I also made a day in the life with the M1 MacBook Air review video that is more broadly applicable to all students. Check it out here! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L1YxfNPiDm0.html
Weird alternative tip: there’s a couple Cloud PC services(usually targeted towards gaming) that let you use a full Windows PC from wherever you are. Shadow PC and Paperspace Gaming are the big ones, and they could be good options for when you need to run Windows programs.
@ianno3 I already got my 16Gb and I am pretty happy with it. On one hand there might be some plug-in that has memory leaks, on the other hand I don’t have any regrets upgrading to 16Gb. I have been using 64gb Mac, so even 16Gb sounds less than ideal to me. I am a backend software engineer and I connect it to two 4K monitors @60hz with a DisplayLink docking station. With about 50 tabs open between Jira and stackoverflow the laptop always on SWAP. I understand due to the awesome speed of the IO on the new MacBooks we don’t see the beach ball as often but in the long run I do believe with constant large chunks of sections of SSD used for caches the fragmentation will slow down the machine over time. That said I believe it varies from person to person. It’s just my work flow probably better off with more RAM.
Just saying, this video was made in November, and not many apps (including Chrome) had been optimized to run natively on ARM. Now they are, so you might not need the 16 GB to run those apps. Obviously this wont apply to everyone, but if you have been fine with 8 GB in the past, I see no reason to pay more for 16.
@@micahgoldson1253 i want to ask, i am science student and currently used windows. I want to change to macbook. I always have around 60 tabs + in my chrome as i read a lot of research paper and i tend to keep those 60 tabs unclosed for almost one month and sometimes two months since i must keep up with all the research papers for my project. So in order to avoid force quit applications as shown in the video, should i upgrade for 16 gb or good to buy 8 gb ram only
Your video is crisp and to the point.I am a developer and looking for M1 air but was confused for 8gb and 16gb. For past two days I was heavily looking videos on youtube. This video is so far the best one I found. Keep it up!!
@@danielpaul5664 I also bought the latest macbook pro with touchbar and shit 😂 but I don't even touch it for coding and stuff...the only time I switch it on is for watching movies or editing photos 😂
Great video I aint a cs student, I'm info tech networking and cybersecurity student but our uni treats it like cs course and this has helped me think about getting this as my next laptop
Until there's a proper virtualization/containerization software is released, I will be patient with my old trusty laptop. VMWare, Parallel, and Docker are working on M1 version but no stable version just yet.
Thank you very much for the RAM warning. As someone who is interested in software development, I had questions about 8GB of RAM, I think it would be better to choose 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD variant. Nice video!
Ah yes, The video I have to appriciate. This is the video which introduced me to your channel, I can't appriciate you enough for being you and your view not a marketing view. This was excellent and the great reason I am glad I subscribed to you from this. The journey *we* have had is insane. We will be 100k in no time
Finally!!! All senior/pro/god developers out there with useless videos about M1. This is so so so useful. Just what I wanted to hear. Definitely I will go with 16gb ram Air instead Pro. Using it for web dev, some unity Editor, android studio (because I just switched from iphone to android. Lucky me) and some Photoshop. Thanks!
I haven't tried unity or photoshop, but I do think they most likely won't have problems running on the M1 especially after photoshop updates to native ARM version. I'm curious to see tho!
All M1's can be returned up until January 8th, 2021 if you still want to grab the 16 GB RAM model. I originally bought an 8GB MBP then changed my mind. Now I'm returning it and ordered a 16 GB RAM model. I'm keeping the original until the second one is delivered.
Also had an issue related to RAM when using 8gb M1 Macbook Air. Really recommend upgrading the RAM since you can still expand the storage using external SSD
you cleared all my doubts and after all I think I am better off using a high end windows laptop. Still a very impressive computer tho and the design is awesome.
I agree with you. This is a good choice for many people. I develop in JAVA but I use windows for develop in web. I’ll buy Mac book M1 AIR with 16 gb RAM for my personal things. I’m so excited 😃
If you are doing web dev, you need more than an IDE and a browser. One of the biggest pieces of web dev is designing a server. The server is an application just like any other, albeit without a GUI. Also, DOCKER. You will probably need docker to run and quickly set up several servers on one machine. If you are a CS student in this day and age, you will NEED docker. Maybe not for the first couple years of your program, but for the third or fourth year you certainly will. The missing virtualization capabilities are what keep Android emulators from running and are also what keep Docker and VirtualBox from running smoothly. But yes, for first-year students just doing very basic Python or Java applications or basic HTML/JavaScript webpages that don't require a server but are just parsed from a local file, the M1 works. For advanced students or for getting work done in the workplace (if you aren't programming iOS/Mac exclusive apps), you will need an Intel or AMD processor for the time being.
