M1 MacBook Air Review - After 5000 Hours of Use 

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I can't imagine anyone working with 6K+ footage would ever expect to work on a 13" lightweight portable laptop as their main driver. That seems silly to me. The fact it can reasonably handle 4k is incredible and more than expected really.

This dude really up here already 100k , i was here when he was just like 5k or something and it came, the just released M1 days. Congrats man!

I have been absolutely loving mine. It's PERFECT for school, work, entertainment, photo editing, and Minecraft when I travel. LOVE IT :)

Recently switched from windows to mac and I'm already enjoying everything about it.

Thank you for your honesty about this machine. I feel other people have tried to hide the real dimensions of its performance.

The M1 processor line is just amazing for what it offers. Really good battery life, relatively high performance, and the ease of use + stability of MacOS. I just use Parsec to connect to my desktop computer or use a cloud computing service for heavier compute tasks.

Oh, the lighting is just wonderful :)

0:18 🔊 Now there are hundreds of videos like this so Im gonna talk about key points. Ur seriously so honest man !!!

Always excellent content, have been using the M1 air for about 5 months, was primarily an Windows user and I still enjoy my Windows laptop, but this M1 at the price point is just running circles around it to the point to where unless I believe you really invest in an higher end Windows laptop you just want see the benefit,. I use the mod and I admit I do light video editing, not hardcore but the battery life, the performance especially with the mod is just through the roof, it just seems to be the best alternative for most people unless you're doing heavy lifting, then the MacBook Pro could take a lot of that weight, as always keep the fantastic videos coming, always informative and interesting content!

I realllyyyy appreciate your honest review esp the last point

Part of the reason that swap memory still performs so well is that Macs won’t really swap anything that is in active working memory unless it absolutely has to. It’s swapping stuff that it might be using, but not nearly as often. The SSDs are ridiculously fast, but there is still an access latency that is estimated at around 100-300K CPU cycles, which is still many orders of magnitude slower than the ~200-500 cycles of an average RAM operation. (And it’s not just the SSD access latency that has to be worried about. It’s also context switches when the OS has to take control to fetch the memory before handing the CPU back to the app. These context switches will take several thousand cycles on their own). As slow as this is, it’s still worlds faster than the millions of cycles required for hard drive swap operations, and these Macs are also faster than most other SSDs. It’s a fast enough that it can throw anything that it isn’t actively using at any given moment (browser tabs, sections of programs containing memory that isn’t used much, etc) and when you need it again, it fetches it from swap fast enough to be more or less unnoticeable unnoticeable from a UI standpoint. Memory compression also plays a huge part. Mac OS does a good job of this, and can squash memory quite substantially and can do so much faster than the swap operations. Still far slower than RAM operations (RAM compression still takes several thousand cycles due to context switches and the need to compress/decompress 4K pages at a time), but still much faster than SWAP and the M1’s processing power helps to make this faster than on Intel era processors. The end result is that Mac OS has plenty of options as far as what to do when RAM gets right. It can afford to put stuff that isn’t used quite as often into swap or memory compression and the hit is smaller when it needs it again. You can generally push the memory pretty hard on a Mac as a result, but it’s not quite the same as just “slower RAM” - the OS fundamentally treats it differently and Mac OS is just managing it all in a very smart way. In general, running out of RAM is rarely an issue on these new M1 macs, but there are certain algorithms that will push it pretty hard. It all depends on how often Mac OS needs to use the memory it’s needing to swap out. If it’s browser tabs and sleeping OS services, or maybe mostly dormant sections of memory for different apps, the swap is pretty much unnoticeable. For most of us, this is the case and the Mac won’t miss a beat once you fill up your RAM. But if it’s LZMA on ludicrous settings or video rendering, it might be tighter. I’ve only managed to really push my Mac to its limits one time, and that was with three virtual machines, several NodeJS processes, about 30 browser tabs, and about 15 other apps open. I pushed it quite hard before 8GB was no longer enough. These things perform like a beast.

Yo its been a while since I have checked one of your videos, and I just wanted to give you probs on the improvements you have made to your video style, editing etc. Its always been on a good level but you have really managed to still improve on that so - good job ;)

Another benefit of the fanless design is that it doesn’t risk accumulating dust inside the machine. So no need to periodically clean it out.

