Do you have a non-bricked Air/Pro M1?

[Oranges1]

Hi all,

I've been putting more and more of my devices into the Apple ecosystem over the years and I'm finally about to get my first Macbook. But, I've noticed a lot of bricking issues.

There are many disparate threads on many forums with hints and clues and not much specifics about what's going on. It's disappointing that Apple hasn't recognised these issues. So the first and simple issue seems to NOT erase your SSD. The bigger, confusing issue seems to be around the use of peripherals. There has been much speculation about brand of peripherals and quality, yet the bricks don't seem tied to cheap peripherals, it's more widespread than that.

What I'm hoping to do with this thread is to figure out how widespread this is. After all, I could search many of the devices I own now and find lots of unhappy consumers who had issues, which I never had.

If you have an M1 Air or Pro for more than 1 month and you use perhipherals, and it's working ok, would you care dropping a line?

p.s. I did find a similar thread here, yet the very first poster suggests that this is not a widespread problem. That for me justifies figuring out how widespread this is or isn't. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...inue-bricked-non-functional-macbooks.2273271/

 

[darngooddesign]

If this were a widespread issue the internet would be choking with "Brickgate" or "Hubgate" tweets and posts.

 

[Maconplasma]

Uh I don't know what you're talking about. The majority here have had nothing but success with their M1 MacBooks. There hasn't been a bunch of threads here with bricked MacBooks. Strange that you would ask does anyone here have a non-bricked M1 MacBook. When people start new accounts and create threads like this when Apple has a homerun product. Hmm.

 

[Oranges1]

Uh I don't know what you're talking about. The majority here have had nothing but success with their M1 MacBooks. There hasn't been a bunch of threads here with bricked MacBooks. Strange that you would ask does anyone here have a non-bricked M1 MacBook. When people start new accounts and create threads like this when Apple has a homerun product. Hmm.

Likewise, I like to judge a new forum by responses. How quickly they get de-railed tells you plenty about it and is it worth my time.

Regarding the bricks, I got freaked out a bit when reserching about them and obviously I don't want to waste money. Years ago, I had issues with a bad line of laptops and wish I knew before.

One major thread I found on Reddit was:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/kge24m
Tons of people, individual cases and links.

Another link of bricks: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/k359t1
Youtube bricks:

People are casting criticism and doubt without any evidence here and without doing some basic research themselves, as in, I haven't heard of this, is there any merit, and then you type and look.

Regarding the slight about my account status, can you please be clear what you're accusing me of? If you have a concern, contact a mod.

 

[EastHillWill]

I agree that there seems to be some level of peripheral (both wired and bluetooth) shenanigans, but there is no widespread bricking or other deal-breaking issue. It happens, and may be happening at a slightly higher rate with the M1 chip, but it’s not widely prevalent. As others have said, the forums and tech sites would be overrun with stories about it, far more than the examples we have now.

 

[Toutou]

M1 Air here, perfect display, no backlight bleed, no tint, great battery life, no weird bugs, no lags, no crashes, used 50-50 as a laptop and in clamshell mode.
In clamshell mode I use it with a 4K display over DisplayPort -> USB-C adapter (no power delivery) and the original charger, with Magic Mouse + Magic Keyboard.

edit:
Goodbye then.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I agree that there seems to be some level of peripheral (both wired and bluetooth) shenanigans, but there is no widespread bricking or other deal-breaking issue. It happens, and may be happening at a slightly higher rate with the M1 chip, but it’s not widely prevalent. As others have said, the forums and tech sites would be overrun with stories about it, far more than the examples we have now.

This post pretty much ends the purpose of the thread, in my opinion. It is objective and states with brevity what has occurred for many people since the release of the M1.

 

[Maconplasma]

M1 Air here, perfect display, no backlight bleed, no tint, great battery life, no weird bugs, no lags, no crashes, used 50-50 as a laptop and in clamshell mode.
In clamshell mode I use it with a 4K display over DisplayPort -> USB-C adapter (no power delivery) and the original charger, with Magic Mouse + Magic Keyboard.

edit:
Goodbye then.

