Ultimate MacBook Air M1 Review: Best of All Laptops

• Yes, the MacBook Air M1 It's fantastic
• It's very powerful
• The battery is endless
• You can also take it to Hogwarts, it's as small as a wand
• Best buy under 1000€ hands down

The introduction of this article had more rewrites than the Bible, but you know what? Today I will be honest right away.

I purchased the Macbook Air M1 at 850€, on Amazon, out of pure curiosity. 6 days later I sold my mega-powerful 2019 MacBook Pro 16" and I would never go back.

Crazy to say so. And instead Noooope, best buy in 2023 it can't be done and I'll explain why.

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Writing a review is always complicated because there are really a thousand factors that I can affect the use of a laptop and, mainly, it matters a lot experience and personal use.

I will therefore try to be as transparent and objective as possible.

Let's go step by step.

Why the fuck is MacBook Air the best of them all?

In 2020, the year of the release of the laptop in question, Apple has totally Revolutionized the PC market introducing the brand new Apple M1 “processors”, produced and studied directly at home, finally leaving Intel and AMD behind.

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Wanting to make it simple, for those who don't know, Is the M1 chip a SoC (System on a chip), a single block that contains all the important components: CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, I/O and much more on a single, very small circuit.

In this way, the connections are faster and, thanks to the architecture initially developed for iPhones, the Mac can reach exceptional performance Keeping gods very low energy consumption.

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A look at design

Rega, there's nothing special about it, it is Same as the previous.

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Nice solid, made of aluminum, and with a great 13" screen.

Top keyboard as always.

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Performance beyond expectations

So how much do you mill the next generation MacBook Air?

A bang.

The difference between the 'old' - 'no way they had failed - Intel and the new M1s?

The former consumed a lot of energy with indecent performance, the latter consume very little energy with dizzying performance.

In fact, as stated by Apple itself on the website, the new MacBook Air has “up to 3.5 times faster CPU speed. Up to 5x faster GPU. The most advanced Neural Engine ever, which ensures machine learning performance up to 9 times better” than the previous ones with Intel processors

Until 2019 The Air has always been the “commercial” machine, bought by most people and designed for mild use, between study and web browsing, between Netflix and very light creative production such as document writing and light photo editing.

But today, thanks to the M1 chips, it's a whole other story.

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Let's analyze CPU and GPU.

The CPU of the new M1 brings with it 8-core, that together, thanks tosystem optimization, work in multi‑threads, maintaining constant performance and, at the same time, optimizing consumption.

They are divided into:

• 4 performance cores, allow you to push performance to the maximum, allowing you to work with speed and fluidity even on the most demanding tasks
• 4 efficiency core, a real spearhead, carry out basic daily activities such as web browsing, allowing for very low energy consumption and promoting battery life (which in fact, from 12 hours of browsing, madness).

And the GPU? Now comes the good part.

Obviously, even the GPU has 8-cores, up to a Power equal to 2.6 TFLOPS, equal to or better than an Nvidia GTX 1050TI.

This level of power, as mentioned before, allows the MacBook Air to be seriously exploited at a professional level, managing to face previously unimaginable challenges for an entry level machine:

• Photo editing of RAW files? No problem.
• 4K video editing? No problem.
• Advanced Graphics and UX Design? No problem.
• 3D modeling? No problem.
• Web development? No problem.

All with a unthinkable silence, in fact It has no fans.

Crazy huh? Well, as mentioned before, the new M1, unlike the old processors, consumes so little energy that it has no problems with overheating. Obviously if you launch a mega-render it explodes, but silently haha.

The victory of consumption

All very nice the infamous power of the M1, But how long does Benedetta's battery last?

Are you sure you want to know? When I worked on it the first time I was left in stone:

I had just done 8 hours of battery-powered web development and I still had a good 15% left.

In practice, thanks to the aforementioned optimization of consumption by the CPU, the MacBook Air It can manage battery life very well and, from my personal experience, here are the data:

• Between 15 and 18 hrs standard use, web browsing and documents
• Between 8 and 10 hours of video playback, Daje de Netflix
• Between 5 and 8 hours with complex tasks, trivially when I launch a 4K rendering on Keyshot (advanced software for 3D rendering) the processor is at full load, activating the performance cores.

Higher data and on average in line with the old models but which, in comparison, however, come from a machine that boosts performance by at least 4 times more.

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Recommended use cases for the Macbook Air

But I, after all I'm ranting, what do I use the MacBook Air M1 and why?

Every day, as a professional, I make the most of my performance to:

• Development of web applications on VS Code
• Development of websites on Chrome through Web Builder pesantucci, you eat a lot of RAM
• 3D rendering on Keyshot (I'll do the modeling on iPad Pro, sooner or later we'll talk about it)
• 4K video editing on Final Cut, it even holds up iPhone 13 Pro Res, which the MacBook Pro 16, on the other hand, did not do (sold on condition of cause, in short)
• Photo editing on Lightroom Classic, goes easy even with dozens of Sony A7III Raw files
• UX Design between Adobe XD, Figma and Photoshop at the same time

Who would I not recommend it to? For those who have a really heavy workload.

For example, a big problem that afflicts me - and I would rightly say - is 3D Rendering. As great as it is on paper, performance always depends on optimizing applications for the new M1 architecture.

In February 2022, Blender will publish version 3.1 with support for Metal, thus allowing render natively and optimised with M1.

Keyshot, on the other hand, considering the power of Nvidia GPUs and the optimization of RTX technology, only supports CPU rendering, making my poor GPU unused.

Result? It's super light for really heavy renders.

So not recommended for those who make complex renders and, in any case, those who have a really heavy workload.

I mean, don't edit an 8K movie with this Macs But a nice wedding video in 4K yes xD.

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Final Thoughts

I mean, it's a bomb.

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Damn, I almost forgot the most important thing!

AND THE PORTABILITY SHALL WE LEAVE IT AT HOME? MY GOD WHAT REVOLUTION.

You can take it literally everywhere, it's very small and the battery lasts so long that you can work with it safely on the move without worrying too much.

The battery, as already mentioned, will last you at least 8 hours and you can take on any trip by bus, train or car while continuing to work on it without the slightest hesitation.

It is a certainty that cannot be missing today. I work there on the country terrace during sunny days, breathing clean, carefree air.

In the end, the most important factor When you make a purchase, it's inuser experience who will be able to offer us the product and, this MacBook Air M1, will give you the best possible...

... until you fall in love with the irresistible charm of model with Apple Silicon M2 but, as always, this is another story to be explored in his dedicated review.

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But what a joke with that 'I almost forget', pfff.