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When are you planning to upgrade from your M1 Air and to what?

thadoggfather

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Original poster
Oct 1, 2007
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Not sure for me.

Maybe some M2 variant, if the redesign MBA's are sweet.

the mini LED and such for the 14" seems cool, but I dunno if I wanna return to weighty-ness. When I use my 2016 MBP briefly for x86 stuff and Boot Camp, Im reminded instantly how much I love and prefer the Air's slender and light weighted ness.

Nevermind the keyboard and such but
 
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I'm interested to see the entry-level MPB given that MBA may not come with mini LED. I wouldn't mind a boxier, more evenly weight distributed chassis as the MBA sometimes feels tippy or slides around the table.
 
I'd be tempted if they made a super portable one again. I loved using the 11" Air, and anything with a 13" screen will never be as portable. It was the short depth that made it so nice. 12" MacBook size would be good too.

Unless a new Mac gets a great ultra portable design, I'm ready to use this M1 Air for 5+ years...and maybe until it doesn't get any OS updates. The only limitation I have now is the 2 ports... and that really hasn't been an issue.
 
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Ordered the 14" MBP (M1 Max) on the day it was announced. Easily one of the best upgrades I've ever made despite the M1 Air only being one year old and still being a great machine.
The weight difference is honestly not that noticeable (the MBA is not Retina MacBook unfortunately), whereas the difference in the user experience between the MBA and MBP is IMHO night and day. Going back and forth between the two really makes the compromises in the MBA apparent (only one native external display was honestly terrible among other things.)
The 14" (M1 Max) MBP is the first real, no compromise thin and light / small form factor desktop replacement. It's got great battery life on the go (not as good as the MBA but still very good), and quite literally desktop performance both plugged in and on battery in every category (CPU, GPU, memory bandwidth, etc.) If you're happy with the MacBook Air, I imagine you'll love whatever you eventually upgrade to, but if you're ever left feeling... wanting... by the MBA, there are great options to replace it today.
 
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Malus120 said:
Ordered the 14" MBP (M1 Max) on the day it was announced. Easily one of the best upgrades I've ever made despite the M1 Air only being one year old and still being a great machine.
The weight difference is honestly not that noticeable (the MBA is not Retina MacBook unfortunately), whereas the difference in the user experience between the MBA and MBP is IMHO night and day. Going back and forth between the two really makes the compromises in the MBA apparent (only one native external display was honestly terrible among other things.)
The 14" (M1 Max) MBP is the first real, no compromise thin and light / small form factor desktop replacement. It's got great battery life on the go (not as good as the MBA but still very good), and quite literally desktop performance both plugged in and on battery in every category (CPU, GPU, memory bandwidth, etc.) If you're happy with the MacBook Air, I imagine you'll love whatever you eventually upgrade to, but if you're ever left feeling... wanting... by the MBA, there are great options to replace it today.
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I also have a 14" MBP and am looking forward to seeing/trying the new MBA's. I think the MBP is overkill for what I do - I think the weight/size difference is noticeable (comparing to my daughters MBA) and after hauling in a backpack flying around these last couple of weeks - really makes me want to pare some weight.
 
I'd have no qualms with holding onto mine for a while but if there is a 15" M2 Air coming that would be the one I'd upgrade to.

So long as they don't do the white bezel/keyboard thing that is. But perhaps that's the direction Apple is going to go to further differentiate the Air/Pro models. The MacBook Pros will get the darker color schemes and the Airs will get the lighter ones.

If that does end up being the case, then I guess I'd have no choice if I want that 15" screen lol.
 
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I've got a 2017 13" MBA - the last model with 'all the ports' - which I've used as my home and travel-for-work computer.
But its now 5 years old, out of AppleCare and during a couple of recent travel jaunts, I had a couple of near misses that would have taken it out.

