9 ms·

Man, the M1 Macs are the first piece of tech in a while that I’ve felt myself actively pining over. They just seem… really goddamn fast. Everybody talks about i

by ketzo 5y ago

Man, the M1 Macs are the first piece of tech in a while that I’ve felt myself actively pining over. They just seem… really goddamn fast. Everybody talks about it so glowingly. Hoping I can pick one up soon. I figure the Pro is probably the right move for a developer workload, although I do like the size of the Air.

christkv 5y ago
I got a MacBook Pro with the max cpu and it’s made such a difference in my day to day Kotlin work and the battery time is stunning considering how high the cpu usage is when working in IntelliJ
andy_ppp 5y ago
I wish they would make an Air with a 15 inch screen, could be incredible - the one that Ive wanted all the machines to become…
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- raihansaputra 5y ago
  Yes yes yes. I think Apple is scared to cannibalize the 16" Pro, although it's already quite differentiated. Pro is quite focused on media workloads rather than pure performance/dev workloads. I can see some dev workloads needing the pro, but most would be great on the base chip. With the level of performance on the M1, I'll take the battery life and less weight on the Air over more cores. I hope the next gen base chip (M2?) will have more display output and more RAM, and the MBAir line up will have a 15/16" size (with the Pro speakers).
  - tokamak-teapot 5y ago
    Lots of corporate users here who love their Macs but don't need the media features. 13" Airs are lovely, but plenty of us would go for a bigger screen if it was an option.
- greenburger 5y ago
  You may soon be in luck: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/23/15-inch-macbook-air-2023/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/23/15-inch-macbook-air-202...
BackBlast 5y ago
You only need the Pro if you have some very parallizable workloads (large compilations, or heavily threaded long-running stuff), or you need ram > 16GB. In regular use or development I know I don't really touch all the extra cores developing webstacks. When I need to run VMs for mobile development I kind of miss having more ram available, I feel like I have to close all my extra applications. An Air/Mini with 32GB would be perfect for me.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > You only need the Pro if you have some very parallizable workloads (large compilations, or heavily threaded long-running stuff), or you need ram > 16GB. Or you want a large screen, or IO, or more than one external display, … There’s a billion reasons to want/need the pro (unlike the max).
cmckn 5y ago
I got an Air last spring, and yeah--it is really quick. Though I will say, my workload didn't see the sort of absurd speedup that some reviewers ogle about. I also still don't have a comfortable dev experience on the M1, because the world just isn't ARM-centric (yet). It's a great secondary computer, but unless you're an Apple developer, you should expect friction. I recently built a 12th-gen Intel workstation for my main dev machine, because x86 is still the path of least resistance for the type of work I do. It's got a ton more cores, a higher memory ceiling, and faster storage than the MacBook. I'd choose this over a Mac Studio, too; because I built it for a third of the price. I love my Macs, but I'm enjoying linux (again, for the type of work I do). Different strokes, etc.
- 2143 5y ago
  Have you tried AMD? I don't know if they're suitable for your work, but I personally think AMD is great. Works well with Linux. They're definitely more open than Intel. And I felt (perhaps incorrectly) that you get more horsepower for your buck with AMD. Of course, M1 is pretty cool too.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Love me some AMD, running them on all my machines currently. However on desktop where power usage isn't an issue, Intel 12th gen performance has pulled ahead of AMD. Theoretically even on laptops too but I suspect they have the common problem of powerful Intel cpus in laptops where they cooling just can't hack it and they throttle to make it worthless getting top end Intel. So I believe AMD is still better on laptops presently.