Wow your setup is improving everyday! Giving me heavy Dave2D vibes! Keep up the good work.... :)

I think the hype is warranted, it absolutely is, fast & powerful, never seen anything like it, had zero issues.

I am an m1 macbook pro user and I have to point out that the fan rarely turns on so the issue with having macbook with a fan on a bed or sheets is negligible.

Appreciate your balanced perspective.

Good unique points that I haven't really seen emphasized on other channels. Glad your channel is growing. It's difficult to have a unique view on tech stuff since there's so many people in the tech youtube space but keep up the good videos.

Subscribed just because you giving very good cons in this video unlike other youtuber.

congrats on 100k!

Its an amazing laptop. Been using it for a few weeks now and everything is so fast and smooth. I had some files that were in my old laptop (Lenovo, i5, 8gb RAM) so I went back to retrieve them, and from the moment I turned it on, to getting the file, and accessing chrome to send the file online, took me 30 minutes (I am not even joking about this). Made me realize how amazing the Macbook M1 Air is when the same process took just that few clicks here and there to complete. The only problem I had with it was during the first week when transitioning from a Windows laptop to a Mac. The trackpad, keyboard, shortcuts and all were unfamiliar but now its much better and a breeze when it comes to work completion.

Good points man. Thank you.

I just got an M1 Macbook Air and I'm overall pretty impressed. This is my first Mac and I've experimented with Hackintosh, but that's it. I don't have any affinity for Apple products and I personally despise iOS. With all that said, the M1 Air is the real deal. I thought Rosetta 2 would suck and I'm really surprised by how far Apple was able to push the ARM architecture. There are plenty of things I don't like as well, but most of that comes down to little quirks with Mac OS rather than the hardware and performance of the Air.

Bruh! Thank you for this review! Thank you!!!!

Great job! Thanks you!

great review!!!

Keep up the good work

Thank you!

Those tube lights in the background are looking great

I like how the cons are "isn't a supercomputer" and "you can't replace the SSD manually", two things that are nonissues for 99% of users. The only real con of this thing is the ports. Other than that it's the best £999 (or less!) you'll ever spend.

Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts about the chip. A bit TOO overhyped. But i like the sleekness and good battery life. Eager to see what intel and amd will do with arm :)

Idc about the cons, imo its a perfect laptop in the market rn. I am saving up for this one(halfway there) hope to get it soon :)

Still using a 13” mid 2012 pre-Retina MacBook Pro, luckily I can patch Big Sur and it’s fully functional, but the weight, screen resolution and thermals start to show its age…

Best apple laptop ever. Got mine for $850 brand new and couldn’t be happier

I bought an M1 Mac book air a year ago, and now I feel envy for an upcoming release of M2 Mac because of their better performance and improved efficiency.

This channel is so entertaining and information packed, thanks for making such amazing videos!

Another con is the lack of optimized apps. Some of the biggest do have an M1 version, but there are plenty that don't. Some still work, but they either hit the system hard, or they are full of bugs.

I just had the macbook air for 3 days now. Im coming from a windows laptop that cost less than half of the mac, i3 4gb ram 400gb hdd, its not the best laptop out there. And man, switching to macbook, the experience is phenomenal. Its blazing fast, multitasking never felt this buttery smooth, huge battery, nice screen, loud and clear speakers.. its just better in every aspect compared to my old laptop. I still have a lot to learn, the file management still confuses me but everything else is perfectly fine. Im really satisfied with my purchase

The reason it has the hype isn’t because it is an objective power house but the fact that in its class nothing compares on battery life, performance, and price

I spent a lot of time researching this when they first came out, and I bit the bullet for an M1 MBP with 16GB/1TB. I use it for light video work, and my IT job - it has been an incredible tool for work and play and at no point have I ever been left feeling like I'm missing out. The hype of it being a "powerhouse" is not wholly incorrect, when comparing base model M1 MBA against similarly priced competitors, they are pretty much class leaders and often punch above their weight. $1350AUD is not a lot of money, but oh boy you sure do get a LOT of computer.

Nice video!

