The M1 MacBook Air. At this point in time, this laptop is already a year and a 3 months old. And at the end of last year, when Windows 11 was announced, I got so frustrated with Windows that I wanted a way out. Then John brought up an idea – why not get the M1 MacBook?
And so we did – we bought one. I’ve spent the past month or so with this MacBook Air and this is my experience and why I can and cannot recommend the M1 MacBook Air.
A brief backstory
I assure you – this piece of information is important. This is not my first time using a Mac. I used a Hackintosh way back when OS X 10.6 was released, and I also used a MacBook Air 2011 until a few years ago (the one with a wood texture decal on it). So, I’m not walking into this MacBook experience blind.
And since this M1 MacBook Air is already more than a year old, I’ll skip the introduction and jump straight into why I like the M1 MacBook Air and why I recommend it. We won’t go into the performance and specs because you already know about it. The M1 MacBook Air is just superb in terms of performance-per-watt.
Recommendation reason #1 – Design
This M1 MacBook Air design is very similar to the previous generations of MacBook Airs – particularly in terms of its wedge shape when viewed from the side.
Like the previous generations of MacBook Airs, this laptop is still super lightweight too. Fun fact – the MacBook Air is the trendsetter of “ultrabooks”, also known as “thin and light” laptops.
Just don’t mind the sparkly aesthetic that we have on this particular M1 MacBook Air. I bought a skin thinking that it’s a matte texture but turned out to be sparkly instead.
Recommendation reason #2 – Apple’s M1 chip
This is an easy pick for me. You see, Apple had a dream to make an entirely fanless laptop for some time. It started with the MacBook 2015 with the Intel Core M processor. That was a disastrous lose-lose situation – it constantly thermal throttled and the performance tanked.
Fast forward to November 2020, Apple announced their own Apple Silicon chip – also known as the M1. Since this is an in-house chip designed by Apple, they control how this chip works.
They designed how much power draw that this chip should be and hence, they are able to make this M1 MacBook Air completely fanless and yet it doesn’t thermal throttle unless I run Premiere Pro and start adding lots of fancy effects, just like how I edit videos on my few-year-old high-end Windows desktop.
Seriously, when I unboxed the M1 MacBook Air, the power supply was only 30W. Only 30W and I can get similar performance on Premiere Pro like my desktop that is at least consuming 500W. For me, the M1 chip doesn’t need to necessarily perform better than PCs. It just needs to match the level of performance while being multiple magnitudes more efficient.
Also, as a quick note, the M1 MacBook Air charges using USB-PD standard. I actually left the charger in the box because I was using the Ugreen 100W GaN charger to charge the laptop instead and I don’t want any more clutter on my desk.
Recommendation reason #3 – Screen
This isn’t even Apple’s best screen to date. On paper, it’s just a standard 13.3-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 2560×1600 – which I truly appreciate since Apple seems to be the only one using 16:10 aspect ratio screens in these smaller laptops.
With more pixels vertically means I can see more, and hence, do more. This is especially true for video editors like myself as we can see more audio and video tracks.
Recommendation reason #4 – the trackpad
Have you ever wondered why Apple is the gold standard when it comes to trackpads? Well, there are multiple reasons. Firstly, the glass surface of the trackpad is just very smooth. The tracking is fantastic. Then, the taptic engine makes the clicks feel so much more consistent and satisfying compared to literally any Windows laptop I’ve used.
Apple also very tightly integrates its hardware with macOS. The trackpad, with its amazing tracking capabilities, boils down to how macOS works. Multitouch gestures and shortcuts are just unrivaled by any other Windows laptop until years later since its first debut.
Why can’t I recommend the M1 MacBook Air?
So I’ve been singing praises of the M1 MacBook Air – why can’t I recommend it to everyone? What’s the reason?
Well, I only have one reason, honestly – and that is macOS.
If you’ve used macOS before and are okay with it, then yeah – the M1 MacBook Air is going to be perfect for you.
However, if this is going to be your first time using macOS, then you’re going to have a rollercoaster experience. The basic idea of files, folders, and apps are the same as Windows, but how everything works are completely different.
For example – the equivalent of Windows Explorer in macOS is Finder – but they don’t work particularly the same. There is no start menu in macOS. Installing and uninstalling apps on macOS is lightyears easier, faster, and cleaner than Windows – but changing some simple settings in macOS requires the terminal.
Oh – one big potential problem is when it comes to external drives. If your external drives are formatted using NTFS – which is most probably on external hard disks and SSDs – they won’t work with Apple’s macOS because it’s just not compatible.
This is not a problem for me since I make it a habit to use the exFAT file format since exFAT is compatible with every major operating system out there today – Windows, macOS, even Linux, and ChromeOS.
And I can go on and on about the differences between macOS and Windows – but we’ll save that for another time.
In summary, migrating from Windows to macOS will require you to relearn everything – even the basics like how to shut down the computer, how to install applications, how to use keyboard shortcuts – because Macs have command, option, and control keys instead of alternate, Windows, and control. Even cutting, copying, and pasting files work differently on macOS.
If you’re up for the challenge – which I can assure you that you’ll become a much better tech person after that – you will be rewarded with a computing experience unlike any other.
One more reason why I can recommend the M1 MacBook Air – the price
Yes, I’m praising an Apple product for its price. And that is because the M1 MacBook Air starts from RM4,399 only. Seriously, it’s quite difficult to find a thin and light Windows laptop that has similar build quality with this level of performance and battery life at this price range.
I’m sure a lot of people will ask – “hey, it only starts with 8GB RAM, how is that sufficient?” To that I’ll say, you don’t have to worry much. macOS does a fantastic job managing RAM usage. Though with that said, we still ordered this particular M1 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM instead because we are going to use it to edit some simpler videos as a backup machine.
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By the way, the MacBook Air managed to impress us so much that we also ordered a MacBook Pro 14 with the M1 Pro. Review coming soon.
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