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MacBook Air M1
Apple MacBook Air M1 is more than a couple of years old now, but it still offers one of the fastest chips at this price point thanks to its revolutionary M1 chip.
If you don’t want to spend a lot on the newer MacBook Air M2, then the M1-powered MacBook Air is an excellent choice.
MacBook Air M1 Pros
- Thank you, M1, for making it so fast
- Batteries that last for a long time
- Support for the most popular apps
- Keyboard is excellent
MacBook Air M1 Cons
- Website camera is poor
- Identical to the previous design
- There are only two USB ports (and they are poorly positioned)
MacBook Air M1 In conclusion
Its successor, the M2-powered MacBook Air, may have provided better performance, but the Apple Silicon processor still provides a lot of value at its present price point.
MacBook Air M1 Overview
Since its launch in 2020, the Apple MacBook M1 was a revolutionary laptop. Although its appeal has waned since the launch of the more attractive MacBook Air-powered MacBook M2, it shouldn’t be discounted.
As long as you don’t want to stretch your budget too far, Apple’s MacBook Air M1 remains a great option at a /$999 price. Its successor, on the other hand, carries a starting price of /$1249, so the former remains an excellent option.
The MacBook Air M1 remains one of the absolute best laptops for the money, giving it a significant performance advantage over 2022’s Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 and Dell XPS 13 Plus.
*We do our best to give you the correct and best prices, but prices may change at any time without prior notice.
MacBook Air M1 Screening and design
It is not just the processor upgrade that makes the 2020 MacBook Air different from its 2022 successor, but also the design. Apple has replaced the classic wedge chassis with a boxier design, making the M1 model look a bit dated.
While the MacBook Air M1 is larger than other 13-inch models I have used, the bezel around the display could have been smaller. However, it still looks good on many levels. Apple’s top-notch build quality makes it incredibly portable, and it’s still thin and light to keep in great shape.
In addition to Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports on one side, this machine also has two USB 4 ports. I would have appreciated more ports, and it would have been even better if they weren’t all arranged on the same side. It can cause some problems if you want to connect multiple dongles or adapters. There’s also a headphone jack.
In any light but good, the 720p webcam sensor looks washed-out and blurry. Fortunately, the microphones are excellent.
I appreciate both the large glass trackpad and the keyboard. Compared to the previous, shallow Magic Keyboard Apple, the Magic Keyboard Apple has a lot of travel, and there are enough keys to make typing comfortable. Apple rearranged the keyboard layout a bit for this model, adding the function row for search and dictation keys. With dictation, accessibility is improved, and I am able to search files on my Mac more easily. To unlock the computer, a touch ID sensor is built into the power key.
Display
Wise, the 13-inch 2560 x 1600 screen has been improved slightly – it supports the P3 wide colour gamut – as a result it is a bit more colourful – but it doesn’t necessarily represent a much more significant improvement.
MacBook Air M1 Assistive technology
In comparison to your typical Intel Core i3, or i5, the MacBook Air has one very interesting feature: the M1 chipset inside.
You wouldn’t think this significant if you don’t pay too much attention to what powers your laptop. In reality, however, this is one of Apple’s biggest changes since moving from PowerPC to x86-based Intel chips in 2006.
A new set of Apple-designed units uses the ARM architecture rather than Intel’s chips (which may have to wait for Intel to develop new ones). In fact, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Apple’s A14 are both smartphone chipsets built on this architecture.
Technology advances can be influenced more effectively by Apple’s use of the ARM architecture and its own chipset design (it doesn’t manufacture them, TSMC does that). The M1 can be tailored to fit its own machines, and it doesn’t have to wait for Intel to make upgrades.
GPU
The M1’s GPU is also very capable, as it’s an Apple-designed seven or eight-core (depending on the model) chip. In this review, I’m using the base model, which has an 8-core CPU and 7-core GPU, along with 8GB of unified memory (LPDDR4X).
In contrast to the GPU, the CPU is the same 8-core unit in all M1 models, which I think is a rather clever move. Apple doesn’t even mention the clock speed on its site, which you’ll be familiar with if you have an iPhone or iPad.
Apple, however, has since released even more powerful chips, including the M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra, which are found in Apple’s MacBook Pro and other high-end machines. It’s worth noting that Apple just launched the new M2, which is far from Apple’s most powerful laptop processor, so the M1 inside this review model isn’t too close to it.
Performance
Apple’s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Air M1, offers a level of performance I have never seen before. Despite its “first-gen” status, the MacBook Air M1 has still surpassed my expectations.
It feels more like an iPad than a traditional laptop. The screen just explodes with life the second you open the lid – and I mean that – and it doesn’t take long to use. It’s a much smoother experience than the older MacBook Airs. No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s opening apps or even hoarding Chrome tabs, speed becomes almost unimportant because you don’t notice it.