No worries. The OP didn't come here hoping for positive responses from owners of M1 MacBooks saying no bricking and no issues. He was hoping to be right with the links he posted. That's why he aggressively threw up a bunch of links. Funny how there have been literally hundreds of posted positive responses from consumers, no widespread news of problems and he picks out a few negatives. The minority of negatives always overshadow the enormous positives. With any product from any company there will always be a few issues. That's common. He's completely ignoring the positives just to cause a stir on the forum. Continue enjoying your M1 Mac as many others are.

 

[dstyp]

I also worry about this. MBA M1.
So far so good, got mine Dec. 21.

Read up about this prior to buying and it seems to be related to power delivery. Got the Caldigit TS3+ for my home office ordered through Apple.com. Works well.

Will not, however, use other PD docks for it for the time being. Especially that form factor that seems to have higher trouble rate.

 

[spiderman0616]

I take no stock in anything I see, read, or hear on YouTube, Reddit, or to be honest, forums like this one. Especially when it comes to anything related to Apple, and especially when it comes to hardware issues. People have made a cottage industry out of bashing Apple, manufacturing hardware and software scandals, proclaiming doom, and posting clickbait. It's pointless, and I stopped paying any attention to it years ago. The last place you want to go if you want to just have a normal conversation about your gear and feel good about your purchases is a web forum.

Any higher-up at any tech blog will tell you that simply putting "Apple" in a headline generates tons and tons of ad revenue and site traffic. Any YouTuber will tell you that if you hold up an Apple product and make a really stupid looking thumbnail for your video of you holding said device and making a face like you hate it will generate hundreds of thousands of views. Once you start relying on that income, you can't walk away from it without financial consequences. Kind of like how the toll booths in the Chicago area were supposed to be temporary until the state of Illinois realized they had started depending on the toll money as part of their yearly funding. That was back in the 70s, and we're still paying tolls!

This will make me sound like an old man, but I blame Facebook and its ilk. Everyone wants attention, clicks, fame, and money. They'll say or do anything to achieve that goal. Whatever the metrics tell them will get those precious clicks.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I take no stock in anything I see, read, or hear on YouTube, Reddit, or to be honest, forums like this one. Especially when it comes to anything related to Apple, and especially when it comes to hardware issues. People have made a cottage industry out of bashing Apple, manufacturing hardware and software scandals, proclaiming doom, and posting clickbait. It's pointless, and I stopped paying any attention to it years ago. The last place you want to go if you want to just have a normal conversation about your gear and feel good about your purchases is a web forum.

Any higher-up at any tech blog will tell you that simply putting "Apple" in a headline generates tons and tons of ad revenue and site traffic. Any YouTuber will tell you that if you hold up an Apple product and make a really stupid looking thumbnail for your video of you holding said device and making a face like you hate it will generate hundreds of thousands of views. Once you start relying on that income, you can't walk away from it without financial consequences. Kind of like how the toll booths in the Chicago area were supposed to be temporary until the state of Illinois realized they had started depending on the toll money as part of their yearly funding. That was back in the 70s, and we're still paying tolls!

This will make me sound like an old man, but I blame Facebook and its ilk. Everyone wants attention, clicks, fame, and money. They'll say or do anything to achieve that goal. Whatever the metrics tell them will get those precious clicks.

The pic is worth the read.

 

[bobcomer]

I've seen lots of people comment that their M1 Macs have bricked, but remember this, The people with the most problems are probably also the people that would take the most time to post.

I have a Macbook Air (16G, 1TB) that's not bricked. It does crash about once a week, but I'm running beta software on it (Parallels for ARM and Windows on Arm in a VM), so it's not really a concern. I'm personally not quite so enamored with it because it doesn't run some of the things I need, but if all you need is Mac stuff, it would be stellar. SO quite, it runs pretty cool unless I really push it, the speed is awesome for a low end device unless it gets warm.

 

[dmccloud]

Likewise, I like to judge a new forum by responses. How quickly they get de-railed tells you plenty about it and is it worth my time.

