Is anyone else blown away by how fast these M1 MacBooks are?

[moonbread]

Another perspective though is the environmental impact from returning a perfectly fine machine. When an item is returned to apple, at bare-minimum the outer-case gets replaced before being sold as a refurb. Yes, they recycle the components that are swapped but that does have a carbon footprint. I'm not saying this to tell anyone they shouldn't return something they're unhappy with, but keep that in mind when you return something. It's free for you, and Apple can more than afford to eat the cost, but the planet does take a hit from that.

The 2-week return policy is 'no questions asked' for a reason. Warranty is for faulty devices. In regards to the environment - you are kidding yourself if you think you or anyone else has any impact on the environment as a whole. The responsibility should lie with the company in question, and not with the end-user, otherwise we are just victim blaming. Me recycling my 1 coke bottle that get's thrown in a land pile anyway and sold off, does nothing compared to Coca-Cola switching to all glass or even in the least, aluminum - the same principle applies to Apple and any large scale company.

You may be right, but returning a non-defective item is not something my conscience and sense of fair dealing can handle. Back in 2009 I bought a Hitachi impact driver from Amazon for £127. It was a beautifully made tool and worked perfectly, but at that time I had little money and regretted the cost, so I returned it. To this day I am troubled.

Do not feel bad about this. There are better things to worry about than the profit margin of multi-billion and million dollar companies. While you worry about your return, everyone at the top is laughing themselves to sleep as they bath in a near infinite supply of wealth.

 

[pshufd]

I kept the late 2010 MBA 11” for 10 years. Was still going strong until I dumped a cup of water on it. I’m certain the M1 will be as solid.

I'm still using a Late 2009 iMac (watching a YouTube video on it right now). The CPU is slow but the overall system is usable for web browsing, email, notes, reminders, playing chess, and calendar. I have 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pros but may very well buy the 14 and 16 M1X MacBook Pros when they come out and sell my 2014 and 2015 models. I had planned to keep them both for ten years of service but the M1X laptops to come will be irresistible.

 

[pshufd]

Do not feel bad about this. There are better things to worry about than the profit margin of multi-billion and million dollar companies. While you worry about your return, everyone at the top is laughing themselves to sleep as they bath in a near infinite supply of wealth.

Standard accounting practice is to put in some estimates for returns. The cost to Apple of returns is dwarfed by customer satisfaction and a long-term customer. In general, I never return anything that I buy. I do my due diligence in researching products. If it doesn't work out, then I typically donate it or give it away.

Basically I'm too lazy to bring it to UPS or the Post Office.

 

[vivek28]

We went for 16 GB as I'm expecting ten years out of our Air. If it were upgradable, then that would be one thing, but it isn't so I'd max out the RAM in case RAM requirements increase over time.

Yeah but folks say 8GB performs beautifully well being unified memory. Never seen tests which could make 16GB more better. Cant make up my mind yet..

 

[pshufd]

Yeah but folks say 8GB performs beautifully well being unified memory. Never seen tests which could make 16GB more better. Cant make up my mind yet..

Right. But we're talking about system requirements over the next ten years. As far as I'm aware, every single release of macOS over the past decade has required more system resources than the previous release. I expect that trend to continue.

At some point, we may get functionality like x86 Windows emulation or translation that works quite well and that may be something that consumes a lot of RAM on M1 Macs.

 

[panjandrum]

I said this at some length in another thread; the M1 Macs are great, but they are also the first time since I've been working with Macs (mid/late 80s) where I felt the machine was really as responsive as I wanted it to be. Up until now the fastest I Macs had a responsiveness I would call "acceptable." What most of you who are 'being blow away' are experiencing, for the first time, is exactly the way a properly designed computer feels. It's wonderful isn't it? It's the type of responsiveness that keeps those of us who've been around a while nostalgic for Amigas and Atari STs and Be-Boxes (for example). I think it's one of the things that keeps Linux users on Linux too, as some distros I've played with are extremely responsive, even when running in a VM. You can make a Windows gaming rig feel this responsive also, if you are lucky enough to put one together where everything actually works the way it theoretically should, but I've never felt a pre-built Windows computer feel anywhere near as responsive as an M1 Mac. Really great work on Apple's part and I hope they pay a LOT of attention to the responsiveness as they update the OS.