I’m really enjoying my M1 MacBook Air 💻 it’s amazing 🤩

dude it would be great if these days you upload a video showing the percentage of your gigabytes of ram used (because some people tells 1 to 3% in their first months of use) and already in sept - oct when macos monterey is officially released, do a test again to see if any percentage rises

When you are so powerful that one of your main con is the fact that people think hype it up to be very good something it can’t even control

You could have mentioned that M1 Macs can't run bootcamp due to the different chip architecture, so some windows stuff like steam gaming are off limits

You missed out the keyboard, if your coming from the 2020 13 inch you’ll love the m1 macs keyboard more.

Still an amazing laptop!

watching this on my M1 MacBook Air !

Where can I get those tube lights behind you. Looks so cool man.

Great video dude 👍 and I am from discord

I Have got the MacBook Air M1 16 GB RAM, I love the tapered design, I love that it is silent (no fan) and not get hot, it is fast for anything, I do not waiting for exporting edited heavy image file. Apple do NOT change the tapered design !!!

I work on a Windows computer with good hardware for me, works great, it is absolutely quiet because I turned off the fans, I don’t play games, I don’t edit pro video right now.. But I also need a small laptop for carrying and portable work, and I think that Macbook Air or Windows Oled Ultrabook is better (2k display, lighter than MacBook air).. What I like the most is the absence of a fan and the long battery life of the MacBook air.

Id like to see new rendering on AE tests now that it seems to run natively on the M1

Dave said that he’s missing some tubes in his studio. I wonder where they are ?😂

Ok I know no one cares about sponsors but... This is the best web to make your own web litrally the best 5 star review

Hi there I was wondering if you could provide some insight between differences in TB hubs and regular USB-c hubs for someone looking for a solution for a Ryder based gaming laptop and a Mac! Thanks in advance and I look forward to seeing more of your content!

I accept everything that’s been said here. But, I’m afraid that my battery life on the m1 MacBook Air wasn’t as good as it was used to be when I first bought it. It’s been almost 7 months since I’ve bought this. Maybe I’m alone in this owing to my usage pattern but it’s a thing to look out for, nonetheless.

Thank you for this video. There is so much hype these days that the M1 sounds like a super machine. You don't know whether to trust this or not. Any computer can browse the web and edit videos. So you should assess your use case. Not everyone is a RU-vidr and needs this kind machine. A 600$ pc can do or an xps might fit someone's needs as well as an m1. Good review

just got one for 750$ on best buy for my first year in uni!

The hype thing is so true

lack of air vents also means less ways for dust to go inside the macbook

Your setup is so clean - are they pavotubes? I hat are you using for your key light?

Good video

I’m gonna come back for the M1 MB Air after 8 years.

I just started using Photoshop and going back and forth on my Macbook Air M1 and Ryzen 5 3600x Desktop gaming PC, I have to say the M1is superior in so many cases. Not just Photoshop, Apple Silicon optimized apps run insane.

This new setup is nice...looks like it's inspired by Dave 2D 😏😏

Those light bars behind, I need links for those!!

I am an m1 macbook pro user and honestly the fan rarely turns on if that, even while doing some video/photo editing. To be honest it really only turns on slightly during longer (and I mean like 5 or 6+ hours) periods of use time. The fan really shouldn't be a con to the pro and pro to the air. I do agree the air is great, but if your looking for the sustain, like heavy use/long period of time use, look into the pro (which does have a longer lasting battery may I add; I can go 3 days sometimes on one charge). I'll add that the performance on both machines is amazing and can't really separate the two aside from the base model pro gaining an extra gpu core over the base model air. The sustain is really the major point with the pro against the air in my eyes, with the brighter screen, better battery life and updates keyboard being a plus (the touch bar for me is whatever bc in the end u still have to look down to operate function keys, not just the touch bar).

I'm gonna be buying an air but im not sure to wait for the redesign.. It'll probably cost more.

cool vid! Do you have it always plugged? Would it ruin the battery on these new models?

The #M1Chip is probably the biggest innovation post-Steve Jobs for Apple. 🍏🍎👌

Only con for me: ain’t a gaming pc + 99% of my steam library wouldn’t work on it cause it’s a Mac. 😒 … but really impressed that I spent $900 and was able to do some of the same editing tasks my rigged out PC does. Mac is really trying to bring me back over from PC again and it’s working

I actually prefer to watch videos about the flaws to make an educated purchasing decision.