Regarding the bricks, I got freaked out a bit when reserching about them and obviously I don't want to waste money. Years ago, I had issues with a bad line of laptops and wish I knew before.

One major thread I found on Reddit was:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/kge24m
Tons of people, individual cases and links.

Another link of bricks: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/k359t1
Youtube bricks:

People are casting criticism and doubt without any evidence here and without doing some basic research themselves, as in, I haven't heard of this, is there any merit, and then you type and look.

Regarding the slight about my account status, can you please be clear what you're accusing me of? If you have a concern, contact a mod.

Two Reddit threads and three YouTube channels of people I've never even heard of (and I subscribe to a LOT of reputable and well-known tech channels on YouTube) do not make a trend. If the bricking issue was as prevalent as you implied, then you'd see a lot of negative press from the tech media (including CNet, PC World, MacWorld, MacAddict, Wired, etc.). But what you actually see is a lot of praise for the M1-based Macs and eager anticipation of what is still to come from Apple as they complete the transition away from Intel. Your thread title also shows some bias on your part, as it presumes that most M1 Macs are bricked.

You attempt to place the burden on everyone else to prove you wrong, when actually the burden is on you to prove there are more issues than have been reported. Sorry, but Reddit and no-name YouTubers don't exactly prove any widespread issues with the M1 Macs. Yet you tried to disperse those contradicting opinions by implying that those people did not do "basic research." If you had done basic research for "M1 performance", "M1 reviews", or "M1 Comparison" (just three examples, there are many more) instead of "M1 problems" or "M1 Bricking", you would have actually gotten a much more representative set of references to base your opinion on. Instead, you've seemingly only looked at negative posts and videos to form a (decidedly wrong) opinion about the M1 Macs as a whole. The search terms you use often influence the results you get back.

Look up YouTube videos from TWiT, Rene Ritchie, MaxTech, and others to see just how well the M1 Macs are actually performing. MaxTech is an especially interesting one to watch, because they just replaced a $15k Mac Pro with an M1 Mac Mini because of how well it performs. There is another video I watched (can't remember the channel it was on, just that it was an Aussie) who did a head-to-head comparison between the M1 Air, M1 Pro, and a 16" Pro and was shocked at just how well both M1 Macs performed. For print/web reviews, media outlets such as those I listed in my first paragraph also paint a significantly different picture than your limited scope of references.

I've had my M1 Mac for almost 2 months now, and I use a J5 hub that I originally got for my iPad Pro, a Samsung T5 portable SSD, the Magic Mouse, a Logitech MX Keys for Mac Keyboard, Acer 27" gaming monitor, and a Logitech C922 webcam without any issues at all. While some (not the majority, and definitely not more than an extremely small yet vocal minority of the userbase) have had issues, there is not enough data out there to determine whether it is an issue on Apple's side or on the part of the peripheral manufacturer. That bolded section alone demonstrates why the entire premise of your 1st post is flawed, since issues as widespread as you implied would by necessity have multiple entities (Apple, peripheral manufacturers, tech media, etc.) investigating these issues already.

 

[ksloth]

Life is far, far too short to worry. Just enjoy your M1 and if it fails, get it replaced under warranty.

 

[Ethosik]

Life is far, far too short to worry. Just enjoy your M1 and if it fails, get it replaced under warranty.

I agree. It is unrealistic to say no Macs would have issues. It is unrealistic to say all Macs have issues. Hardware can and does have some level of problems. I had a GTX 970 that was DOA. I had several hard drives that died one month after purchase.

 

[pshifrin]

I got a MBP 16/1tb on launch day. Spent the first 6-8 weeks as a laptop, mostly in bed, thanks to some emergency surgery. Now that I can sit at a desk again, it's docked to the LG Ultrafine 4k 24/7. Not a single problem with it hardware wise.

 

[jambon]

Returned my M1 Mac mini due to the bluetooth issues, which were infuriating. Got the M1 MBP replacement in early December and have had no such issues. My impression from reading these forums at the time was that the Mini issues were more widespread and also around in the Intel versions.