 

[themadrhino]

I am very pleased in trading in my 2018 MBA. I still have a 2019 MBP and can really tell the difference. I only upgraded because my 2018 MBA was being challenged video conferencing when multitasking.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

512 gb 8gb Space Gray Pro owner here. Everything is so seamless. It's unreal. Granted, I do not run windows or any complicated programs. I am blown away. How can this be a first gen machine? I am now trying to figure out what to do about my other MacBooks because all I want to do is use this one. I am in love. Logic tells me I should return it and get the second gen version of it and I will eventually run into some major problems, but I don't want to take it back lol.

I got my base model M1 MacBook Air yesterday, and what I've been most impressed by is the instant wake. I thought my old 2019 MacBook Pro woke up quickly, but the M1 is instantaneous. It really has to be seen to be believed.

Overall system speed has been pretty incredible, except for a weird snag that occurred during the first few hours of use where I was installing a bunch of apps and logging into services and transferring files all simultaneously and there was an abnormal amount of lag associated with something simple like cmd+tabbing between apps. That has thankfully subsided, and overall the performance has been more than good enough for my laptop needs.

Maybe I should have opted for the 16GB memory model, but with the $855 trade-in of my prior device along with the education discount I got with this model and the 3% cash back from Apple Card, I end up only spending like $66 to get this M1 MacBook Air rather than like $266 for the 16GB version. It's a big difference, and since my computer was still a very new 2019" MacBook Pro, this cheap upgrade pathway was the only reason I opted to go for it.

Intel laptops are depreciating assets, and I'm glad to be rid of my 2019 13" MacBook Pro with four thunderbolt ports what with its bad Butterfly keyboard for this cool ass Gold Air. I lost a couple of ports with this upgrade, but I found from owning that laptop that now that I have an iMac, I don't really use that many ports on my laptop. I also lost the touchbar, which is an ambivalent difference to me, as I now have to relearn some muscle memory. Overall, I'm happy with the purchase: just wish that that rumored 2022 one with MagSafe had been available instead, but such is life.

 

[calstanford]

My fanless light Macbook M1 Air is as fast as the ridiculously stupid hot and loud 16" i9 Macbook Pro I sold

 

[natharvey]

I was pretty skeptical and thought it was mostly some PR spin but it’s an incredible experience.

 

[KittyKatta]

As a long time iPad Pro user then... No, I'm not impressed. What we are seeing on the M1 Mac is exactly what we could have seen 4 years ago if Apple actually cared enough about iPadOS and provided the proper 1st party Pro iPad software that it deserved. (iPad already had instant-on, no heat, no fans, long battery etc. All that was missing was the Pro Apple Apps)

 

[Kung gu]

As a long time iPad Pro user then... No, I'm not impressed. What we are seeing on the M1 Mac is exactly what we could have seen 4 years ago if Apple actually cared enough about iPadOS and provided the proper 1st party Pro iPad software that it deserved. (iPad already had instant-on, no heat, no fans, long battery etc. All that was missing was the Pro Apple Apps)

The 14" and 16" will be the real ARM laptop SoC's from Apple. The M1 is an A14X with Mac stuff included like thunderbolt, PCIe and virtualisation.

But yeah now the iPad's only advantage are being versatile can be used as a tablet or with a keyboard/trackpad, touch
and Apple Pencil.

Now the Macs have instant-on, no heat, no fans, long battery and the MB Pro can sustain that power for longer loads.

Another thing with iPads is low ram and cooling that's limiting it.

 

[BootLoxes]

That doesn't make sense as Reddit is through a browser so it in itself doesn't take RAM the browser window does. More over 8 GM is more that enough to view Reddit on my old 2013 iMac. I would suggest getting the open source program Stats and see what is actually eating up the RAM.

Its reddit. Other users confirmed it on their macs as well.

