M1 Air Bottom Line (at least for me!)

[Zen_Arcade]

All -

I've now had my M1 Air for about a week. Bottom line - I think it is brilliant. I have a 16 GB/1 TB with the 8 core GPU.

Performance is excellent, at least for what I use it for - Teams, Office, Safari, Firefox, Pages/Keynote, Photos, etc. It's noticeably faster responding than my prior 16" i9 MBP, or the i5 2020 quad-core MBA I had briefly.

I love *NOT* having the touchbar, and the keyboard is very good.

Battery life is pretty remarkable - I've been getting 12-15 hours while using the above (brightness about 60%).

And the overall design just works (at least for me).

So I'd say that if you're considering one, go for it and skip the prior Intel versions (and the M1 MBP).

 

[bbasra]

All -

I've now had my M1 Air for about a week. Bottom line - I think it is brilliant. I have a 16 GB/1 TB with the 8 core GPU.

Performance is excellent, at least for what I use it for - Teams, Office, Safari, Firefox, Pages/Keynote, Photos, etc. It's noticeably faster responding than my prior 16" i9 MBP, or the i5 2020 quad-core MBA I had briefly.

I love *NOT* having the touchbar, and the keyboard is very good.

Battery life is pretty remarkable - I've been getting 12-15 hours while using the above (brightness about 60%).

And the overall design just works (at least for me).

So I'd say that if you're considering one, go for it and skip the prior Intel versions (and the M1 MBP).

Thanks for that - That's the same spec I've ordered and I have the same use cases too - now waiting in anticipation

 

[Eric8199]

This is the exact configuration on my wishlist. Trying to wait to see what the higher end Apple Silicon models will look like next year before pulling the trigger (have a perfectly fine 2017 15" MacBook Pro currently), but I'm struggling waiting. lol. Hoping for a 4-port 13/14 MacBook Pro next year, but I really don't want the touchbar either. So we'll see.

 

[jerryk]

Not surprising. Even my base (256/8) is faster than my 16" MBP i9 in many tasks.

 

[swiftbmx]

As someone super ignorant to Apple silicon vs. Intel, how do apps work that are not yet built for the M1? For example, how does MS Teams work, is it virtualization and if so, are there limitations?

Thanks

 

[^^BIGMac]

As someone super ignorant to Apple silicon vs. Intel, how do apps work that are not yet built for the M1? For example, how does MS Teams work, is it virtualization and if so, are there limitations?

Thanks

Believe they run under Rosetta II.

 

[spiderman0616]

I had my base model MBA for a week on Monday, and I couldn't agree with you more. Best notebook I've ever owned.

 

[s66]

As someone super ignorant to Apple silicon vs. Intel, how do apps work that are not yet built for the M1? For example, how does MS Teams work, is it virtualization and if so, are there limitations?

On an M1 mac mini:
Rosetta 2 takes care of applications for Intel macs. You don't notice much if anything at all. It's just a bit slower at the first start of the app and then it just works at a more than decent speed. [Used Firefox like that for a week or so on the M1 mini]
It's mostly not emulation: it's mostly translated. So that first time translation is done just once at the very first start. It's really no big deal.
A universal binary is even much faster and smoother (like the newly Firefox 84.0 release). But as the building of universal applications is next to trivial in Xcode, it should become the norm pretty soon among developers that know the apple ecosystem.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I plan on going with the base M1 Air as well. With all the rave reviews for M1, I am looking forward to testing.

 

[jerryk]

As someone super ignorant to Apple silicon vs. Intel, how do apps work that are not yet built for the M1? For example, how does MS Teams work, is it virtualization and if so, are there limitations?

Thanks

- updated-

As I understand it is translated, not virtualized. When you install your Mac Intel application, the system detects the application is complied for Intel. It then (installs Rosseta 2 if not present and) runs the Rosseta 2 translator to do an ahead-of-time compilation translation of the app. Then anytime you launch the application it is the translated version of the application. There are limitations to what the translator can translate, but in general, most applications seem to translate and run with good performance.

 

[swiftbmx]

As I understand it is translated, not virtualized. After you install your Mac Intel application app, the system detects the application is complied for Intel. It then (installs Rosseta 2 if not present and) runs the Rosseta 2 translator to do an ahead-of-time compilation translation of the app. Then anytime you launch the application it is running the translated version of the application. There are limitations to what the translator can translate, but in general, most applications seem to translate and run with good performance.