It doesn’t just excel at basic tasks; it can handle more demanding ones as well. Despite having multiple other apps running in the background, I was still able to scrub through my timeline without stuttering when rendering 4K HDR video shot on an iPhone 12 Pro. A MacBook Pro with a quad core i5, 16GB RAM, was unable to prevent slowdown in parts during the same 20-minute file.
When I open multiple large Raw files in Lightroom and zoom quickly in and out, it usually stutters slightly on my old MacBook Pro (still an x86 app without any M1 updates). The M1 MacBook Air did not have any trouble with this; it was easy to edit the images and export them as smaller JPEGs as well.
You won’t hear any constant whirr from the MacBook Air when you’re doing hefty tasks, unlike with the MacBook Pro.
8GB of RAM?
Despite the 8GB of RAM in this version, it’s proved difficult to challenge it. It handled multiple tabs open in Chrome, Safari, Slack, a Zoom video call, FM 2021 on Steam, and uploading photos to the cloud without breaking a sweat. An older MacBook Air could never handle such a situation.
Initially, the MacBook Air M1 had the fastest performance in its class, but AMD and Intel have since caught up. Nevertheless, as you can see from the benchmark results above, the MacBook Air M1 still outperforms laptops like the Surface Laptop 5 and Dell XPS 13 Plus in 2022.
Alternatively, if you have one of those £5000 displays, the GPU is capable of outputting to the Pro Display XDR Monitor. When plugged in to a 4K screen in the past, I’ve found that MacBook Airs struggle to keep up, but here it wasn’t.
IOS and Android
I did not find Apple to explain how Apple Silicon M1 machines worked with Intel’s x86-based applications well when the new chips were announced. In the end, native upgrades to important apps are likely more crucial for most users than those designed specifically for the M1 platform.
As I’ve used the machine for a few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that Apple didn’t spend much time thinking about how those apps would work; they just work; nothing else needs to be said.
It also includes a translation layer called Rosetta 2 that Apple incorporated into Big Sur, in the same way it provided a similar function to Rosetta when Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel in 2006.
It will ask you to install Rosetta 2 first when you try to run an x86 application (Lightroom, Steam, etc.) and it will then translate the app. When a translated app boots for the first time, it takes around 50 seconds, and it does the same when you restart – you will probably have a hard time telling if the app is native or translated every other time. Wow, that’s awesome, and it removes a major obstacle to using it.
App Store
I have downloaded and installed the apps I use every day. I’ve tried all the apps from the App Store and elsewhere, and they all work great. Adobe’s suite might not all have the M1 version, but all of them work fine. Steam and Office are the same way. Football Manager 2021 worked on Steam, and there were no obvious signs of emulation affecting the game. Impressive.
A native M1 version of Chrome was released by Google recently, and Pixelmator Pro has been updated to make it even better.
Although I haven’t encountered any incompatibility issues myself, if you’re using a niche or very specific app for work, I would advise you to do some research to learn about any known issues before switching. You also cannot use any specific Final Cut Pro plug-ins or Windows emulation through an app like Parallels. There is no Boot Camp for Windows, either.
There are many more apps available from the iOS App Store, which you can also install.
This machine lacks iOS app support, but it seems to be more due to developers than Apple’s fault. Apps like Netflix, Spotify, and Audible are not available. Apart from Overcast for podcasts and The Athletic, I barely use any apps on this device. The company said developers are given the choice, but many probably just don’t want their apps on a MacBook due to lack of touch support and sensors.
In spite of the fact that some apps work, none of them are great. Some of them can be resized, while others don’t – and many video-focused apps can’t be used in full screen mode. It’s an odd mishmash of issues that feel very un-Apple. In spite of its usefulness, I doubt I will launch any iOS apps here anytime soon.
*We do our best to give you the correct and best prices, but prices may change at any time without prior notice.
MacBook Air M1 Time between charges
This MacBook Air M1 surpasses all previous MacBook Air models based on battery life, as well as everyday performance.
There is no need to upgrade the cell in this laptop because the 5nm chip is so much more efficient.
It has taken me around 9-11 hours of use to charge the MacBook Air M1 after using it as my main work computer for several weeks. This is while using the same apps as usual, and not making any radical changes to M1 apps. I can’t help but be impressed with this performance when it includes multiple hours of calls, video streaming, running multiple apps all at the same time, and some photo editing.
Apple claims 18 hours of video playback with 1080p videos. I tested it with a looped video and 50% brightness, and it lasted for 12 hours.
Almost no drops in standby time were observed over night.
Is the MacBook Air M1 worth purchasing?
When you need a fast performance at a reasonable price, you should: Even a couple of years after launch, this is still one of the fastest laptops we’ve tested at this price point.
If you want a design that catches the eye: Compared to the newer M2, the MacBook Air M1 appears outdated.
*We do our best to give you the correct and best prices, but prices may change at any time without prior notice.