 

[leicaman]

512 gb 8gb Space Gray Pro owner here. Everything is so seamless. It's unreal. Granted, I do not run windows or any complicated programs. I am blown away. How can this be a first gen machine? I am now trying to figure out what to do about my other MacBooks because all I want to do is use this one. I am in love. Logic tells me I should return it and get the second gen version of it and I will eventually run into some major problems, but I don't want to take it back lol.

Same for me. Blown away by the speed. The best keyboard I've ever used. The only issue I'm having is because I have the beta version of Big Sur and it's having some kernel panics. I suspect it's an extension I have installed that apparently isn't compatible. (SoftRaid 6). Shut down at night rather than sleep it and no problems. I'm done with betas. Hoping 11.2 final is dropped later this week.

My previous MacBook Pro (15" i9, 32 gigs of RAM) can't hold a candle to it. It was about to run out of AppleCare coverage, and I was worried about the cost of replacing the keyboard (which I didn't like anyway. I can type just fine - I'm a journalist).

Anyway, best computer I've ever used. Looking forward to five years from now when I replace it with something I can't even imagine at this point.

 

[/V\acpower]

Yeah but folks say 8GB performs beautifully well being unified memory. Never seen tests which could make 16GB more better. Cant make up my mind yet..

Yeah, RAM usage is complicated in macOS. It's hard to estimate exactly what you need with the numbers.

For example, in activity monitor you can see "swap memory", which basically mean situations where the system, instead of loading things in RAM, used the SSD instead, which is slower. Normally swap is associated with a system that lack RAM, like a last "resort". So a computer that need to use a considerable amount of swap can mean that your computer would have wanted more RAM in some scenario. Why use SSD is RAM is available and way faster.

However, it appear it's not that simple. I went from a 8GB MBP to a new 16GB M1 MBA, and sometimes when I check Activity Monitor I can see substantial amount of swap used, often in the hundreds of MB range, but sometimes multiple GB over time. Often when I did nothing particularly substantial.

However, it seems that in some scenarios, macOS prefer to use some swap memory instead of RAM. Idk why and when, but I guess that the system knows better than me when that is more efficient.

Same thing with all the other numbers like wired memory, app memory, etc. macOS will optimize it's ressources so that it preload thing in free ram instead of keeping it empty, it's more efficient that way. (Free ram is wasted ram).

Again, in similar situation I would see like 6GB of RAM usage on my 8GB MBP and 12GB of RAM usage on my 16GB MBA.

All that to basically end up with a very simple advice : the only thing that should matter to you in Activity Monitor Memory panel is the memory pressure on the left. Green = okay, Yellow = could use more RAM, Red = REALLY could use more RAM.

Whatever the number you see, only consider the memory pressure. If on your 8GB system it often goes to yellow pressure sometimes, then you could use 16GB, but if it's always in the green, you probably are fine with 8GB. The M1 isn't special in this regard, RAM is still RAM and if 8GB bring you in the yellow pressure territory in an intel 8GB system, chances are it will too on the M1.

 

[moldy lunchbox]

Yeah but folks say 8GB performs beautifully well being unified memory. Never seen tests which could make 16GB more better. Cant make up my mind yet..

You don't get the 16GB for it to run faster today...you buy the 16GB RAM for it to run better than the 8GB in about five years or so, because it inevitably will when we're all running MacOS 15 or 16 with future intensive programs/updates, etc.

 

[choobs]

Super impressed with mine.
I upgraded from a 2012 MacBook Pro (which I was NEVER happy with, not even from day one).
This new machine does everything I need with ease.
Apple are finally onto something revolutionary. Miles ahead of anything else they have offered in the recent past.

 

[anshuvorty]

Yeah, RAM usage is complicated in macOS. It's hard to estimate exactly what you need with the numbers.

For example, in activity monitor you can see "swap memory", which basically mean situations where the system, instead of loading things in RAM, used the SSD instead, which is slower. Normally swap is associated with a system that lack RAM, like a last "resort". So a computer that need to use a considerable amount of swap can mean that your computer would have wanted more RAM in some scenario. Why use SSD is RAM is available and way faster.