    - eertami 5y ago
      I don't disagree, but it is worth pointing out that Alder Lake released Nov 2021, one year after Zen 3 (Nov 2020). It'll be interesting to see what happens in the fight between Zen 4 and Raptor Lake. Right now feels like an awkward time to build a PC.
      - 5y ago
thatswrong0 5y ago
Yeah, I'm completely satisfied. The M1 Pro is definitely the best computer for the money I've purchased, despite it costing an arm and a leg to get more RAM and SSD space. For my workload (music production), and despite still having to run Ableton through Rosetta, it can handle roughly twice as many tracks as my 2018 MBP (which luckily is _not_ something I purchased). All my previous "problem" projects now run perfectly. And this is all while running completely silently and barely getting warm compared to my 2018 MBP, which runs fans full blast and gets super hot if I so much as glance at Ableton. Can't say I miss the hiss of the fan when I'm trying to mix tracks. If the developers of plugins I use all the time ever get their ducks in a row and finally get around to updating them to support native ARM (that's the current limiting factor), I imagine it will be even better. Kind of embarrassing that it's taking some devs so long.. Steve Duda managed to get Serum updated within a couple months of the original M1 release.
- readyp1 5y ago
  I'm currently testing an M1-based Air to see if I'd like to purchase something similar. I can confirm this for sure; the project files that made my current, not-even-old Windows laptop with similar stats choke are running like a dream even on this Air. BTW, if you have a license for Live 11, version 11.1 forward has a Universal build, so it can run natively on M1 Macs rather than through Rosetta. [0] [0] https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001261150-Mac-Compatibility-with-Live https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001261150-Mac-...
  - tallytarik 5y ago
    The parent commenter's problem sounds like it's third-party plugins rather than Live itself. FL Studio also has a build for ARM, but it runs each non-ARM plugin in a wrapper which somehow uses an entire CPU core. After loading more than a couple of plugins I see something that is otherwise unheard of on my M1 Macbook - 1000% CPU usage and fans at full speed. So I stick to running the app via Rosetta - higher-than-average CPU usage in general, but it means my plugins behave.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
jamra 5y ago
I have the air and the pro. The air is plenty fast but can be difficult when you have large RAM consumption use cases such as doing front end workloads. It also can have some visual lag if you’re plugging into a larger monitor. The pro, though very fast, can also hang when leaving too many apps open. But I did leave way too much running. It feels blazingly fast. You should really think about that workloads you will use in the day to day. And also consider if you’re docking it. If you are, the pro is a much safer bet and the screen brightness and size is less relevant. So the tldr is that the 64Gb of ram is the big differentiation. The other is plugging monitors into the pro.
- raihansaputra 5y ago
  Anecdata but I haven't seen any display lag from the Air M1. 4k + internal display on the 8GB works fine. 4k + internal + iPad Sidecar works fine on the 16GB. I'm also doing FE workloads, 8GB is nearly there but the swap is still fast. I still have some swap usage on the 16GB but mostly because of Chrome tabs rather than workloads.
  - chris37879 5y ago
    I have a bug that when I'm using sidecar (and I think sometimes my hotkey remapper triggers it too, somehow) that causes the window server to just spiral up to a whole CPU core and like 4GB of ram... if I restart the process, all is good until the machine sleeps, or a display reconnects.
slivanes 5y ago