I have a late 2013 13” retina MacBook Pro which is slowly falling apart and just feeling slower and slower. Should I buy the m1 air now or try and wait for the next one to come?

I change my MacBook pro 2017 15 inch to a mackBook air 2020. 8g 256hd. What do you thinl. I think i did right. What do you think…? Thank you for your great review…🙂

Hello! Thanks for the video! Very interesting thoughts, I am looking for this one for graphic design work mainly. Any advise on whether to go for it or pass ? " Using lots of Photoshop, illustrator and occasionally Aftereffects

why with 30+tabs opening in safari and some native apple apps open I already started to notice some lag and stutter? The memory pressure is yellow all the time , the swap memory is about 2.5G. As I can remember (very possible my memory is wrong) when I bought it brand-new it was more smooth?

I don’t get how the M1 Pro is worse on a soft surface. The fan only kicks in on the M1 Pro when the system gets hotter than this fanless model’s threshold. They’re equal on light tasks but surely it’s better to have some air flow when it gets warm rather than just throttling when that heat just radiates outward.

I love my m1

I think that thing with the swap you said is not entirely correct. You can find other machines with fast SSD that will choke under heavy load on the RAM. The thing that make m1 fast on swapped pages, is the very short distance between the CPU and the RAM compared to regular computer.

I got my Macbook Air because of good battery performance with good battery life.

Hello, need help with deciding if I should get the 8GB or 16GB of the M1 air. I’m thinking of using it as an on the go work/entertainment laptop. I usually work on Adobe Photoshop with digital drawings with effects nothing too professional, occasionally Adobe after effects for some short motion graphics and to learn coding/programming (node js/react js or Flutter). I already have a windows desktop workstation. I only need something that can help work on whenever I’m away from the desktop. Which should I get? 8GB or 16GB?

You have any issues with the USB C hub pass through power for the M1 MacBook? I’m considering purchasing an M1, but with the limited ports I’d need to get a hub but wary after hearing the stories of hubs frying peoples’ USB ports.

Great product from Apple 💓💓💓

You should make a video testing the M1 Mac for engineering software such as AutoCAD, Tekla Structural Designer, and Idea Statica. I’ve been wanting to get one of the new M1 macs for a while now but I’m not sure how it will run these softwares, even if it needs to be through Parallels. Every other video tests the Mac for video and photo editing, but that is not something I would use the computer for. If you could help that would be great.

Hey do you know when you’ll do the 500$ lottery for the Mac Desk Setup submission?

I've just bought a MacBook Pro 14. Imagine that everything has been said for MacBook Air m1, can be multiplied by twice!

Because the air has not Fan you need to have the vents free so air can circulate

Is is worth to buy base m1 air coz I am worried to buy it because of ssd problem you told .. i have started saving money for it since 5 months. And planning to buy after my exams.. my work will be classes, video editing for youtube , coding basic stuff, some short movie editing, etc.. and I wish that as I am saving money for it, it should last 5-6 years at least.. coz not everyone is that much rich.. hope you understand my concern... Please suggest or make video on this.. or alternative to ssd fail..

Ok so… mostly positive, I love my M1 Macbook Air and I do edit heavy photo and video files.

thanks. for speaking the truth about these products, macbook air is a great machine though

LOL the lack of fans would mean you need to use this in an even more well ventilated place so that the heat can escape as it's not being pushed out or cool air pulled in.

You got the same setup as a RU-vidr called Dave2D

I’m assuming there will mostly be good things about this, haha 😂

The new generation M-series Macbook with solder on ram and hard drive or it power component break down after 2 to 3 years. If apple expect the consumer to get a new rather to repair it, than apple had to sell it product cheap enough if it don't meet it quality.

Heya I bought M1 mac after seeing your vids and now I don't regret it at all ..but mate sometimes my wifi automatically disconnects and then I'll have to enter password again in my Mac ...and solutions for it?

Well XPS cheap don't necessarily have more RAW power. But Agree with your right to repair point. It's the only thing I don't like about APPLE.

What’s that dock and thing you plugged into your MacBook to put it on a monitor?

Is iMac over hype or I should go for PC and MacBook