However, it appear it's not that simple. I went from a 8GB MBP to a new 16GB M1 MBA, and sometimes when I check Activity Monitor I can see substantial amount of swap used, often in the hundreds of MB range, but sometimes multiple GB over time. Often when I did nothing particularly substantial.

However, it seems that in some scenarios, macOS prefer to use some swap memory instead of RAM. Idk why and when, but I guess that the system knows better than me when that is more efficient.

Same thing with all the other numbers like wired memory, app memory, etc. macOS will optimize it's ressources so that it preload thing in free ram instead of keeping it empty, it's more efficient that way. (Free ram is wasted ram).

Again, in similar situation I would see like 6GB of RAM usage on my 8GB MBP and 12GB of RAM usage on my 16GB MBA.

All that to basically end up with a very simple advice : the only thing that should matter to you in Activity Monitor Memory panel is the memory pressure on the left. Green = okay, Yellow = could use more RAM, Red = REALLY could use more RAM.

Whatever the number you see, only consider the memory pressure. If on your 8GB system it often goes to yellow pressure sometimes, then you could use 16GB, but if it's always in the green, you probably are fine with 8GB. The M1 isn't special in this regard, RAM is still RAM and if 8GB bring you in the yellow pressure territory in an intel 8GB system, chances are it will too on the M1.

Unified memory, as far as I know, and per my experience with my own M1 MBA, might be as fast as RAM, because it is unified and connected directly to the CPU. I think that is why BS on the M1 devices, likes to utilize it so frequently because there isn't as much of a performance penalty.

I think, for these new M1-based devices, we should start to forget the traditional understanding of swap memory...because BS doesn't use it the same ways as BS does with a traditional x86-based device....

Thoughts? Am I completely wrong in this supposition?

 

[Lodewijk_Ramon]

I am absolutely delighted with my M1 MacBook Air (8 & 8 cores, 16 GB memory, 512 GB storage). Everything (except one app, see below) runs smoothly, like clockwork and it's amazingly fast. MS Office runs without any problems (that was actually my main concern).
This is my replacement for a MacBook Pro (2017, core i7, 16GB, 512 GB). It is faster, smoother, lighter and has a far better keyboard.
The only app that doesn't run is WD Discovery (Western Digital app for connecting to Mycloud Home drive). WD tells me they will only come with an update for the M1 Mac's in July 2021 (ridiculously late)

 

[saintmac]

Want to see what Apple does with the new 16in, if they have a AMD GPU mobile Radeon card inside it would be good for gaming. The only thing I have seen running on the M1 a year ago was Tomb Raider running at 1080P low Resolution. I also want to see if Apple does a Mac Mini Pro tower.

It wasn’t the M1 it was only the A12Z.
I’m pretty sure it won’t have an AMD GPU. Even a discrete AS GPU would surprise me.

I think we can expect an M1X with 16 to 32 GPU cores

 

[aknabi]

I have been very M-pressed with my new M1 as well. Very nice machine.

Oh man... a groaner that rings of Phil Don't forget to tip your servers...

 

[ksloth]

Yeah I am pretty happy with 8gb. Its only reddit that maxes out the ram for some reason. Though my first desktop mac will have 16gb or more whenever I get one. Waiting until at least M3 first

I can't WAIT to see what future M(x) chips bring to the table. Paradigm shift.

 

[BootLoxes]

I can't WAIT to see what future M(x) chips bring to the table. Paradigm shift.

Yeah these things are the future for sure

 

[TheGeneralist]

Yeah, I second that.
Considering that the M1 is just the low/med level incarnation of Apple Silicon, I'm now more than curious which dimensions the more powerful derivates will reach. Meanwhile, the M1 has more than enough power to fulfil my computing needs - and although the current version of Big Sur (11.1) still has a significant number of annoying, but not really blocking bugs (especially in connection with external peripherals), it is absolutely astonishing how well everything already works at such an early stage. For example, Rosetta 2 does an awesome job and just lets me forget that my new Mac is not even x86 compatible.

It is a daily pleasure for me to work (and play ) with that system.

 

[Mutepointer]

Answer is no if you live in 2021
Answer is yes if you live in 1970.