Well that's disappointing. It clearly looks like your machine is at fault cause I seen the M1 Mac operate in real life and to me it certainly did not beachball. Countless Youtube videos from small and big creators show otherwise too and operating as it meant too.I am going to disagree...
I have an M1 Air (getting sold to it's new owner tonight) and a Latitude 9420 with an i5. With the M1 chip in the Air, I've had the dreaded beachball several times when trying to open a simple app or file. My Windows 10 machine just scoots right through almost everything..
The M1 is faster for many things (power usage) but I would not say the M1 is snappy or that it opens apps and files instantly.