Thank you for the info, very helpful.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

As someone super ignorant to Apple silicon vs. Intel, how do apps work that are not yet built for the M1? For example, how does MS Teams work, is it virtualization and if so, are there limitations?

Thanks

I use MS Teams every day and it runs well. I believe it is running through Rosetta 2, which (if I understand it correctly) recompiles it for the M1. So it is not being virtualized or emulated.

Edit - Oops! @s66 and @jerryk beat me to it!

 

[travelsheep]

I love *NOT* having the touchbar, and the keyboard is very good.

Everybody is whining over the touchbar, but I find it brilliant in exactly this situation:

app asks for "save", "delete", "confirm" ... etc

Instead of having to mouse-pointer up to the tiny button on screen I/you can simply press on the touchbar, which is on/above the keyboard. This saves tonnes of time, effort, and nerves. This one feature makes it totally worth it IMO.

 

[James_C]

I have had my M1 MBA for a month now, upgraded from a late 2016 15” MBP. I hated the butterfly keyboard on the MBP, love the keyboard on the Air. The tapered design makes it much more comfortable on my wrists, compared to the thicker, boxier Pro. Under moderate load the fans where very audible on the MBP, the MBA is completely silent. I ran a number of benchmarks and the M1 MBA is 100% faster than my old MBP.

I did not get on with the Touch Bar of my old machine, initially I liked it, but grew to loath it as it was to easy to accidentally trigger ‘send email’ in Outlook or hit the virtual ESC key while typing. The number of times I had to apologise sending a half drafted email.

The M1 MBA is quiet, fast, responsive, it’s like getting your first Mac, and loving the Mac all over again.

 

[playtech1]

I echo OP's feelings - I have the MBA with 16GB/2TB and it inspires in me a level of satisfaction with an Apple product that I have not felt since the 2010 MacBook Air.

The most important thing to me is the omission of the touch bar in a Mac that has excellent performance. But even for those who are touch bar fans, the Air has some of that old Apple magic of everything just working in a delightful way.

Great trackpad (goldilocks-like - not too big, not too small and with Apple's always excellent feel and click), a pretty great keyboard, a screen that is as bright and vibrant as the Pros (even if the technical specs have it a little below in terms of brightness, I don't notice it side-by-side), excellent speakers (for me, better than the MBP13 Pro and perhaps a touch worse than the 12 inch MB which was weirdly great sounding).

I really appreciate the silence when it is pushed and have not noticed throttling in anything I have done yet.

Battery life is long enough that battery is essentially a non-issue. I'm not far enough away from a power socket these days to worry about it, but when I see the battery on 30% I know I don't have to bother plugging it in, which in day to day use is the thing that I appreciate about it.

Overall it's just a really great laptop - Apple finally has one I can recommend to friends and family after the wilderness years of the butterfly keyboard and lacklustre Retina Intel Airs.

 

[faxao]

I echo OP's feelings - I have the MBA with 16GB/2TB and it inspires in me a level of satisfaction with an Apple product that I have not felt since the 2010 MacBook Air.

The most important thing to me is the omission of the touch bar in a Mac that has excellent performance. But even for those who are touch bar fans, the Air has some of that old Apple magic of everything just working in a delightful way.

Great trackpad (goldilocks-like - not too big, not too small and with Apple's always excellent feel and click), a pretty great keyboard, a screen that is as bright and vibrant as the Pros (even if the technical specs have it a little below in terms of brightness, I don't notice it side-by-side), excellent speakers (for me, better than the MBP13 Pro and perhaps a touch worse than the 12 inch MB which was weirdly great sounding).

I really appreciate the silence when it is pushed and have not noticed throttling in anything I have done yet.

Battery life is long enough that battery is essentially a non-issue. I'm not far enough away from a power socket these days to worry about it, but when I see the battery on 30% I know I don't have to bother plugging it in, which in day to day use is the thing that I appreciate about it.

Overall it's just a really great laptop - Apple finally has one I can recommend to friends and family after the wilderness years of the butterfly keyboard and lacklustre Retina Intel Airs.

+1

This represents 100% my feelings on the new MBA M1 (8+8 cores / 16gb ram / 1 TB disk here)

👍🏻

 

[woodynorman]

I bought an 8GB/512 initially. Love it. But my wife is now working for me and needed a new computer. Yesterday I received my 16GB/1TB Air. I love it even more! Its blazing fast!