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M1 Video Conferences Benchmarks (Skype, Zoom etc.)

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phl92

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2020
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I am watching and reading a lot about benchmarks and performance in video rendering, but like maybe others of you, I am stuck here with daily video conferences, mostly in Skype.

I returned my MBP 13” 2020 because I could use it only for around 4 hours video conferences and my MBP got hot already after 15min.

I guess Skype being a Microsoft App, we won’t see a ARM adaption anytime soon, but how well does it run under Rosetta 2? Battery time and heat would be particular interesting.

Maybe we can get some nice benchmarks in this aspect also with Zoom and Microsoft Teams (which was ridiculous bad under Intel MBP’s )

Thanks for all testers!
 
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andyr77 said:
I have an hour long Zoom call coming up shortly. I can report back on how much battery percentage it will consume
Click to expand...
Thanks - what I'm wondering about is whether the M1 MBA (especially 8GB) will have decreased performance due to throttling given slow performance during video calls on my 2020 i5 8GB MBA with lots of fan noise
 
phl92 said:
Maybe we can get some nice benchmarks in this aspect also with Zoom and Microsoft Teams (which was ridiculous bad under Intel MBP’s )
Click to expand...
Teams is also a mess with Windows laptops :)

But yes, all experiences with video conferences would also be very interesting for me! Adobe goto Meeting could be added to the list. Recently I had something like „Bigmaker“ (?). And many other ones. On my early 2015 MBP 13“, they all make the fans blast. (Same with an 2018 i5 Windows laptop). Nevertheless, it bears mentioning that my rather old device still handles this load (several hours with up to 50-60 people). The fans can be ignored thanks to the noise-cancelling of my AirPods Pro :)
Can especially the MBA deal with all this, for hours, without slowing down and/or getting extremely hot? That would be tremendous!
 
t3n.de

Das neue Macbook Pro 13“ im Test: Der M1 wird den Laptop-Markt aufmischen - t3n – digital pioneers

Schnell und mit langer Akkulaufzeit – so lässt sich das neue Macbook Pro 13“ mit dem M1-Chip kurz zusammenfassen. Alles Weitere zeigt unser Test!
t3n.de t3n.de

Maybe due to the language not readable for most here, and also not a accurate benchmark, but they say having had 'several' long Zoom conferences, and other more demanding CPU tasks, they ended never under 13 hours of battery! Which is very good news.

I am still waiting for something concrete, Especially for Skype since I am using it mostly... but I am very optimistic!
 
I can report a very positive experience with Zoom:
  • Camera quality looks better than any other Mac I have ever used
  • Absolutely silent, no fan noise at all
  • 40 minute call and battery went from 100% to 98%
Edit: 50 minute mark now and just dropped to 96%
 
Last edited:
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andyr77 said:
I can report a very positive experience with Zoom:
  • Camera quality looks better than any other Mac I have ever used
  • Absolutely silent, no fan noise at all
  • 40 minute call and battery went from 100% to 98%
Click to expand...
Thanks for reporting! That sounds ridiculous good. Did you use headphones (wireless?) or speakers? Do you happen to use Skype or Teams as well?
Do you use also external webcams?
 
andyr77 said:
I can report a very positive experience with Zoom:
  • Camera quality looks better than any other Mac I have ever used
  • Absolutely silent, no fan noise at all
  • 40 minute call and battery went from 100% to 98%
Edit: 50 minute mark now and just dropped to 96%
Click to expand...
What about the CPU temperature?
 
I just used the built in speakers for Zoom.
My meeting just ended at 1 hour and 1 minute and battery is at 94%
I seemed like it sat at 100% for a very long time before finally dropping.
I don't have any CPU temp app installed, so don't know, but fan never came on.
 
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andyr77 said:
I just used the built in speakers for Zoom.
My meeting just ended at 1 hour and 1 minute and battery is at 94%
I seemed like it sat at 100% for a very long time before finally dropping.
I don't have any CPU temp app installed, so don't know, but fan never came on.
Click to expand...
Well this "staying on 100%" very long time I noticed on many devices, also my Iphone is sometimes not changing within the first 40-70min usage. Thanks for your review, further interesting will be a full day of several conferences. But I guess 6-10% per hour seems realistic.
 
