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MacBook Air M1 16GB 1TB First Impressions

kp98077 said:
so you got the 13" pro? it really is quiet and doesnt get hot? and faster?
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yes, I was concerned it would spin the fan up often like every other macbook pro I have owned. It doesnt..and when it does spin up the fan you cant even hear it. Under normal daily use it doesnt even get warm to the touch, feels like its off...another thing I never experienced with any recent macbooks. As far as speed goes, its so much faster in basically every single thing you could possibly do. I played an hour of liftoff fpv simulator last night and it plays as smooth as my 7700k desktop with rtx 2080 (and its doing it at a higher resolution). every mac steam game I have tried has been incredible. never thought id be gaming on a mac.
 
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Would you agree 16GB M1 is not the same as 16GB Intel?

I work with over two dozen programs opened at startup. A 16GB Intel would choke.

I am trying to figure out if 16GB M1 is perhaps the new 32GB and I would be safe to go ahead and get a Mini with that configuration.
 
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OP’s comments about the keyboard are concerning. Anyone else got any input on that? The latest scissor keyboards were great, be such a shame if they moved back away from them.
 
Madmischief said:
@hefeglass did you go for the MBP vs the Air for more cpu bandwidth undef stress or for the better screen etc?
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I did it for the slightly longer battery life, better screen..and the touchbar (used to hate it but with better touch tool its great). I didnt want another air, I have a 2020 macbook air which I bought a few months ago when I was getting my 2017 macbook pro battery replaced. Now the 2017 macbook pro has failing usb c ports and I needed a replacement. Figured id get the pro, the size/weight difference between the air and pro is negligible imo.
 
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NJRonbo said:
Would you agree 16GB M1 is not the same as 16GB Intel?

I work with over two dozen programs opened at startup. A 16GB Intel would choke.

I am trying to figure out if 16GB M1 is perhaps the new 32GB and I would be safe to go ahead and get a Mini with that configuration.
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i been used ram from edo. i would said 16 gb ddr3 , 16gb ddr3l, 16gb ddr4 all the same. the matter now as how the big surr compress the data and uncompress with new ddr4x something . i have install big surr on my imac 2017 and kabooom.
 
alien3dx said:
i been used ram from edo. i would said 16 gb ddr3 , 16gb ddr3l, 16gb ddr4 all the same. the matter now as how the big surr compress the data and uncompress with new ddr4x something . i have install big surr on my imac 2017 and kabooom.
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Could you put that in simpler terms? You put a laughing emoji behind my statement that 16GB on an M1 may be equal to 32GB. Some reviewers are suggesting that. I am not sure why you are laughing that off.

Sincerely, I really need to know if 16GB goes much farther in an M1 than an Intel machine, particularly when having so many startup programs working in the background.
 
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NJRonbo said:
Could you put that in simpler terms? You put a laughing emoji behind my statement that 16GB on an M1 may be equal to 32GB. Some reviewers are suggesting that. I am not sure why you are laughing that off.

Sincerely, I really need to know if 16GB goes much farther in an M1 than an Intel machine, particularly when having so many startup programs working in the background.
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For me, my priority utmost is ram size . I remove all startup possible because i need the most of the ram . 16GB DDR4X doesn't mean it will be same as 32 GB ram. Been used all type of ram including the server ram. All the same including the very rare itanium(real 64 intel) not extension amd 64 like current.

Sorry , I'm not youtuber reviewer but I create web system, apps and so on and old time we been teach to reduce the memory as possible but new era kiddo would said if ram not used not useful. The laugh for young kiddo thinking ram 8 GB or 16 GB is enough upon compress and decompressing while for me not. Maybe old mind thinking is diff.
 
alien3dx said:
For me, my priority utmost is ram size . I remove all startup possible because i need the most of the ram . 16GB DDR4X doesn't mean it will be same as 32 GB ram. Been used all type of ram including the server ram. All the same including the very rare itanium(real 64 intel) not extension amd 64 like current.

Sorry , I'm not youtuber reviewer but I create web system, apps and so on and old time we been teach to reduce the memory as possible but new era kiddo would said if ram not used not useful. The laugh for young kiddo thinking ram 8 GB or 16 GB is enough upon compress and decompressing while for me not. Maybe old mind thinking is diff.
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Okay. So, in other words, wait for the better Minis to come out as 16GB will be very limiting to my kind of computing.

Thanks for your response.
 
NJRonbo said:
Okay. So, in other words, wait for the better Minis to come out as 16GB will be very limiting to my kind of computing.

Thanks for your response.
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im waiting apple in my country sell the latest m1 but not available :(
 
I've now completed the review of the M1 MacBook Air in the context of Travel Photography. You can read the review here.

tl;dr:

1. Astonishing performance for photo editing, especially exporting large images
2. Amazing battery life under even the most intense workloads
3. Great to have the P3 colour gamut, which closes the gap to the Pro models
4. Rosetta 2 works way better than expected with large performance gains vs. the Intel model

Hope you enjoy the review. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
 
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How snappy is the rotation tool? This can be very sluggish with weak systems. Do you have also times for smaller files like 20-24 MPx.
 
