Just picked up an M1 Air from Costco for $850. Now I intentionally got the very base model because my old warhorse Mac Pro serves as my command center for data storage and media production and all that stuff. So I'm going entirely iCloud-based here. I'm using this MBA as a replacement for my old iPad. Portable power.

HOLY CRAP this thing is incredible. I've never once thought my Mac Pro was slow, and it has all the upgrades, but this little fanless heatless laptop utterly destroys it, even in just casual use. EVERYTHING is instantaneous.

And all the benchmarks I've seen say this will easily beat my Mac Pro in things like Logic and Final Cut. And at 20 times less wattage with a circuit board the size of a postcard??

Technology is amazing.

If you're on the fence about this laptop, just get it.

It's crazy. My wife got that M1 Air when I still had the last Intel i5 Air and I knew immediately I had to trade it in even though it wasn't that old. The only way I've really been able to slow the M1 Air down is buy running several user accounts at the same time. It will definitely bog down when switching if you do that.

It will go down as an all-time classic Apple product. Pound-for-pound, it’s one of the best laptops ever made.

I should also note, it had around 60% battery when I took it out of the box. I’ve been messing with it for hours, downloading apps, setting things up, etc. Still at 35%. I haven’t even unwrapped the charger.

Incredible.

eicca said:

I should also note, it had around 60% battery when I took it out of the box. I’ve been messing with it for hours, downloading apps, setting things up, etc. Still at 35%. I haven’t even unwrapped the charger.

Incredible.

Yeah, you'll notice stuff like that then when you go back to an earlier Mac wonder how on this world did you manage before. I sure did.

The only reason I bought an M1 MBA was because my Intel i5 2012 MBA was not supported anymore for the latest macOS version. What actually surprised me more than the extra snappiness was the reduced size (about 13% smaller).

What's impressive is this MBA is over 18 months old and people are still wowed by it. The M1 team really deserves the acknowledgement they get worldwide.

JPack said:

What's impressive is this MBA is over 18 months old and people are still wowed by it. The M1 team really deserves the acknowledgement they get worldwide.

Agreed. People are so desperate for the M2 or next M-series processor when in reality Apple has created a product that has stood for 2 years and still beats out competing CPUs even if they have had 2 new generations (looking at you Intel).

Not only that, they tweaked the M1 to allow hardware acceleration of several features Macs are known for.

eicca said:

I should also note, it had around 60% battery when I took it out of the box. I’ve been messing with it for hours, downloading apps, setting things up, etc. Still at 35%. I haven’t even unwrapped the charger.

Battery life is roughly double or more in my experience. Coconutbattery usually reports I'm using well under 5 watts of power, compared to 10+ watts doing the same kind of work on the Intel i5 MBA. I often don't even bother bringing my charger with me when I go out if the battery's over 50%.

Huge side benefit to this is that you end up putting fewer charge cycles on your battery and it has a longer lifespan overall.

I bought my base config 7 months ago and I am very pleased with it. Silent and cool, quite a difference from my 2013 MBP. The only issue is that every so often the background colour of the screen changes to an icy or light blue. It stays that way for less than a minute and then goes back to normal.

ignatius345 said:

Battery life is roughly double or more in my experience. Coconutbattery usually reports I'm using well under 5 watts of power, compared to 10+ watts doing the same kind of work on the Intel i5 MBA. I often don't even bother bringing my charger with me when I go out if the battery's over 50%.

Huge side benefit to this is that you end up putting fewer charge cycles on your battery and it has a longer lifespan overall.

My average discharge is ~3.4 Watts on a MBP.

Love mine, this is first time that I notice a major improvement of simple tasks than my previous device. And I have gone from 68k to PowerPC to Intel.

Spock said:

Love mine, this is first time that I notice a major improvement of simple tasks than my previous device. And I have gone from 68k to PowerPC to Intel.

I thought, back in 2008, that Intel made sense. It now seems that Steve was right when he quoted Alan Kay

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware

Steve made sure Apple turned in to that quote after the success of the iPhone in 2007 thru 2009 yielding the iPhone 4 and its A4 chip.

