My wife and I went on a short trip where I had to work. I normally use a windows desktop, but couldn’t bring that.
I used her base m1 air, and was blown away by how well it handled my work. Not just that, but it used significantly less ram and cpu power.
On windows my cpu usage is higher and my ram usage normally over 8gb. On here air, I was hitting around 6gb ram usage and the cpu was maybe around 15-20%
I am still in a little disbelieve that her laptop handed my work so much better than my desktop i7-8700 or laptop i5-11th gen intel handles it.
I’m totally picking up a MacBook this fall.
Now just need to decide between the air and pro, the air is probably fine, but I like the dedicated hdmi port as I will use it with a monitor a lot. Not sure if a usb-c hub will suffice.
Try emulating switch games on it. Works well
The 11th gen Intel cpus did not age well at all. They ran too hot, they were super inefficient at light work. They’d idle fine but as soon as you did something small, the fans would kick on and you suddenly had a half hour reduction in your battery life.
The M series laptops are fantastic and honestly, I don’t mind USB hubs as much. Also if your phone supports USB c display out, you can use it with that. Unless if it’s an iphone, then it’s kind of scuffed. It does work and I have gotten actual work done with it.
Igpu was fantastic, when it worked. Single core performance was also good. I don’t have any 10th gen Intel devices to compare to. Both 10 nm and 14 NM.
USB-C docks/dongles generally aren’t that big a deal if that’s your only deciding factor. They work fine without any weird hiccups or behavior.
If you’re buying used, it’s worth noting that the earlier M1, M2, and M3 non-Pro/Max chips had some limitations with external monitors. The M1 and M2 MacBook Air only supported one external monitor alongside the Mac’s built in screen. The M3 Air could do two external monitors with the lid closed, or one external monitor and the built in. The M4 Air can do two external monitors and the built in display at the same time. The Pro and Max chips could always do two external monitors and the built in display starting from the earliest M1 Pro.
The big difference between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro is that the Pro has a built in fan. The Air will passively cool itself and might have to throttle your workload until the laptop cools down. The Pro can kick on the fan to help run heavy workloads longer. In practice it’s actually difficult to get a MacBook Pro to kick on its fan. Anything short of virtual machines or large video rendering can usually be done without the laptop getting so hot it would need to kick the fan on or throttle things. If you’re somewhat price conscious and aren’t pushing the machine’s limits, the Air’s definitely worth a look.
Have to agree with some comments here about the 14 inch MacBook Pro - it’s a lovely machine. I switched a couple of years ago after decades on Windows (I’m a software developer) and couldn’t be happier.
I seem to remember that you can use more monitors with the Pro than the Air, etc, so it’s definitely worth doing some research when choosing. Do you have an Apple Store nearby?
I’m heavily leaning towards the pro, I’m going to buy it when i visit the states later this year unless tariffs raise the prices. Then I’ll get it locally.
I think long term, I’d be happy that I got the pro.
I do basic video editing, transcoding, front end coding and graphics, and usually push my machine pretty hard. But not for really long stretches. It’s bursty work, so an Air is ideal. If I were to need a desktop replacement I would get a 15" Air with 24 GB RAM.
Long compiles? Renders of 4k video over 30mins and on the clock? Get a pro.
The Apple silicon Macs are really great when it comes to battery life. If you already use an iPhone it makes so much sense.
I’m still on a 2014 Air. It’s doesn’t work near as good. But still does well enough for me.
There are legitimate complaints against Apple for its iOS/iPad OS AppStore practices, their former hardware upsell practices, their botched AI roll out, and their corporate practices in general. But there really aren’t any legitimate complaints about their hardware, software, or services.