We've compared docker performance between Intel and M1 and the M1 falls quite a bit far behind in response times. We can't do exact comparisons due to CPU differences, but for Docker I can't say it is in a good state right now (yes we enabled the docker filesystem beta enhancement for M1). This is for x86 containers at this time. It is much better than it was not so long ago due to actually working at all, and it appears there is much more room for optimization, so the comparison is not over yet. But as of right now, it isn't that great.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  Isn't it unfair to use x86 containers instead of AArch for the M1?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    It's also unfair to use MacOS instead of an operating system with proper container support, but sometimes "fairness" doesn't matter as much as "how the machine is going to be used"
    - datatrashfire 5y ago
      It's actually pretty impressive how much faster Docker builds containers on M1 running in aarch Linux VM vs on Docker Desktop. But to your point about "how the machine is used", I've encountered very few devs who care.
  - snapcore 5y ago
    In the real world, you might be able only to get x86 containers. It's one of the issues of apple switching to arm.
    - X-Istence 5y ago
      I don’t think it’s an Apple issue.
nerdawson 5y ago
I had a top of the line 2019 MBP docked in a dual-display setup. A YouTube video, a video call, any sort of slightly more demanding workload and the fans would be on full blast. Switch over to the battery and it’d last 2 to 4 hours for typical web dev work. I picked up an M1 Pro last week and it really has lived up to expectations. It’s silent no matter what I throw at it, far faster, and after 5 hours of use I still have 76% remaining. The new MBP is as game-changing as everyone claims.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  It is the first laptop I can use in my lap for development without frying my balls in a long long time, I expect a jump in the fertility of software engineers in the next years.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > I picked up an M1 Pro last week and it really has lived up to expectations. It’s silent no matter what I throw at it, far faster, and after 5 hours of use I still have 76% remaining That's what i expected too. I was really disappointed that after a two hour Teams call(browser) the battery was at 50%. I know Teams is a dumpster fire, but still, my multi year old Ubuntu XPS 13 did better than this.
  - nerdawson 5y ago
    I’ve yet to attempt a video call on battery power but I have heard of a similar experience from a friend.
- jorams 5y ago
  I fully believe the M1 is game-changing, but that sounds like you're comparing it to an atrocious alternative. I have an HP Spectre x360 from 2018. The fans don't spin up unless I'm running heavy computation, and on battery, after 4 years, it still lasts about a workday.
  - nerdawson 5y ago
    I agree entirely. My point of reference is a laptop that was, in hindsight, a total disappointment. I'm bought into the Apple ecosystem though and it was the best Apple laptop that money could buy 3 years back. I did look at Windows alternatives at the time but ultimately decided that I wanted to remain on Mac.
Nursie 5y ago
I bought the Air as I had a bit of a deadline for getting a new machine and could not wait for the 14 or 16 inch models to be released. The Air is silent, it's powerful enough for fairly serious dev workloads, it has a battery that lasts longer than I've ever seen before and it can run multiple displays if you get a compatible displaylink dock. If you like it, there's little reason not to get one AFAICT. Make sure to grab the 16GB of RAM though!
- abledon 5y ago
  I'm not a 'product' person... but the macbook air m1, is a GAME CHANGER with having no fan whatsoever, and generating very little heat. It brings me joy everyday to use it and that rarely happens from using a physical device. Its the first 'laptop' that I can comfortably have on my lap for hours on end
- vl 5y ago