Back home, I gave it all a rethink. How and what I use a computer for when travelling, primarily. The MBA still works fine, so I've decided to make it my 'desktop' and default computer; and during the last Black Friday sales, I picked up a cheap and cheerful 11" ASUS L210 Win11 laptop. It allows me to do all the stuff I need it to do when on-the-road (including familiar software like Office and Firefox), and via iCloud, sync with everything else. And, let's face it, it's more compatible with most other computers and peripherals out there.

All that said, when the MBA finally hits the wall OS or other software-wise, or goes up with whirring of fans and a puff of smoke, I'm considering an iMac. With a cheap laptop handling the mobility issues, a computer actually meant to be in one place might make sense. I mean, providing Apple hasn't super-sized them to 55" by then. And of course, that'll have to include a killer dongle to handle all the ports that used to be built-in - and it compatible to whatever proprietary connection to the iMac that Apple creates by then... ??
 
To 'upgrade' my M1 Air, it would take a 14" screen with the same battery life and run cool as the M1 Air.

I wanted to replace a 10 year old iMac with a Windows notebook. However - I chose the MacBook M1 Air over a windows machine due to the battery life, the cool running processor, and the M1 performance.

I've added a USB-C monitor that functions as a dock for the Air and my office notebook. The USB-C monitors are the best innovation in a long time!
 
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I will likely upgrade on the next release. Next time I will get larger memory for sure (16GB instead of 8GB) and perhaps larger disk (512 GB instead of 256 GB).

So far no issues with 13" screen. So if they offer 13 and 15" I will stick to 13". However, since they are making 14" MBPs I would not be surprised to see a 14" Air, and perhaps a 11 or 12" version. And I would go for the 14".
 
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MBA m1 here.
Already upgraded from Intel Macbook Pro 2019, which battery life was quite down.
So few years until next upgrade.
 
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Upgraded from the MBA M1 to the MacBook Pro 14", was expecting the refresh to the Air to happen sooner. Thing is I needed access to dual external displays and the 8GB RAM was already running thin.

I was waiting for the new M2 model to get with 16GB RAM but oh well it is what it is.
 
MrGunny94 said:
Upgraded from the MBA M1 to the MacBook Pro 14", was expecting the refresh to the Air to happen sooner. Thing is I needed access to dual external displays and the 8GB RAM was already running thin.

I was waiting for the new M2 model to get with 16GB RAM but oh well it is what it is.
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Hi, what are your impressions after the upgrade? Pro and cons?
 
MrGunny94 said:
Pros : better in everything when compared to the air
Cons : Shorter battery life by 3-4h, weights a bit more and loses a bit of "portability" as in close the MacBook and carry it one handed
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That big of a battery life difference?

That surprises me
 
thadoggfather said:
That big of a battery life difference?

That surprises me
Click to expand...
Yeah it might be related to the CPU/GPU I did notice via iStats I'm usually using between 8-25w.

1648399589839.png


Doesn't seem to happen much with the M1 Air, plus don't forget the Mini-LED screen drains way more energy than the standard LCD monitor.

However would still try upgrade! The screen is absolutely amazing, love the crazy performance when connected to dual 4K displays and in general the SSD swap is much much faster the M1 Air (used to do 10GB of swap every day due to the 8GB)

Also this 16GB DDR5 is crazy fast, would honestly upgrade to 32GB because of the transition phase.. Teams somedays eat up to 4GB alone.
 
Unless Apple surprises with something as powerful as the M1 Air but lighter, I doubt I’ll upgrade until at least an M3. I love the current form factor and I have 16 GB and it is unlikely that a new M2 MBA will have a significant speed up. I might be interested if I can get 32 GB though.
 
I know some people dislike the idea of the white keyboard/bezels. I love it. Do I love it enough to buy another 13.x" Air? No. Would I come up with a convincing reason why I NEED a 14-15" one? Oh yessssss. Give me a larger screen Air. Take my money. Eating and paying bills is overrated.
 
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