Whitesnake-C1 said:
How snappy is the rotation tool? This can be very sluggish with weak systems. Do you have also times for smaller files like 20-24 MPx.
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Much, much better than the i7 computer, but still not buttery smooth. I think that’s more to do with Capture One than the computer though. Even my i9 iMac isn’t buttery smooth with rotation.
 
fcracer said:
I've now completed the review of the M1 MacBook Air in the context of Travel Photography. You can read the review here.

tl;dr:

1. Astonishing performance for photo editing, especially exporting large images
2. Amazing battery life under even the most intense workloads
3. Great to have the P3 colour gamut, which closes the gap to the Pro models
4. Rosetta 2 works way better than expected with large performance gains vs. the Intel model

Hope you enjoy the review. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
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Nice review!
 
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My quick first impressions now I have mine:

  • It's tiny! It's the same size screen as my old MBs, but the bezels are tiny and the laptop is really thin and light.
  • The keyboard is a bit clicky. Not like the times I tried the butterfly, but definitely clickier than my old machine.
  • The screen is amazing, but comparing it side-by-side I think the black level is only good rather than excellent.
  • App compatibility is definitely a thing. I've already found some of my own code that it doesn't like.
  • It's insanely super fast. Reviews were not lying about how incredibly fast it is.
I cannot stress enough how small and light the Air feels - I actually found it a bit disconcerting. I would compare its construction and overall feel to a high-end iPad. I have no idea why people want smaller bezels - they're already tiny!

I think I didn't really need this thing lol but it's a very nice machine. Poking around coding on ARM for the desktop has been really interesting.
 
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Silvestru Hosszu said:
Although I do not encourage this behavior (using pirated software is a crime), you know the saying .... where is a will there is way.
But I doubt that it will be easy.
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Not to be picking an argument in this ageing thread, but what crime is being committed? I don’t have any any pirated software on my computers but that’s not because I fear any legal consequences.
 
I have run some tests with my new base MacBook Pro M1 (8 GB RAM, 256 GB Storage). Short: no need for 16 GB RAM and I don't get it how a company can throw such a beast as their first product on the market.

Benchmarks: Export of edited (4C & B/W mixed) 593 Nikon Z6-nef-Files (24 MPx) to 4000 px jpgs with 70 quality in Capture One v21. In all tests no other application was opened and Capture One was minimized during the export-process:

  • Workstation on steroids (Ryzen 3900x, 32 GB overclocked RAM, undervolted Vega VII): 3:18 min
  • HP Laptop 830 G5 (untervolted Intel 8350U with integrated 620 graphics, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB very fast storage): 35:00 min (plugged in), I didn't test unplugged, it would take too much time.
  • Base MacBook Pro (M1, 8 GB RAM, 8 Core Graphics): 12:17 min (unplugged)
This is very, very serious business.

Editing pictures isn't so smooth like on the workstation (because of the weaker GPU), but it's really okay. I didn't dig deep enough (Styles, etc.), but the first impression is more than surprising.

This is looking bad for the classic PC-sector in terms of workstation-performance but even worse for Intel. Apple has the momentum.

And the Mac is running C1 emulated and draws a fraction of the power compared to the workstation. Very, very impressive.

My background: I switched in April 2020 after 13 years from Apple to Windows because of the cost efficiency of the Windows hardware and didn't plan to buy a Apple laptop/desktop in the next future.
 
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fcracer said:
I've now completed the review of the M1 MacBook Air in the context of Travel Photography. You can read the review here.

tl;dr:

1. Astonishing performance for photo editing, especially exporting large images
2. Amazing battery life under even the most intense workloads
3. Great to have the P3 colour gamut, which closes the gap to the Pro models
4. Rosetta 2 works way better than expected with large performance gains vs. the Intel model

Hope you enjoy the review. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Click to expand...
Fantastic review. Really enjoyed it. As we are very close together in use-case (I am a graphic designer / photographer, ordered a MBA 8/16/512 as a transition-machine for higher performance using Capture one (w. Fuji) doing sessions around different places), I really appreciate your efforts AND results 😀. One thing you did not touch on was, and I am very curious about this: I don't know about you, but working with photography, I tend to keep pretty high brightness levels, and I was wondering: What is the battery life like, doing Capture Ones sessions at a relatively high screen brightness?

P.S. Coming from a MBP 15" late 2018, 32 GB ram, VEGA20 GPU. The most expensive, but also the worst of all the Mac laptops I have owned (first one was the Ibook G3 toilet-seat, then 12" Pro, and numerous MacBook Pros). Bad keyboard, bad battery life, so-so performance, hot and loud fans etc.
 
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Whitesnake-C1 said:
My background: I switched in April 2020 after 13 years from Apple to Windows because of the cost efficiency of the Windows hardware and didn't plan to buy a Apple laptop/desktop in the next future.
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And now (2021) you're switching back from windows to mac?
 
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