  > If you like it, there's little reason not to get one AFAICT. According to MacRumors update guide Air should be updated very soon, so I’m personally waiting for the updated version.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    Fair enough. And if they do then I imagine the (easily worked around) screen limitation will probably be lifted, so that's a decent reason.
- hughrr 5y ago
  Just a heads up with this. If you want one, make sure you get an off the shelf config if you can. The turnaround times for replacements and repair is likely to be bad on non stock configurations. This pushed me to the 14” MBP with 16GB and 1TB. You can literally get it swapped out same day at apple stores if anything goes wonky.
EnKopVand 5y ago
I wound up in a bit of a analysis paralysis figuring out what to replace my old 2015 13” mbp pro with. As a lot of others I looked to the pros, and went down the “well if I’m spending x, then I might as well spend a little extra to get so much more”. Long story short, I ended up buying the smallest Air available with no upgrades, and I’m so happy that I did. Unless you’re doing some serious heavy lifting it’ll be fine, and at it’s small price point it’s not something I worry about breaking. That last part may be an ADHD thing, but it does add to the experience of using a laptop around the house where you also have a car and a 3 year old. I was on the fence about the 8gb ram, but it frankly out performs my work t14s thinkpad which has 32gb for any sort of programming I do on it. The only real downside is the lack of the MagSafe charger, but it holds power so well that it’s rarely in the charger when I’m using it. So my advice would be to get the smallest air, unless you know why you’re getting something more powerful.
- steveBK123 5y ago
  The stupid base mb air is so good, and I say this as someone who was consistently buying $2500 15" mb pros in the intel days..
- thathndude 5y ago
  I had one of the original M1 pros. Upgraded to a 16” max fully loaded. I notice no difference in performance. The extent of my “hardcore” use is having dozens of safari tabs open. If/when MacBook Air gets the M2 redesign (hopefully with the super nice screen), that will be the no brainer purchase of the decade.
  - epolanski 5y ago
    You would've not found much performance difference downgrading either if that's all of your use case. Why did you upgrade a machine that was already good enough?
  - gurkendoktor 5y ago
    I have moved from a 13" M1 Air to the 16" M1 Pro only because I wanted a bigger screen for traveling. I feel some buyer's remorse because it was more than twice as expensive, and I don't really care about the extra speed or memory (yet?). It's also really heavy, and I don't love its looks. What I'd absolutely buy is a 16" MacBook Air, like an Apple version of the LG Gram. Edit: For comparison, the 16" LG Gram with a discrete Nvidia GPU is exactly as light as the 13" M1 MacBook Air, and supposedly it has great battery life. And all those ports...sigh...
whalesalad 5y ago
I daily drive a Mini and it’s the fastest computer I’ve ever owned as far as the butt dyno and day to day latency. Murphy’s law is back baby.
omegalulw 5y ago
Keep in mind that M1 is on 5nm but last I checked neither Intel nor AMD arent there yet so I expect competition to heat up even more!
EricE 5y ago
If you don't need more than 16GB of RAM the Air will more than likely be more than good enough for you. The only reason I returned my Air and waited for the MacBook Pro I'm typing on now is I made the mistake of loading some games on the Air - and one game I love suffers due to my mod addiction and can really use more RAM. And that's something that many people don't seem to realize - if you buy from Apple directly they have a two week no questions asked return policy. Obviously the machine has to work and you need to return all the parts, but if you aren't sure you could always get an Air and you have two weeks to make up your mind if it's sufficient or not. Man, it was SO hard taking it back and waiting 9 months before the MacBook Pro's came out. So be careful - once you taste and M1 Mac it's almost impossible to go back to anything else :) At least if you decide the Air isn't for you after all you'll only have to wait at max a few weeks.