Thank you for the comment. There are still many areas of comp sci that I'm not very familiar with, so I appreciate you pointing out Docker. I will look into now :)
One thing that's important for developers, for day-to-day stuff, is the ability to run applications in Docker or similar container software (like Podman). Now Docker will eventually release a compatible version, but right now there's no way to run containers. And even with a container, it's gonna be weird to see how the translation will work between the container (most often it's gonna be x86) and the base system. Because it ain't gonna be Rosetta.
Woild you recommend Mac or windows if I wanted to do like everything, app, web and game development, software too and AI/machine elarninf as well, or if one can't do all which is better in which
thanks for the upgrade recommendation! been quite troubled about that and not sure whether to upgrade. is 256GB sufficient? or would you recommend going up to 512GB?
Thanks for the Update. I was thing to get M1 Macbook Pro, and was confused if 8GB ram is enough or do I need more. Thanks for your recommendation. Best luck for future video.
i think i find the video content truly helpful and vivid. thank you for showing the other side of the m1. I saw it on reddit that m1 not fully app supported yet. that's y i ended up getting my first mac ever coming from pc to the intel version.
There are definitely many apps that have to run through an emulator on the m1 currently, however even the performance through an emulator is pretty good! Also in the near future I think more and more apps are going to become native to ARM :)
Good choice! I think that getting 16GB RAM especially helps to "futureproof" your laptop. Even if you start doing more and more heavy work on your laptop, you won't have to worry about RAM.
@@CreatedbyEllaYT that's good to know . I've seen an unhealthy amount of m1 macbook review and now for me it's coming down to 8gb vs 16gb RAM macbook pro with 256gb storage. You were the first one to mention an actual memory alarm, so I was actually leaning towards 16gb. Now I'm hesitating again lol
Ikr. All the of the other reviewers were going on and on about video editing, as if the whole world is doing youtube videos or study media 😒 this video was such a relief.
The last part was really helpful. I was wondering what will be my experience from transitioning from my old MSI 16GB laptop to a new MBA 8GB and it really helps me to make a decision to buy 16GB. Thanks
What is the config of your Mac? Also if you are a CS student don’t you think the MBP is a better buy as it has better sustained performance? Great review!
This mac is the lowest spec air. And I don't know too much about the pro because I don't have it. I didn't originally think the air would be well suited for CS students, but after the M1 chip performed way beyond my expectations, I started to think that the air could be a viable option.
I'm a bit surprised you are getting that memory issue with so few applications open. Other youtubers have stress tested the memory much harder and didn't have issues. Are you sure your applications and OS are up to date?
I later realized my Chrome wasn't the native ARM version. After updating to the native ARM version, I have not been hit with the out of ram warning. However, I've noticed by looking at my Activity Monitor that I still use very close to 8 gb RAM on a daily basis.
Very informational video. I'm about to start my Masters in CS and was wondering if I should get the M1 Macbook Pro. I might have to use some Windows only software, but I have a desktop that I can use for that... I might wait a bit longer before buying..
the 16gb upgrade is not justified with any numbers or benchmarks or even feelings besides preempted fear. I say save your money. if you're dealing with giant files, like video editing or photo editing, ok fair enough. but dev work isn't typically impacted by ram limitations. this example of running out of ram is a fluke and likely not due to hardware limitations. I got the 8gb and I'm happy with it. I plan to sell it at some point in the next 2 years, though, since a hardware refresh is coming. keeping it for 4 years? sure, upgrade, why not, its 50 dollars a year
The fact that is silent and has the same power as a macbook pro makes it a winner, it's also very thin. This will probably be my first macbook, I've been mostly a thinkpad user all the time but I'd like to try something new.
I usually don't open many tabs and use safari. I don't keep multiple apps open. Do you think 8gb ram will be enough? Can 8gb ram run X code ,phyton etc.?
