6 ms·

May I ask if you're using the M1 based MacBook or the Intel one? I'm asking because I've been thinking of getting a MacBook Air in the future with the intent t

May I ask if you're using the M1 based MacBook or the Intel one? I'm asking because I've been thinking of getting a MacBook Air in the future with the intent to use it for writing.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago
I have an M1 Air right I'm typing on right now and have not had any sluggishness concerns besides when switching between Spaces. Even that is more of a visual stutter instead of actually lagging to the point the animation takes longer than usual. This is the first thin & light computer I've owned that I'm 100% happy with its performance.
- slotrans 4y ago
  Switching between spaces on this M1 takes multiple seconds. It's almost unbearable. My 8-core 64GB Windows machine fares no better. Switching between OLVWM desktops on my 200MHz Pentium Pro twenty years ago was instantaneous.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Any idea what it’s doing during those several seconds?
    - kaba0 4y ago
      It’s just a too long animation.
  - aidos 4y ago
    Weird. I don't use Spaces (this is the multiple desktops thing, right?) but I've just tried it and it's not laggy at all for me. I turn on the reduce motion thing, so it fades between them rather than swiping, but neither feel laggy. (I'm on an M1 Air and I think the performance is great)
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    I’m fairly certain this is because the average quality of the people building this stuff has gone down.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    What are all the apps you have open? Perhaps your use case is far more memory-intensive than mine.
- kllrnohj 4y ago
  The single slowest thing I ever experience on any computer at the moment is taking MacOS updates for my M1 Pro. It's shocking how an OS update can still take upwards of an hour on what is otherwise such a fast system.
kossTKR 4y ago
Still on intel. And yes the newer M1's actually feels better for writing as far as i've tried..
kcartlidge 4y ago
I'm on an M1 Air (cheapest base model), and I use it largely for writing (also dev but I get that that's not your question). - For native M1 apps like Pages, Sublime, or Highland there's no lag at all. For example, with Highland 2 from double-clicking a file to editing it is less than a second and there's no lag during use even with a 49,000 word book manuscript open. - For x86 apps like the not-quite-latest Office there's a couple of seconds at first launch (for that session) whilst Rosetta does its x86 translation work, but after that it launches without lag for the remainder of that session and it stays snappy in use (snappy for Word that is). - Native VS Code goes from launch to editing in under two seconds and never lags, even with something like side-by-side Markdown preview going. - If you're using Vellum for publishing it's about 1.5 seconds from double-clicking a file to editing it.
- LoveMortuus 4y ago
  That's very good to hear, I've been looking at MacBook Air also because they're pretty much the kings when it comes to battery life for a handbag sized laptop. I think the bidder MacBooks have slightly better battery, but you can't really fit those in a smaller bag, you do kinda need a backpack for it or a laptop specific bag.
  - kcartlidge 4y ago
    > I've been looking at MacBook Air also because they're pretty much the kings when it comes to battery life for a handbag sized laptop. Battery life is, indeed, impressive. Last night I spent around 5 hours doing C# dev in VS Mac, with multiple projects being built every few minutes, cross-platform binaries for Intel Mac, Windows, and Linux being produced every half hour or so, plus Highland 2, Word 2016, and Vellum. With all that it used 28% battery across that 5 hours (and never got warm). On full brightness too (for my sins). I know the question isn't about dev, but writing uses less resources and gives even better battery life so 18 hours (for example) is definitely possible. The only issue I have is the keyboard. Far better than the 'broken' ones of a few years ago but I really wish they'd go for thicker machines and increase the travel. I've just got rid of my last ThinkPad and it's the one thing I miss. Oh, and there is no longer a hotkey to control the backlight brightness; it's automatic. Which genuinely works perfectly except that it doesn't come on for your very first sign in at boot-up, so entering your password then can be tricky without ambient light (though after that you can use the fingerprint reader). It's a really strange UX flaw. Not related to your question, I know, but you don't say whether you're already on a Mac or switching so I wanted to be honest about this as it is really annoying but rarely mentioned.