by ketzo 5y ago

christkv 5y ago

I got a MacBook Pro with the max cpu and it’s made such a difference in my day to day Kotlin work and the battery time is stunning considering how high the cpu usage is when working in IntelliJ

andy_ppp 5y ago

I wish they would make an Air with a 15 inch screen, could be incredible - the one that Ive wanted all the machines to become…

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
raihansaputra 5y ago
Yes yes yes. I think Apple is scared to cannibalize the 16" Pro, although it's already quite differentiated. Pro is quite focused on media workloads rather than pure performance/dev workloads. I can see some dev workloads needing the pro, but most would be great on the base chip. With the level of performance on the M1, I'll take the battery life and less weight on the Air over more cores. I hope the next gen base chip (M2?) will have more display output and more RAM, and the MBAir line up will have a 15/16" size (with the Pro speakers).
- tokamak-teapot 5y ago
  Lots of corporate users here who love their Macs but don't need the media features. 13" Airs are lovely, but plenty of us would go for a bigger screen if it was an option.
greenburger 5y ago
You may soon be in luck: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/23/15-inch-macbook-air-2023/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/23/15-inch-macbook-air-202...

BackBlast 5y ago

You only need the Pro if you have some very parallizable workloads (large compilations, or heavily threaded long-running stuff), or you need ram > 16GB. In regular use or development I know I don't really touch all the extra cores developing webstacks. When I need to run VMs for mobile development I kind of miss having more ram available, I feel like I have to close all my extra applications. An Air/Mini with 32GB would be perfect for me.

masklinn 5y ago
> You only need the Pro if you have some very parallizable workloads (large compilations, or heavily threaded long-running stuff), or you need ram > 16GB. Or you want a large screen, or IO, or more than one external display, … There’s a billion reasons to want/need the pro (unlike the max).

cmckn 5y ago

I got an Air last spring, and yeah--it is really quick. Though I will say, my workload didn't see the sort of absurd speedup that some reviewers ogle about. I also still don't have a comfortable dev experience on the M1, because the world just isn't ARM-centric (yet). It's a great secondary computer, but unless you're an Apple developer, you should expect friction. I recently built a 12th-gen Intel workstation for my main dev machine, because x86 is still the path of least resistance for the type of work I do. It's got a ton more cores, a higher memory ceiling, and faster storage than the MacBook. I'd choose this over a Mac Studio, too; because I built it for a third of the price. I love my Macs, but I'm enjoying linux (again, for the type of work I do). Different strokes, etc.

2143 5y ago
Have you tried AMD? I don't know if they're suitable for your work, but I personally think AMD is great. Works well with Linux. They're definitely more open than Intel. And I felt (perhaps incorrectly) that you get more horsepower for your buck with AMD. Of course, M1 is pretty cool too.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Love me some AMD, running them on all my machines currently. However on desktop where power usage isn't an issue, Intel 12th gen performance has pulled ahead of AMD. Theoretically even on laptops too but I suspect they have the common problem of powerful Intel cpus in laptops where they cooling just can't hack it and they throttle to make it worthless getting top end Intel. So I believe AMD is still better on laptops presently.
  - eertami 5y ago
    I don't disagree, but it is worth pointing out that Alder Lake released Nov 2021, one year after Zen 3 (Nov 2020). It'll be interesting to see what happens in the fight between Zen 4 and Raptor Lake. Right now feels like an awkward time to build a PC.
    - 5y ago

thatswrong0 5y ago

Yeah, I'm completely satisfied. The M1 Pro is definitely the best computer for the money I've purchased, despite it costing an arm and a leg to get more RAM and SSD space. For my workload (music production), and despite still having to run Ableton through Rosetta, it can handle roughly twice as many tracks as my 2018 MBP (which luckily is _not_ something I purchased). All my previous "problem" projects now run perfectly. And this is all while running completely silently and barely getting warm compared to my 2018 MBP, which runs fans full blast and gets super hot if I so much as glance at Ableton. Can't say I miss the hiss of the fan when I'm trying to mix tracks. If the developers of plugins I use all the time ever get their ducks in a row and finally get around to updating them to support native ARM (that's the current limiting factor), I imagine it will be even better. Kind of embarrassing that it's taking some devs so long.. Steve Duda managed to get Serum updated within a couple months of the original M1 release.

readyp1 5y ago
I'm currently testing an M1-based Air to see if I'd like to purchase something similar. I can confirm this for sure; the project files that made my current, not-even-old Windows laptop with similar stats choke are running like a dream even on this Air. BTW, if you have a license for Live 11, version 11.1 forward has a Universal build, so it can run natively on M1 Macs rather than through Rosetta. [0] [0] https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001261150-Mac-Compatibility-with-Live https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001261150-Mac-...
- tallytarik 5y ago
  The parent commenter's problem sounds like it's third-party plugins rather than Live itself. FL Studio also has a build for ARM, but it runs each non-ARM plugin in a wrapper which somehow uses an entire CPU core. After loading more than a couple of plugins I see something that is otherwise unheard of on my M1 Macbook - 1000% CPU usage and fans at full speed. So I stick to running the app via Rosetta - higher-than-average CPU usage in general, but it means my plugins behave.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago

jamra 5y ago

I have the air and the pro. The air is plenty fast but can be difficult when you have large RAM consumption use cases such as doing front end workloads. It also can have some visual lag if you’re plugging into a larger monitor. The pro, though very fast, can also hang when leaving too many apps open. But I did leave way too much running. It feels blazingly fast. You should really think about that workloads you will use in the day to day. And also consider if you’re docking it. If you are, the pro is a much safer bet and the screen brightness and size is less relevant. So the tldr is that the 64Gb of ram is the big differentiation. The other is plugging monitors into the pro.