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cmhsam said:
if you opt in for their beta program you can get access to the M1 Office
Click to expand...
nah.

i want the same office as everyone at my uni.

i probably get 200 emails/day with office attachment and every one needs to open and be signed.

a slight hiccup really ****s my day up.
 
andyr77 said:
I just used the built in speakers for Zoom.
My meeting just ended at 1 hour and 1 minute and battery is at 94%
I seemed like it sat at 100% for a very long time before finally dropping.
I don't have any CPU temp app installed, so don't know, but fan never came on.
Click to expand...
Which M1 computer are you using?
 
andyr77 said:
I can report a very positive experience with Zoom:
  • Camera quality looks better than any other Mac I have ever used
  • Absolutely silent, no fan noise at all
  • 40 minute call and battery went from 100% to 98%
Edit: 50 minute mark now and just dropped to 96%
Click to expand...
Is that Air or Pro? And by any chance were you able to check the CPU usage in Activity monitor?

Zoom is a herring as there are many people who use Zoom for hours. It might not be a "pro-er" use case in these forums, but just imagine a 10-person zoom call and then back to backs.

The iPad can handle it very well, but that is also an iOS App. The Zoom Mac app is a bit more wasteful.

Will be really interesting if there are benchmarks around video conferencing, since these are very power-hungry apps that are probably more useful for real-world case than even a Cinebench or compile times.
 
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Since Zoom is using Rosetta, it's probably going to be even better and more battery efficient. From my limited testing, seems to be 8% per hour
 
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It seems that there's a ton of appetite for a proper review.

Tomorrow I have:
10.00-12.00 Zoom meeting with 9 people
12.00-14.00 Zoom 1:1 meetings (will be a long 2h meeting with people popping in and out)
14.00-15.00 Zoom meeting with 6 people
15.00-15.30 Zoom meeting with 1 person

I'll take some screenshots and posts the battery life throughout the day.

I have a Zoom meeting next FRI with around 350+ people.

I'll run the MBA without any power on both days and see how it goes.

Camera is super solid even in low light. (Zoom is the best app for this though). Speakers seem worse than my 2013 rMBP but I haven't really tested them or the mics.
 
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acidfast7_redux said:
It seems that there's a ton of appetite for a proper review.

Tomorrow I have:
10.00-12.00 Zoom meeting with 9 people
12.00-14.00 Zoom 1:1 meetings (will be a long 2h meeting with people popping in and out)
14.00-15.00 Zoom meeting with 6 people
15.00-15.30 Zoom meeting with 1 person

I'll take some screenshots and posts the battery life throughout the day.

I have a Zoom meeting next FRI with around 350+ people.

I'll run the MBA without any power on both days and see how it goes.

Camera is super solid even in low light. (Zoom is the best app for this though). Speakers seem worse than my 2013 rMBP but I haven't really tested them or the mics.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that would be awesome (especially since you have an 8GB)! Battery life is one thing but I am mostly plugged in these days and just curious whether video calls fall under the ‘sustained performance’ category that the Pro fan is supposed to help and whether the Air will throttle with performance suffering after a point
 
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acidfast7_redux said:
It seems that there's a ton of appetite for a proper review.

Tomorrow I have:
10.00-12.00 Zoom meeting with 9 people
12.00-14.00 Zoom 1:1 meetings (will be a long 2h meeting with people popping in and out)
14.00-15.00 Zoom meeting with 6 people
15.00-15.30 Zoom meeting with 1 person

I'll take some screenshots and posts the battery life throughout the day.

I have a Zoom meeting next FRI with around 350+ people.

I'll run the MBA without any power on both days and see how it goes.

Camera is super solid even in low light. (Zoom is the best app for this though). Speakers seem worse than my 2013 rMBP but I haven't really tested them or the mics.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much!

My thinking is if it can handle Zoom, it can handle anything for the large majority of users as this is the one app that they would consider as the most pro of them all.
 
dingclancy23 said:
Thanks so much!

My thinking is if it can handle Zoom, it can handle anything for the large majority of users as this is the one app that they would consider as the most pro of them all.
Click to expand...
I tend to also use in descending order: WhatsApp Video, FaceBook Messenger Video, Google Meet, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Skype and WeChat.
 
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