May I ask if you're using the M1 based MacBook or the Intel one? I'm asking because I've been thinking of getting a MacBook Air in the future with the intent to use it for writing.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

I have an M1 Air right I'm typing on right now and have not had any sluggishness concerns besides when switching between Spaces. Even that is more of a visual stutter instead of actually lagging to the point the animation takes longer than usual. This is the first thin & light computer I've owned that I'm 100% happy with its performance.

slotrans 4y ago
Switching between spaces on this M1 takes multiple seconds. It's almost unbearable. My 8-core 64GB Windows machine fares no better. Switching between OLVWM desktops on my 200MHz Pentium Pro twenty years ago was instantaneous.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  Any idea what it’s doing during those several seconds?
  - kaba0 4y ago
    It’s just a too long animation.
- aidos 4y ago
  Weird. I don't use Spaces (this is the multiple desktops thing, right?) but I've just tried it and it's not laggy at all for me. I turn on the reduce motion thing, so it fades between them rather than swiping, but neither feel laggy. (I'm on an M1 Air and I think the performance is great)
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I’m fairly certain this is because the average quality of the people building this stuff has gone down.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  What are all the apps you have open? Perhaps your use case is far more memory-intensive than mine.
kllrnohj 4y ago
The single slowest thing I ever experience on any computer at the moment is taking MacOS updates for my M1 Pro. It's shocking how an OS update can still take upwards of an hour on what is otherwise such a fast system.

kossTKR 4y ago

Still on intel. And yes the newer M1's actually feels better for writing as far as i've tried..

kcartlidge 4y ago

I'm on an M1 Air (cheapest base model), and I use it largely for writing (also dev but I get that that's not your question). - For native M1 apps like Pages, Sublime, or Highland there's no lag at all. For example, with Highland 2 from double-clicking a file to editing it is less than a second and there's no lag during use even with a 49,000 word book manuscript open. - For x86 apps like the not-quite-latest Office there's a couple of seconds at first launch (for that session) whilst Rosetta does its x86 translation work, but after that it launches without lag for the remainder of that session and it stays snappy in use (snappy for Word that is). - Native VS Code goes from launch to editing in under two seconds and never lags, even with something like side-by-side Markdown preview going. - If you're using Vellum for publishing it's about 1.5 seconds from double-clicking a file to editing it.

LoveMortuus 4y ago
That's very good to hear, I've been looking at MacBook Air also because they're pretty much the kings when it comes to battery life for a handbag sized laptop. I think the bidder MacBooks have slightly better battery, but you can't really fit those in a smaller bag, you do kinda need a backpack for it or a laptop specific bag.
- kcartlidge 4y ago
  > I've been looking at MacBook Air also because they're pretty much the kings when it comes to battery life for a handbag sized laptop. Battery life is, indeed, impressive. Last night I spent around 5 hours doing C# dev in VS Mac, with multiple projects being built every few minutes, cross-platform binaries for Intel Mac, Windows, and Linux being produced every half hour or so, plus Highland 2, Word 2016, and Vellum. With all that it used 28% battery across that 5 hours (and never got warm). On full brightness too (for my sins). I know the question isn't about dev, but writing uses less resources and gives even better battery life so 18 hours (for example) is definitely possible. The only issue I have is the keyboard. Far better than the 'broken' ones of a few years ago but I really wish they'd go for thicker machines and increase the travel. I've just got rid of my last ThinkPad and it's the one thing I miss. Oh, and there is no longer a hotkey to control the backlight brightness; it's automatic. Which genuinely works perfectly except that it doesn't come on for your very first sign in at boot-up, so entering your password then can be tricky without ambient light (though after that you can use the fingerprint reader). It's a really strange UX flaw. Not related to your question, I know, but you don't say whether you're already on a Mac or switching so I wanted to be honest about this as it is really annoying but rarely mentioned.