raihansaputra 5y ago
Anecdata but I haven't seen any display lag from the Air M1. 4k + internal display on the 8GB works fine. 4k + internal + iPad Sidecar works fine on the 16GB. I'm also doing FE workloads, 8GB is nearly there but the swap is still fast. I still have some swap usage on the 16GB but mostly because of Chrome tabs rather than workloads.
- chris37879 5y ago
  I have a bug that when I'm using sidecar (and I think sometimes my hotkey remapper triggers it too, somehow) that causes the window server to just spiral up to a whole CPU core and like 4GB of ram... if I restart the process, all is good until the machine sleeps, or a display reconnects.

slivanes 5y ago

We've compared docker performance between Intel and M1 and the M1 falls quite a bit far behind in response times. We can't do exact comparisons due to CPU differences, but for Docker I can't say it is in a good state right now (yes we enabled the docker filesystem beta enhancement for M1). This is for x86 containers at this time. It is much better than it was not so long ago due to actually working at all, and it appears there is much more room for optimization, so the comparison is not over yet. But as of right now, it isn't that great.

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
Isn't it unfair to use x86 containers instead of AArch for the M1?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It's also unfair to use MacOS instead of an operating system with proper container support, but sometimes "fairness" doesn't matter as much as "how the machine is going to be used"
  - datatrashfire 5y ago
    It's actually pretty impressive how much faster Docker builds containers on M1 running in aarch Linux VM vs on Docker Desktop. But to your point about "how the machine is used", I've encountered very few devs who care.
- snapcore 5y ago
  In the real world, you might be able only to get x86 containers. It's one of the issues of apple switching to arm.
  - X-Istence 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s an Apple issue.

nerdawson 5y ago

I had a top of the line 2019 MBP docked in a dual-display setup. A YouTube video, a video call, any sort of slightly more demanding workload and the fans would be on full blast. Switch over to the battery and it’d last 2 to 4 hours for typical web dev work. I picked up an M1 Pro last week and it really has lived up to expectations. It’s silent no matter what I throw at it, far faster, and after 5 hours of use I still have 76% remaining. The new MBP is as game-changing as everyone claims.

elzbardico 5y ago
It is the first laptop I can use in my lap for development without frying my balls in a long long time, I expect a jump in the fertility of software engineers in the next years.
sofixa 5y ago
> I picked up an M1 Pro last week and it really has lived up to expectations. It’s silent no matter what I throw at it, far faster, and after 5 hours of use I still have 76% remaining That's what i expected too. I was really disappointed that after a two hour Teams call(browser) the battery was at 50%. I know Teams is a dumpster fire, but still, my multi year old Ubuntu XPS 13 did better than this.
- nerdawson 5y ago
  I’ve yet to attempt a video call on battery power but I have heard of a similar experience from a friend.
jorams 5y ago
I fully believe the M1 is game-changing, but that sounds like you're comparing it to an atrocious alternative. I have an HP Spectre x360 from 2018. The fans don't spin up unless I'm running heavy computation, and on battery, after 4 years, it still lasts about a workday.
- nerdawson 5y ago
  I agree entirely. My point of reference is a laptop that was, in hindsight, a total disappointment. I'm bought into the Apple ecosystem though and it was the best Apple laptop that money could buy 3 years back. I did look at Windows alternatives at the time but ultimately decided that I wanted to remain on Mac.