IJBrekke said:

It will go down as an all-time classic Apple product. Pound-for-pound, it’s one of the best laptops ever made.

And dollar-for-dollar!

jav6454 said:

I thought, back in 2008, that Intel made sense. It now seems that Steve was right when he quoted Alan Kay

Steve made sure Apple turned in to that quote after the success of the iPhone in 2007 thru 2009 yielding the iPhone 4 and its A4 chip.

At the time, the Intel switch had to happen, PowerPC just could not keep up. It's ironic that they made the switch away from Intel because Intel could no longer keep up.

I’m glad to see this post as I also bought the base MacBook Air M1, refurbished from the Apple Store for $849, and it for the most part blows away the 2015 15” MBP (whose specs were the max!) that it replaced due to water damage. I was waiting to see what the second gen would bring and now I wish I had bought this one sooner! I’ve had it about a month now and I’m still in love!

eicca said:

I should also note, it had around 60% battery when I took it out of the box. I’ve been messing with it for hours, downloading apps, setting things up, etc. Still at 35%. I haven’t even unwrapped the charger.

Incredible.

I’ve had the M1 MacBook Air since it’s launch day. I’ve used it almost exclusively in clamshell mode while connected to the charger. Starting this month I’m working on site for the first time since buying the MBA. I don’t bother bringing a charger for an 8 hour day. I usually end the day slightly above 60% battery remaining.

I’m a full-stack software developer so I’m not just typing in Word or something. Today was the first time I ended up with about 35% remaining mostly because I had to use wired Ethernet via USB-C. The WiFi was being used to talk to an embedded device so I needed a second network connection. Battery life is incredible.

Spock said:

At the time, the Intel switch had to happen, PowerPC just could not keep up. It's ironic that they made the switch away from Intel because Intel could no longer keep up.

The switch from Intel happened because Apple started to make better mobile chips that could easily be used in laptops per synthetic benchmarks. I remember reading the articles back in 2017/2018 how Apple's A-Series was already vastly approaching and/or surpassing laptop level chips from Intel.

There was an article here in MR (several I think) about that same situation. I believe Apple saw the opportunity here during internal testing and saw that yes, they could pull it off.

The first 2 years of med school, I just used my 12.9 iPad Pro (2018 and 2021). Since beginning clinical rotations I only use my M1 Air. The all day battery life is just awesome. The speed opening up any app is so nice. It's pleasant to type on, has awesome speakers for its size. It really is the best bang for buck in the Apple hardware ecosystem, no matter whether macOS, iOS, or iPadOS powers it.

Congrats on the purchase OP!

GuruZac said:

The first 2 years of med school, I just used my 12.9 iPad Pro (2018 and 2021). Since beginning clinical rotations I only use my M1 Air. The all day battery life is just awesome. The speed opening up any app is so nice. It's pleasant to type on, has awesome speakers for its size. It really is the best bang for buck in the Apple hardware ecosystem, no matter whether macOS, iOS, or iPadOS powers it.

Congrats on the purchase OP!

How well does it integrate with hospital IT infrastructure and software? I assume there is no issue.

jav6454 said:

How well does it integrate with hospital IT infrastructure and software? I assume there is no issue.

I use an M1 and contract with various hospitals to support their EMRs and it hasn’t been a problem at all. The organizations I work with rely on Citrix and Microsoft Office to connect to their remote staff mostly, and my experience connecting remotely has been smooth and reliable.

snak-atak said:

I use an M1 and contract with various hospitals to support their EMRs and it hasn’t been a problem at all. The organizations I work with rely on Citrix and Microsoft Office to connect to their remote staff mostly, and my experience connecting remotely has been smooth and reliable.

Interesting, I would have thought hospitals had special software for handling patient information and charts.

Absolutely. M1 Air and M1 Pro 16 for me — the two best laptops I have ever owned. Just getting started…

The problem now is I've got the major M1 itch. I want a Studio. But I'd have to get a Windows PC too for my games... My old Mac Pro currently does both.

Crud.