple will make to those models.

I’m worried the MBP 13” might get discontinued… but hopeful it could be rebranded as the MacBook and remain in the product lineup.

Enjoy your new Air!
 
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SamRyouji said:
8GB is still fine for even 4k video editing and 50+ MP photo editing. Although, you have to consider non-Adobe apps for those jobs.
Mine is a 8GB + 512GB combo. That baseline spec RAM M1 MBA still smoked the 16" base Intel MBP for that and this thing won't even get hot.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I compared it to a 2020 16GB Intel MBP with i5 and the MBA did just about everything faster and cooler than the MBP.
The MBP was even idling at a much higher temperature than the MBA ?
 
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mxrider88 said:
Great machine!

Good luck with iCloud though. Extremely unreliable. Often it doesn’t finish to sync and gets stuck. If you need files on the go reliably, you are better off looking at other options unfortunately
Click to expand...

Interestingly I haven't really had any problems with iCloud on macOS. I use it across several machines.

The whole reason I ditched my iPad for this Air was unreliable sync. It's a disaster on iPadOS. Exactly as you describe.
 
eicca said:
The problem now is I've got the major M1 itch. I want a Studio. But I'd have to get a Windows PC too for my games... My old Mac Pro currently does both.

Crud.
Click to expand...
Another reason to hold off on the Studio is to see what Apple does with the rumored high end mini. If they put an M1 pro (or Ultra) in the mini, then that would definitely be a terrific option. Unfortunately, current rumors suggest it will only get an M2.
 
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BanjoDudeAhoy said:
It’s my favorite laptop I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned a bunch.
My only slight regret is buying the 8GB variant rather than 16 which would have made it more future-proof.

I took it on a trip for the first time recently and if that was even possible I love it even more since it’s so light and small and you can hardly feel it in the bag.
Click to expand...
No current computer should have less than 16gb of ram anymore imo. I know the 8gb performs well, but with the graphics taking some of that ram it just really bugs me that 16gb isn't the baseline.
 
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Nicole1980 said:
No current computer should have less than 16gb of ram anymore imo. I know the 8gb performs well, but with the graphics taking some of that ram it just really bugs me that 16gb isn't the baseline.
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I get where you’re coming from and therefore, I don’t disagree per se - but I can make do with the 8GB relatively easily if I close down what I’m not using and don’t use lots of applications at the same time. This is to avoid using swap mainly.

It’s somewhat annoying to have to pay attention to that, though, and the average user is probably not going to bother with it.
So yeah, 16GB are definitely better.

That said, I have a Windows laptop with 8GB of RAM as well and it seems macOS is way better at handling the low-ish amount of memory than Windows.
I had a 4GB MBA until not too long ago and with that, this difference was very noticeable: A Windows computer with 4GB of RAM is pretty much unusable these days IMO, whereas the MBA was still okay for light stuff.
 
Tv
eicca said:
Interestingly I haven't really had any problems with iCloud on macOS. I use it across several machines.

The whole reason I ditched my iPad for this Air was unreliable sync. It's a disaster on iPadOS. Exactly as you describe.
Click to expand...
I an talking about iCloud Drive specifically, not sure if that works for you too but mine gets stuck on upload constantly. I have always two users logged in at the same time on my Mac, not sure if that affects it. It could be, it is messing up with continuity and handoff too so probably it’s all connected.
 
mxrider88 said:
Tv

I an talking about iCloud Drive specifically, not sure if that works for you too but mine gets stuck on upload constantly. I have always two users logged in at the same time on my Mac, not sure if that affects it. It could be, it is messing up with continuity and handoff too so probably it’s all connected.
Click to expand...
Yeah iCloud Drive works great on macOS for me. Not sure what’s different.
 
eicca said:
The problem now is I've got the major M1 itch. I want a Studio. But I'd have to get a Windows PC too for my games... My old Mac Pro currently does both.

Crud.
Click to expand...
I solved this dilemma by getting an Xbox for games and an M1 for everything else.

I’m not a heavy gamer, but I also prefer to play on my TV instead of my computer. So, win-win.
 
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trusso said:
I solved this dilemma by getting an Xbox for games and an M1 for everything else.

I’m not a heavy gamer, but I also prefer to play on my TV instead of my computer. So, win-win.
Click to expand...
Wish I could :/ I have a good number of exclusively PC titles.
 
jav6454 said:
How well does it integrate with hospital IT infrastructure and software? I assume there is no issue.
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I run Epic when on inpatient rounds and Allscripts for outpatient and it was incredibly seemless. I was fully expecting a lot of headaches due to the Apple silicon but it was surprisingly smooth sailing.
 
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