Nursie 5y ago

I bought the Air as I had a bit of a deadline for getting a new machine and could not wait for the 14 or 16 inch models to be released. The Air is silent, it's powerful enough for fairly serious dev workloads, it has a battery that lasts longer than I've ever seen before and it can run multiple displays if you get a compatible displaylink dock. If you like it, there's little reason not to get one AFAICT. Make sure to grab the 16GB of RAM though!

abledon 5y ago
I'm not a 'product' person... but the macbook air m1, is a GAME CHANGER with having no fan whatsoever, and generating very little heat. It brings me joy everyday to use it and that rarely happens from using a physical device. Its the first 'laptop' that I can comfortably have on my lap for hours on end
vl 5y ago
> If you like it, there's little reason not to get one AFAICT. According to MacRumors update guide Air should be updated very soon, so I’m personally waiting for the updated version.
- Nursie 5y ago
  Fair enough. And if they do then I imagine the (easily worked around) screen limitation will probably be lifted, so that's a decent reason.
hughrr 5y ago
Just a heads up with this. If you want one, make sure you get an off the shelf config if you can. The turnaround times for replacements and repair is likely to be bad on non stock configurations. This pushed me to the 14” MBP with 16GB and 1TB. You can literally get it swapped out same day at apple stores if anything goes wonky.

EnKopVand 5y ago

I wound up in a bit of a analysis paralysis figuring out what to replace my old 2015 13” mbp pro with. As a lot of others I looked to the pros, and went down the “well if I’m spending x, then I might as well spend a little extra to get so much more”. Long story short, I ended up buying the smallest Air available with no upgrades, and I’m so happy that I did. Unless you’re doing some serious heavy lifting it’ll be fine, and at it’s small price point it’s not something I worry about breaking. That last part may be an ADHD thing, but it does add to the experience of using a laptop around the house where you also have a car and a 3 year old. I was on the fence about the 8gb ram, but it frankly out performs my work t14s thinkpad which has 32gb for any sort of programming I do on it. The only real downside is the lack of the MagSafe charger, but it holds power so well that it’s rarely in the charger when I’m using it. So my advice would be to get the smallest air, unless you know why you’re getting something more powerful.

steveBK123 5y ago
The stupid base mb air is so good, and I say this as someone who was consistently buying $2500 15" mb pros in the intel days..
thathndude 5y ago
I had one of the original M1 pros. Upgraded to a 16” max fully loaded. I notice no difference in performance. The extent of my “hardcore” use is having dozens of safari tabs open. If/when MacBook Air gets the M2 redesign (hopefully with the super nice screen), that will be the no brainer purchase of the decade.
- epolanski 5y ago
  You would've not found much performance difference downgrading either if that's all of your use case. Why did you upgrade a machine that was already good enough?
- gurkendoktor 5y ago
  I have moved from a 13" M1 Air to the 16" M1 Pro only because I wanted a bigger screen for traveling. I feel some buyer's remorse because it was more than twice as expensive, and I don't really care about the extra speed or memory (yet?). It's also really heavy, and I don't love its looks. What I'd absolutely buy is a 16" MacBook Air, like an Apple version of the LG Gram. Edit: For comparison, the 16" LG Gram with a discrete Nvidia GPU is exactly as light as the 13" M1 MacBook Air, and supposedly it has great battery life. And all those ports...sigh...

whalesalad 5y ago

I daily drive a Mini and it’s the fastest computer I’ve ever owned as far as the butt dyno and day to day latency. Murphy’s law is back baby.

omegalulw 5y ago

Keep in mind that M1 is on 5nm but last I checked neither Intel nor AMD arent there yet so I expect competition to heat up even more!

EricE 5y ago

If you don't need more than 16GB of RAM the Air will more than likely be more than good enough for you. The only reason I returned my Air and waited for the MacBook Pro I'm typing on now is I made the mistake of loading some games on the Air - and one game I love suffers due to my mod addiction and can really use more RAM. And that's something that many people don't seem to realize - if you buy from Apple directly they have a two week no questions asked return policy. Obviously the machine has to work and you need to return all the parts, but if you aren't sure you could always get an Air and you have two weeks to make up your mind if it's sufficient or not. Man, it was SO hard taking it back and waiting 9 months before the MacBook Pro's came out. So be careful - once you taste and M1 Mac it's almost impossible to go back to anything else :) At least if you decide the Air isn't for you after all you'll only have to wait at max a few weeks.