for those that have used Big Sur -- what's the verdict?

[romanof]

It works well on my M1 Air and M1 Mini (and on my 2017 iMac, apparently, although I don't use it now.)

iMessage froze hard once, requiring a reboot. Wouldn't even force quit.
First pass of Time Machine stalled on cleaning up for the rest of the day. Reboot cleared it.
Notification on boot is -> Connect "Apple USB..." to a USB port on this Mac. I don't have anything connected but the mouse and keyboard and certainly not an "Apple USB..."
Mail is very unsatisfactory - too much white space and too little info. But I hardly use email these days.
Microsoft infiltrated the programming suite of Apple to install that horrid wallpaper of colored stripes to make users of the Big Sur ill. But that is easy to fix.

Otherwise, both have been on and working for a week or so and doing fine. The Air battery lasts forever if all you are doing is writing text into Scrivener. (And in a darkened room with the screen brightness turned low)

 

[ghanwani]

With 11.1 would any of you like to revise your vote?

 

[Isamilis]

I am convert. From bad experience using Big Sur (very slow performance, 10-20 seconds open apps), to the happy one. Though the version 11.1 was still very new (just updated few hours ago), but found no problem so far. Occasional freeze in login screen is also fixed. One noticeable difference is the working temp is cooler in 11.1 compared to 11.0.1 or Catalina. The processor run within 49-55 degree celsius, where previously around 58-70 degree. I also reset PRAM every time restart laptop (hold Option, Command, P, and R).

 

[ghanwani]

I just updated. At least the installation appears to have gone OK.

 

[ghanwani]

Barely a couple of hours in and I'm noticing that my 2019 MBA now runs a good bit warmer than it did with Catalina and the fan is constantly on. Very disappointed. I voted "nay".

 

[s66]

Updated 3 macs (MP7,1, MBP, M1 mini) so far, no issues noticed so far. Used both 11.0.1 and 11.1 on all of them.

 

[jt1968]

I used Big Sur on my MacBook Pro 15" (2014) with no problems noticed.

I bought a lightly used MacBook Pro (2019) last week, and have noticed no problems so far from Big Sur.

 

[cosmik-debris]

Clearly there are major issues with Big Sur running on Mac's with Intel processors. After I upgraded my 2018 MacBook Air to Big Sur I had many problems. Network issues, battery life issue, sluggish performance issues, and a lengthly boot time. I tried many suggestions from this forum and other web sites. The way I eventually fixed it was to revert back to Catalina. I erased the hard drive, reset the NVRAM, and did a clean install of Catalina.

 

[George Dawes]

I think I’ll wait until the apple silicon desktops come out before using big sur

if it ain’t broke comes to mind

 

[mwidjaya]

Clearly there are major issues with Big Sur running on Mac's with Intel processors. After I upgraded my 2018 MacBook Air to Big Sur I had many problems. Network issues, battery life issue, sluggish performance issues, and a lengthly boot time.

I think the key word is upgraded.

Big Sur 11.0.1 runs very well on clean install onto my MacBookAir6,2.

 

[headcode]

For those that have used Big Sur, please answer the simple poll.

I'm in two minds on whether to install given that whatever I have seen of the UI seems ugly. I'm normally the kind of person that installs the latest OS on day 1, but this time I'm reluctant.

The UI is horrific. There used to be a nice gray shading to the tops of windows. Now apps like like they aren't in the foreground...all the time. Standard text fields can't even be seen because everything is just white. All the time. Not to mention that you are going to lose functionality for anything that needs an FTDI driver. If I could go back I would. In fact, I'm going to look into that.

 

[juan985_Spain]

I had to reinstall Mojave back in the day due to different issues when upgrading to Catalina. I love Big Sur. For me it's been much better than Catalina. I upgraded from Mojave to Big Sur and did no clean install and I had no problems at all.

 

[Foxglove9]

I went from High Sierra to Big Sur a few months ago. So far it's good. Runs a little faster, I like it.

 

[romanof]

It works well on an M1 mini. The desktop background that comes with it look like it was designed in a kindergarten fingerpainting class but that is easy to change. The UI is bad. Unless developers change their icons color, they can easily disappear into the menu bar. White on black is the easiest option. That can be fixed by the user but takes some tweaking of the desktop background. The only bug I have had is the pink squares across the screen that have appeared maybe 4 or 5 times since December. Saw that Apple is investigating the issue.

But... M1 + Big Sur is damn fast, and no mistake. I don't do games, but there are some unbelievable C, C++, Perl and Ruby compile times compared to a fairly hot 4 core I7 Debian box.

 

[Brian1230]

I installed Big Sur on my early 2015 MacBook Air with 4gb of ram and was very happy with it, it performed perfect, and last Friday when I got my stimulus check, I bought a m1 MacBook Air and Big Sur flies on it. never see the pinwheel, and web pages load instantly. I didn't like the initial wallpaper but going thru the available images for wall paper found a few I like so its all good. much much better than windows ever was and that includes windows 10 pro.