I have been watching lots of review about this M1 Mac, only Ella spots that 8GB of memory problem, thats really crucial. Thank you so much Ella, that made me rethink to buy M1 Mac with 8GB of memory. What about the space, how much space left after you installed Pycharm, VS Code, Xcode, Android Studio and Chrome? Is 256GB of SSD quite sufficient? I'm planning to buy it for apps developing too.
Good choice on choosing 16 GB RAM! Even if you don't think you need that much RAM right now, I think that 16GB RAM especially helps to "futureproof" your laptop. This way, if you start doing more and more heavy work on your laptop, you won't have to worry about RAM. As for space, I had well over 100 GB of SSD left after installing those apps. I would say 256 GB is good enough if you don't plan on storing a lot of videos/other large files. Of course, you can always buy external SSD for pretty cheap!
thanks for the insight. is goodnotes available on this device and can an external drawing tablet be used to make notes on goodnotes running on the the m1 mac?
Love your video! I would just like to know one thing, is it worth wasting extra bucks to get the 8 core gpu for the MBA or the 7 core MBA is good enough?
@@CreatedbyEllaYT Hi ella , thanks for your video, especially the 16 ram recommendation, no one else mentioned having trouble with out of memory messages. just one question, do you think an upgraded macbook air m1 8 core and 16 gb of ram is a better purchase/ almost same performance. than the macbook pro m1 with same specs. i really dont need the touch bar and would like my macbook to be slim and light, thanks ill wait for your answer
I too bought the base (8GB) model, I haven’t come across any issues, tried to open a bunch of chrome(m1 version)/safari tabs, vscode, xcode, spotify. I did see that my swap memory hit the 9GB mark at some point while I was installing xcode and other apps from the app store. I wonder why you saw those ram issues, perhaps some apps were being installed in the background or antivirus sw?
Cool, but saying web development doesn't really have CPU requirements is a mistake IMO. Modern web development relies on transpilation (Typescript, babel) and bundling (Webpack, parcel) which are both CPU intensive.
I bought the M1 MBA with 16GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. I'm very happy with it. My compile times are super fast and I haven't been hindered in any way. But, I've only had it for about a week. I'm really glad I made this choice.
Another issue is going to be a lack of support for Docker, and then when/if that comes, it may only be able to run ARM docker images. This can be an issue because it's a blocker to just being able to quickly spin up various database systems or web proxies, or you name it. Not sure if that applies to CS students (depends on you and your courses) but its definitely a concern for a lot of people who want to do some kind of enterprise style development.
Are you sure you are using the native version of Chrome? I think it is a beta and I think it came out a couple days after the 17th. Thanks, I love your channel
Thanks for watching! I'm actually don't think I'm using the native version of Chrome since I did download it very early on...I just downloaded the new native Chrome today tho :)
@@CreatedbyEllaYT Thanks for the reply. So, Ella, has downloading the like 'optimised' (yes I'm English) Chrome version has like a positive effect on what you mentioned at the end with the Force Quit dialogue???xx
How do you use all the RAM ? I have more than 50 tabs open and at least 6 apps running in the background and swapping between 5 desktop and zoom open most day and it doesn’t need to reload anything...
I've only ever used VIM for Python and Perl. Emacs for Lisp. Xcode for iOS and MacOS using C/Objective C/C++ and now Swift. I've heard good things about Xcode performance on MacBook Air M1. So I ordered the 16GB/512GB version of the M1 MacBook Air. I expect delivery towards the end of May. I guess Apple is doing well with the product. Also, another possible issue with the base Air is it only has 7 GPU cores. I'm not sure why the M1 would have more variations beyond the memory. Maybe it's like Intel in the old days with their SX x86 processors where the FPU was borked so they just disabled it. Also Intel clock cycle rates are based on how well the chip came out of the fab. Anyway, nice to see that PyCharm works because autocompletion and stuff. I won't touch Java again. So no Android for me.
@@nedaerylmaz9480 PyCharm turned out to be more than I wanted to pay. But as for the machine itself, I'm loving it. It is way more responsive than my not all that old Intel MBP 16". The only downside is the smaller screen.
You will likely need an adapter for a cat5 cable as MB Air will only be able to use wifi without. Amazon sells some very good ones for ~$US 10.00, not a show stopper :-)
